Escape from medical school: Labor Day weekend wedding

I spent Labor Day weekend celebrating a close friend’s wedding. Wait, isn’t a third-year medical student not supposed to have a life outside of medical school? The stars aligned to make this happen.

First, I arranged to have a clerkship that was known to give whole weekends off. Since clerkships are assigned based on a lottery system, I got lucky that this actually happened. Second, I arranged to do outpatient neurology during the first two weeks of the clerkship, leading up to this weekend, and inpatient during the latter two weeks. Anything inpatient tends to have longer hours, which had the potential to mess up Friday evening travel plans. Again, I was fortunate that the block director deferred to us students to decide who would do outpatient first. The way things worked out, I didn't even have to ask to get out early on Friday afternoon.

Even with all of this planning and scheming, months ahead of time, I wasn't 100% sure that I would be able to go to the wedding until I looked at the schedule during orientation on the first day.

I already missed another close friend's wedding and my Nana's 80th birthday party, which were both during my Hospitalized Adult Care clerkship. I was just slightly bitter about missing them. Such are the sacrifices we're asked to make for the privilege of training to become a doctor.