Last night I attended a farewell party for a colleague of mine now headed south to a new job in New Orleans. I couldn't help but recall the very beginning of my own career as a bright-eyed doc ready to take on the world.
Little did any of us know what awaited that first year on the pediatric wards with no defenses against even common viruses that kids harbor. By the second year our force shields were almost impervious.
Intern's Lament
How many sneezes in the face
does it take to take down
a pediatrician in training?
How many doorknobs harbor
dastardly pink-eye, waiting to pounce
like a villain from an action cartoon?
How many tummy upsets
turn the tables on newly minted docs
causing them to bolt from the room?
How long 'til the mucous man
rooms with a resident,
unpacks a sack of sniffles and snot?
How many hours turn into a staycation
on the couch, fighting a fever,
sleeping through precious time off?
How many kid diseases rule
before antibodies activate superpowers,
and this rite of passage passes?
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
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