Pretty Little Butcher: Memoirs of a Female Thoracic Surgeon

on applying

Now is probably a good time to tell you about the medical system. Basically after high school, we have to get into a medical school and spend seven years there. The first five we spend in the classroom, and for the last two years we work as interns. After graduating, we spend a couple of years as resident doctors in our specialized fields, then we find ourselves a job as an attending.

Interns don't have a specialty yet; we rotate between the four major departments: Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics, and a handful of smaller departments such as Radiology, Pathology, Otolaryngology, etc.

We called ourselves Intern Dogs because that's what it felt like. We were the lowest of the lows, ranking beneath janitors. We scurried around like stray dogs, afraid to get in the way of important medical procedure, and whenever something went wrong we were the first to be pointed a finger at.

"Why did the patient's saturation level drop? Must be the intern! She did a crappy job of squeezing the ambu bag!" Something like that.

Nurses didn't call us by our names because we didn't deserve one. We were all just interns, and we were barked at and ordered to do all the necessary but filthy jobs, such as inserting our index fingers into a patient's rectum to dig out hard, dry feces. This always baffled me, by the way. I was never professionally trained to dig and I don't understand why this act requires professional assistance.

At the end of our two years being treated like dogs with no dignity, the time has come for us to apply, meaning we have to choose a career between all the departments we visited and go on to become residents. Some of us just don't care about working hard anymore and develop a case of Terminal Intern Syndrome, harboring symptoms such as tardiness, sloppiness, a "I don't give a damn" attitude, and so on.

The four major departments I mentioned are also the least popular when it comes to applying. They are reserved for people who have zeal, who are passionate about the art of medicine, who are not afraid of working over-time and being under-paid.

If you value life quality above all else, Psychiatry, Dermatology and Rehabilitation are the ideal choices for you and they are the hardest departments to get in. The younger generation tends to put self before sacrifice, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Thirty years ago you had to graduate at the top of your class to choose the surgery department, but now we joke that anyone with a pulse can walk right in. However, those who wish to excel all flock to one of the top hospitals in the country, and it's still hard to be accepted if you want to work at the top.

I was alternating between applying for Ophthalmology (the eye) and Surgery. My parents were very supportive of me choosing the harder path, because everything they knew about doctors, they learned it from TV.

"You are not a real doctor unless you are a surgeon," they said, convinced that you have to see a lot of blood in order to establish your status. "When have you ever seen a TV series about an eye doctor?"

"I can probably open up an eyeglasses store, as a side business," I told them. "I can import lots of designer frames. You know, Tom Ford, Ray Ban..."

What a great idea to combine medicine and fashion, right?

When it was close to applying season, something happened to change my heart. I was doing my rotations in the Obstetrics & Gynecology department, and one afternoon I witnessed a Cesarean section.

The woman was giving birth to premature twins. Pediatricians were already in the operating room, standing by in one corner. The obstetrician cut open the woman's uterus and produced two purple, curled up babies. All eyes in the operating room were on the little things; nurses, interns, anesthesiologists were all staring.

Twins are fascinating enough as it is.
Purple, premature, baby twins? It's a must see.

At that moment I noticed that the obstetrician handed over the babies and got right back to the woman and her uterus. He did not take one lingering look at the babies as we all marveled over them. It was a crowded room, but he was hunched over the table, religiously taking care of the mother, like he was the only one left in the world who cared about her above everything else.

His determination moved me and I felt tears welling up my eyes. His hunched back was that of a great man. I was never one to cry at movies, and that afternoon I cried because I saw something beautiful. How wonderful is it to work in an operating room, but at the end of the operation you get a baby instead of a hideous tumor? How rewarding is it?

Obstetrics is a lot like surgery, but instead of patients you deal with mothers. It is also a profession that is pretty suitable for women.

The sad thing is, of the four major departments, Obstetrics & Gynecology is the least popular. They are lucky to get applicants at all. We have a very low birth-rate and an extremely high rate of malpractice lawsuits.

Centuries ago pregnancy is not exactly a blessing. Giving birth is like flipping a coin; you get a fifty percent chance of losing both mother and baby. Nowadays we have come very far, but people have become greedier. You can pretty much get sued if you pressed on the mother's abdomen too hard, even if you are just trying to help her push.

When I talked to the chief resident of the Obstetrics & Gynecology Department, she practically begged me to sign a contract right away.

"You don't need to take an exam or anything. We accept you right away. We can guarantee you a spot if you decide now," she urged.

"Ok," I agreed, ignoring the queasy sense of feeling at the pit of my stomach. A part of me still dreamt of being a surgeon as the ambulance pulled in the parking lot, and I would be calm and collected as I issued out orders and announced that the patient needed to be prepped right away and taken into the operating room. But I was easily persuaded, and I gave her my pledge.

A few days later, miraculously the Obstetrics & Gynecology Department received more applicants. Now they needed to choose five of us out of eight.

"Maybe you can try applying for the Surgery Department as well," the chief resident told me, now sounding remarkably less friendly than a few days ago.

"But I have already decided. I'm not going to apply there anymore."

"You can still try. See if you can get in," she taunted. Now it sounded like a rejection as well as a challenge.

I don't take to challenges well. I can be very competitive if I want to, even though on the outside I come off as friendly and mild-natured.

On the last day of the deadline, I sent in my application form for the Surgery Department. A lot of people showed up for the written test and the subsequent interview, five or six people from my school included, and I was the only one who made it.

On the other hand, not all of the 8 applicants for the Obstetrics Department remained loyal, and after some of them got a better deal at other hospitals and left, the chief resident once again got off her high horse and asked me to sign with them.

What would you choose, if you pass by two restaurants, and one of them is completely empty with the store owner standing outside tugging on your sleeve, asking you to come in, and the other one have a line of 70-80 people but you somehow made it onto their list of VIP?

I thought so too. That week I signed with the Surgery Department.

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Should I contine with this? Is this boring?

I'm writing this for myself and I have decided not to promote this, but it would help a lot if someone is actually interested. :)