Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Calm Before the Storm

So last Wednesday and Thursday we had our third year clinical orientation, wherein we were given a bunch of relatively useless and time-consuming lectures about things we learned last year (lab values, note writing, etc.), remembered how to perform CPR (and got the cards to prove it), and got a tour of the hospital where we begin our first rotation. I start on OB/GYN, and I'll be doing 2 weeks of labor and delivery (first day shift, then night shift), 2 weeks of gynecologic oncology, and 2 weeks of working in a private practice somewhere in town. I start Tuesday morning at 7, have a few hours of orientation to the service, and then get to change into scrubs and get going. Wednesday through Saturday I'll be working 5am-5pm, then next week 5pm-7:30am. I'm not quite sure what to do, but I've been told we're not expected to know much, which is slightly comforting. I am both indescribably excited and completely terrified--after all, this is what I've been waiting for.

But before all that gets started, a brief word to celebrate the idea that became the goal of a baby nation with almost no chance of survival, from a group of rebels who (had things gone differently) could have been hanged for treason.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

ALL. All men are created equal. No matter what we think or believe or how we vote or what struggles we face today, that's really the crux of what became the United States. Not some men, or white men, or rich or straight or English-speaking men. ALL men (and women!) are equal. We don't always get it right, but it's there and it's beautiful if you really sit down and think about it.

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