The final leg of the race, which is Year 4, is the fiercest with even the sleepiest of medics using allegorical large bore IVs overloaded with Starbucks. There are visible bruises not from the falling down but from the severe elbowing that occurs as medics scurry towards the finish line. Lockers, portable curtains and IV stands are thrown in the way much like in the movies; stethoscopes are flung to take out an eye or four, knee hammers are tossed unapologetically into the air causing traumatic pneumothoraces on the galore; and as for medical books, well they are not only the treasured saviors of some but the easily available weapons of others. Knocking out competitors cold by shamelessly tossing Bailey and Love’s excruciatingly short practice of Surgery seems to have a 100% success rate; some turn to check if they hit the fox behind or whether they need to reach for the 21^st edition of Davidson’s Principles & Practice of Medicine to finish the job.

Despite the imperiously unattractive bottomline of this childish chaos, there’re a select few medics who, while they front line the finish, extend their hands to help their batch mates along the way. And they feel good doing it; the kind of joy that only the most pathologically altruistic of us sometimes experience but cannot explain.  

At the finish line, few stand tall and happy that they have achieved their dreams but the majority of the well deserving graduates simply sigh in relief that they survived medical school. Some hold fond memories of their “medlife” but most are willing to simply get out there in the world and provide some sort of meaning to all that expensive chair binding glory and pocket ulcers; practice skills, tackle beastly exams, get into a specialty, make new friends, find their significant others and catch up on the social.

As for me, I recently finished the first of 6 exciting rotations in my second clinical year (final year); the fact that I am writing this blog might imply that I am hop-scotching along the way instead of running so fast that my gums have come loose and my hairline has receded by a couple of miles. But I like to sniff the orchids and the blue roses on the way, I’d like a purpose in what I do and I need to keep things interesting lest I wither and die; bogged down like a delicate tissue paper in water. What my thoughts would be at the finish line, I know not, but I do hope not to have any regrets.