Last First Day of School Ever
Yesterday was my last first day of school ever. I have had a first day of school almost every August since I was in kindergarten which includes thirteen first days of school for grade school, four for undergrad, one for my masters, and this will be my fourth in medical school. That makes twenty-two first days of school in total.
The path to becoming a doctor is undoubtedly academically arduous but one of the things that I have loved about this journey is the opportunity for so many firsts. Getting good at experiencing things for the first time as an adult has been such a rewarding process that seems unique to the field of medicine where I continuously feel like a beginner.
For example, today I attempted a suturing technique that I have never tried before and absolutely floundered. Last month, I started learning a new coding language for my research project and started without even knowing how to open a file in the program.
One thing that my medical education has taught me is that getting good at being a beginner is one of the most valuable skills one can possess. If we can get comfortable being in the uncomfortable, awkward beginnings of learning a skill, we will unlock the ability to learn many more things in our short lives. Here are a few things I have learned from twenty-two first days of school that I think could benefit other medical students and anyone trying something for the first time.
Have Fun Making Mistakes
One of the best practices I have embraced as a third and fourth-year medical student is laughing at my mistakes. In a world of hyper-perfectionism and the pressure of constant comparison and achievement, being able to laugh and smile in the of face mistakes is radical.
Of course, in medicine, mistakes can cause serious harm to patients but those aren’t the mistakes I’m referring to here. I’m talking about the mistake of forgetting to present your findings to your supervising physician in the correct order or holding your forceps the wrong way in front of a surgeon. The mistakes that don’t actually affect patient care but we are warned may result in humiliation, or worse, an unsatisfactory evaluation.
Once, when a preceptor attempted to humiliate me for my patient interviewing skills, a giggle, an irl *facepalm*, and an exclamation of “How could I have forgotten that?” or “What a silly mistake” did wonders for lightening the mood and helping to keep my head up. After all, we all have to start somewhere and the only way to grow is to expose our weak points so that we can improve them. Sometimes, these weak points are pretty funny so we might as well laugh as much as we can along the way.
Get Your Money’s Worth
The next tip goes hand-in-hand with the previous one but is something I started in dance instead of medicine. For many people, myself included, getting called out with a correction in a dance class can be an experience intimidating enough to stop us from taking classes in the first place. I felt that way whole-heartedly when I first started taking salsa classes. Somewhere along the journey, I started saying “Glad I got my money’s worth” every time I got called out in class and it completely changed my perspective on receiving corrections.
Instead of thinking about it as a humiliating moment to be avoided, I thought of those corrections as the reason I was going to class in the first place. After all, I wasn’t paying for classes to be told I was the world’s most incredible salsa dancer when I very clearly was not. I was in class to get better which was only going to happen if someone told me what to improve. The unfortunate part for most of us is that the more public the correction, the higher its value. It’s pretty hard to forget the time I was affectionately told that my guess of inguinal artery was wrong because there is no inguinal artery… in front of the entire operating room staff.
The best we can do in these unsavory moments of being a beginner is to remind ourselves that whether it is tuition or the money we pay for dance classes, the dollar only gets its value once we have gotten feedback on how to improve. That is why people will always pay more for a class that is interactive and programs that certify you by testing your knowledge will always cost more. Feedback is gold so next time you’re feeling embarrassed about getting a correction, remember that you get what you pay for and it’s certainly making you better.
Every First Day is a Landmark
The last and arguably the best part of my last first day is the opportunity to look back, count up, and report to you that I have had twenty-one first days before this and I survived every single one.
In medicine and in life, we often forget that accomplishing incredible things and having outstanding experiences becomes our everyday. We forget that last month, at the beginning of our pediatrics rotation we didn’t know how to examine a newborn and now we do it with ease. We forget that we used to find it hard to talk to patients being treated in psychiatry and now we go on rounds and talk with every patient like an old friend. Every time we learn something, we forget the experience of not knowing how to do it and in turn, find it hard to see how far we have come.
I hope that the next time you have a first day, you remind yourself that you’re only having this first day because of the years of days that got you to today. Maybe that moment can be like the moment when you reach the top of a trail and get to marvel at the elevation gain, all the switchbacks, and the length of the trail you had to walk to arrive where you are now. Whether that is at the summit or at one of many vistas to come, I hope you remember that if you can do all that to make it to this first day, you can make it to many more.
I’m so proud of you.
