50% Doctor

Three weeks ago we crossed the invisible demarcation line, the halfway point in the middle year of the course. We are now, chronologically at least, 50% doctors. I had assumed that by this point I would know more about western medicine than a three year old who has just spent half an hour on Wikipedia, but no, I am still generally clueless. If you put a patient under my care right this second, they would expire quicker than a frog in a blender. This is because a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. There are more than a few scenarios in general medicine in which doing the obvious thing is in fact lethal. For example, a patient in type II respiratory failure requires the need for oxygen to stimulate breathing, so if you do the cuddly paramedic thing and shove a mask on them as they gasp for air, they'll conveniently stop inhaling. Likewise, you can easily give someone too much fluid after they lose a lot of liquid, dilute their blood and make their brain swell up and die. Lovely. Even slightly overfeeding a starving patient could do them in. Basically, it's a total minefield.
This is why I wish I was one of the smart ones. One of the psychologically balanced, popular kids who sits back and lets everyone else guess the answer before lazily chipping in with "primary sclerosing cholangitis?" like they hadn't known it the whole time. The kind of student who the junior doctors are too proud to ask questions to even though they know they're secretly outwitted; the type of student who will be promoted straight from final year medic to consultant whilst simultaneously starting a charity for disabled babies and letting down three or four offers of marriage gently.
Unfortunately, although my quickly deteriorating brain power has gotten me this far, I am now safely lodged in the middle of the pack, doomed to another three years of chasing the tails of those better informed than myself. Slowly, I'm coming to terms with meeting the ceiling of my academic ability- I won't be winning that Nobel Prize that I always thought would be quite a nice icebreaker at cocktail parties. It's unlikely that I'll ever have my life portrayed in film or book, unless I do a Shipman, or actually get Shipmanned myself. In honesty, I don't mind it, I actually quite enjoy the challenge of passing the year, but I wouldn't half like knowing the odd answer now and then just to keep my spirits up. It seems like yesterday I was throwing a fit about missing my A Level grades by one shitty mark (they let me in anyway after the Irish all failed too), and now I'm halfway to actually becoming the barrier between life and going home in a box. And I still can't really explain what flu is, and I haven't really "done" the spleen yet either. I take solace in small things. Today at home when the phone rang (never for me, I have a mobile) I answered with "operating theatre three?". The poor girl on the other end final mumbled "sorry, wrong number" and hung up. Ah, I may not know anything about medicine, but at least I have the mentality of a overworked doctor.