horizontal mattresses

“So. What’s your deal?”

It took me half a second to realize the question was directed to me. I looked up from my hands resting on the sterile blue table. The question came from my attending. He was tall, young, confident and avoided eye contact like the plague.

First day on my plastic surgery rotation and I was thrown into the OR to scrub in on a fat graft. I was dressed head to toe in a teal surgical gown topped off with an orange face mask and my fake tortoise framed glasses my ophthalmologist uncle got me to protect my eyes.

My mind raced…What should I say? Should I lie and say I want plastics? Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to say? Also what the heck, who introduces themselves with 'what’s your deal?'

I spoke up and responded with the most confident voice I could muster, “My name is Maryam. I’m a third year. I'm thinking peds. Probably not surgery.”

“Ok.” He replied. And few second later, he handed me the liposuction cannula and I got to suck some fat out of a fat lady. It was pretty awesome.

I can honestly say I had no idea what I was signing up for when I decided to pursue medicine. I probably thought I knew. And I probably tried to know. But nope, lol, I had no clue. If anyone tries to tell you they knew, shout BS cuz they be lying! Or delusional.

There's no way I knew to learn/memorize as I study because I might not have another chance to go back and review.
There's no way I would've guessed most of third year would be navigating through a social extreme obstacle-course between med students, residents, and attendings.
There's no way I could've imagined that I wouldn't end up liking any of my clinical rotations. Including peds. Yikes.
And there's no way I knew that half the time, most doctors are on computers typing away writing notes and orders, not actually... you know... doctoring.

I'm almost done with my third year. And I'm questioning it all.
Looking back at that first day on plastics, I thought I knew what I wanted. And I thought I knew what to expect during third year. It's been seven months and four rotations later... and I don't know if I want peds. I might want surgery? Maybe IM then to infectious disease. Maybe family medicine? Maybe ophtho.

The point is that I don't know what my deal is.