1. You no longer bat an eyelash at telling random strangers to take their clothes off. 2. You’ve also seen your classmates in various states of undress. 3. You learn to recognize the smell of burnt human flesh during surgery. 4. You will have diagnosed yourself with at least 4 different life-threatening conditions and 2 psychiatric ones by the end of second year. 5. Nobody respects you in the hospital – not the doctors, not the nurses. The only respect you might get is from pre-meds who don’t know any better. If you’re lucky. 6. It will take you 10 minutes to do what your resident can do in 2 min. 8 of those minutes will be you sweating over which vein to cannulate. 7. You will compliment at least one patient on their veins. 8. Your choice of dinner conversation will be constantly described as “gross” by non-med friends. 9. Holding the retractor for two hours during a surgery is considered a privilege. 10. You will spend a lot of time fantasizing about quitting med. 11. …Then you remember how much loans you have to pay back. 12. It is really just like high school. But with more studying and less weed. 13. The happiest time of your life was the time between receiving your acceptance letter and the first day of med school. 14. You learn about acronyms like VOMIT (victim of medical imaging technology) and SOCMOB (standing on corner minding own business). The latter is usually a description used by patients presenting to Emergency with knife or gun-shot wounds. The culprit is almost always “some guy”. 15. The senior doctors that supervise you have probably forgotten more than you have learned in all four years of med school. 16. (Girls) You will strongly reconsider your stance against having a caesarean section after you witness your first fourth-degree perineal tear. 17. You spend 60% of the time on rotations waiting for people or things to happen. 18. There is no student that enjoys both surgery and psychiatry. Anyone that insists otherwise is a lying liar who lies. 19. You still remain hopeful that things will eventually get better. 20. You learn that people will stick anything and everything up their butt holes, including small pets, doorknobs, electrical equipment and hair accessories. Source
