My med student hospital ID, issued the first week of medical school. Obviously a little worse for wear by the time this picture was taken.
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Do you want to know what the first two years of medical school looks like? Sit on a hard chair and alternately stare at this picture of the desk in my med school dorm and this hand-drawn diagram of B-cell development and activation for, oh, say, ten hours straight. Now you're getting it!
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Also, when I was in medical school, I was apparently of the opinion that Neuroanatomy Sucks. Such mature times!
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But we had fun too. Here are Joe and I at a "Lust in Space" party during the winter of our third year of medical school. I had to apply the Blue Dot of Anonymity to our happy friend in the middle there. Rest assured that despite his attendance at this party, he now a brilliant gastroenterologist at a prominent academic center, saving lives and stamping out disease.
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Joe with my parents and younger sister during our third year of medical school. That thirteen year old kid you're looking at in the picture is now herself a first-year medical student at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
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During our fourth year of medical school, Joe and I got a dog, who we named "Cooper" after a particularly memorable preceptor we had for a rotation in primary care medicine. Yes, we were Those People who treated their dog like a baby.
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We got married in April of our fourth year of med school...
...and then graduated from medical school about a month after that. I measured my head size wrong at the fitting session and as a result ended up with a graduation cap that was at least two sizes too small. I still get a headache looking at this photo.
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My first long white coat, hanging on the back of my closet the night before my first day of internship. The first and last time my white coat was ever this clean.
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Joe and I took this picture for our Christmas card the second year of residency. The pagers say "NO PAGES," and the caption underneath was "SILENT NIGHT." This may have been the last time we got our acts together enough to mail out Christmas cards.
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The winter of our second year of residency, we found out that we were going to have one of these:
We did:
After he dried out and pinked up a little, he turned into one of these:
Before eventually becoming one of these:
His name is Cal, and despite a lack of correlating photographic evidence, he actually is capable of holding himself upright now.
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Three weeks before Cal was born, I switched medical specialties, transferring from Pediatrics to Anesthesia, thus fulfilling my lifelong destiny of having unlimited access to color-coded stickers and getting to wear pajamas to work every day. Dreams do come true!
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Juggling a newborn baby with starting a brand-new residency was somewhat challenging, and though I wouldn't trade that experience for the world, I do wish I'd had a better lactation room than the shower of the OR locker room provided.
(Yes, that's a toilet mop leaned up against the breast pump. Not pictured: me eating a sandwich while using the pump. Time management is the essence of a successful medical resident, after all.)
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Nights on call during anesthesia residency. Upper left, my wedding rings tied into my scrub pant strings, so I could keep my hands sterile for placing central lines. Upper right, the bright orange "arrest bag" full of all the resuscitation goodies we'd need while we ran around the hospital intubating patients. Lower left, a typical call night dinner, served in an emesis basin. (It tasted just fine, for the record.) Lower right, the most disgusting call room in the world. You get scabies just by looking at it.
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Found in the anesthesia work room on the Labor and Delivery ward. This, I believe, is known as "gallows humor."
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Cal's costume, Halloween 2007. No further commentary required.
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The winter of 2008, we found out that Joe had matched into a coveted fellowship in Oculoplastic Surgery at Emory University Hospital. We were moving to Atlanta!
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My last day of Anesthesia residency, I ended up doing anesthesia for a heart transplant. Of course, it's signs like this, posted on one of the OR bulletin boards, that don't exactly inspire confidence.
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When I graduated from my residency, I was three months pregnant with out second son, Mack, born January 2009. Here he was then:
And here he is now, getting ready to be cast in the "Avatar" sequel:
I could not have hoped for two sweeter kids.
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After four years of medical school, two years of Pediatrics residency, and three years of anesthesia residency, my formal medical education was finished. I am currently an attending anesthesiologist in a private practice in Atlanta. It's the best job in the world.
Now to see what happens next.