The long white coat

I was running around University Hospital today and bumped into a friend in the elevator. I knew him back when he was a lowly medical student with his short white coat, a fourth year. But today in the elevator, my friend who used to be a fourth year medical student was sporting a long white coat and looking very doctor-like. "I'm just an intern," he dodged. "It's a very steep learning curve."

It felt gratifying to see evidence of the progression: that medical students do actually graduate, get an M.D. after their name, and become an intern. That implies that interns do actually become residents and that residents in fact end their formal training to become full-fledged doctors (after a fellowship, maybe, but that's beside the point).

Such periodic reminders of progress is good for keeping up the morale.