July 1st
When the morning of July 1st dawned, something kept bugging me and then it dawned on me when I saw Dr. Sherman’s announcement about the start of the new residency training year.
It hits me every year. Is it a sentimentality over this most difficult challenge I ever accomplished or just a yearning to keep learning? A certain envy of the vast and increased knowledge base that the 2010-14 residency class will learn compared to my PSR-24 of almost 20 years ago now.
Some people laugh about the fact that July is not the time to go into the hospital for elective surgery, while rising second year residents (especially orthopods and trauma and transplant surgeons) grimly expect the onslaught of “murdercycle” victims with their opportunities for training and organs.
The training physicians and residency directors look at the month with relief, expectation and sadness. If we are honest with ourselves, there are always a few students and residents that we have failed to get through to and we pass on to someone else, hoping that they will succeed where we failed.
But there are also those “Golden Children,” our “Academic Children” as then Des Moines University President Richard Ryan once called a group of us. To those we don’t say goodbye but we say, “I’ll call you soon” or “Let me hear from you soon. I want to know how it’s going for you” and as a resident or young podiatrist you know he really means it.
The excitement of a clean slate, a fresh piece of paper with nothing written on it. That is the potential of the new residency class! No one has forgotten to order a critical lab or to schedule a surgery. No one dropped the sterile implant in the OR. It is that perfect day on the calendar. July 1st.
So much potential!
