Do you remember in grade school when you needed to have your tests signed by your parents and then bring them back to your teacher to prove that your parents saw them.
I sure do.
I very seldom had a test I cared about my parents seeing because it was bad. In fact, I can remember most of my bad grades… Telling time in grade 1 (who needs clocks when you have digital watches), some math test in grade 3 and that is all I recall. I remember not doing as well as I liked in grade 10 and 11 math and there was this one terrible imaging test in Nuc Med, but it isn’t like anyone cared if Mom and Dad saw those.
I am now an adult and not even a Med Student and yet I am kind of reliving that experience. You see, I have done rotation where I have had to get evaluations done after shifts and get them signed. That is one thing. But right now, I literally have a sheet that is for me to get signed saying where I spent time during my radiology rotation.
The radiologists point out that it is like signing their kids’ math tests.
I am an adult. I think I can self-govern where I go. I do it most of the rest of time.
I get that it is partly for evaluation purposes. Then the evaluator can say where I spent time and regurgitate any comments people leave.
Between the wandering asking if I can basically watch people do their job and the getting signatures, I feel like I am back to the job shadowing I did in Med 1 and 2 (and my radiology and pathology electives in Med 4). I am learning, but it is draining trying to find something to do each day and feeling like I am more of a hinderance. Especially after being pretty independent in most other rotations.
Such is life.
Today, I had a conversation that if you can still like radiology after doing this sort of elective, you could probably deal with being a radiologist. I am by no means belittling their jobs. It is hard stuff to do. But, I get it. If I can handle sitting for 8 hours watching someone do it and not want to die every minute, then I might be able to do it too.
I am still glad that I won’t have to do that exact job. But I am glad that I get to deal with lots of imaging.
For now, I get my signatures. And feel very inconsequential to the functioning of my service. In fact, if I wasn’t there, the only person who would notice is the person checking the signatures.
I also get lunch and get to even take breaks sometimes. I leave every day by 5. Kind of like grade school. Except my homework consists of things like research projects and physics.
At least we made it this far... 