  After a leisurely weekend of "catching up" with friends, a social life, sleep and personal maintenance (like getting my toes done with Lauren - tame those snarls with a square-cut and Big Apple Red polish), today put all of that laid-back-goodness to an end as we were baptized with fire during our "intro to Peds Wards. " While Luray was lazy, Fairfax has frenzy-potential. The call schedule in Luray was harmless, what with every 6 nights and sleeping at home next to my pager, which went off all of twice in a month; enter Fairfax, call q4, in-house, with a reputation of no sleep. "But here are some $5 meal coupons! We've got Blimpie's! " To which I turned to Pete Williams with an expression that read "Blimpie's?
What's Blimpie's? " Ahh, the sheltered Canadian rears her ugly head again... Heck, yes - Fairfax is stepping it up a notch in intensity, and damned if I'm not ready. The day began innocently enough; we had a brief orientation at UVA - with Dr.Wilson, whom I absolutely adore, and then we were forced to suffer through some painful video on "The Pediatric Interview. " It was a horrendously low-budget production with testimonials from Pediatricians about their hopes, fears and dreams when they began Peds as a medical student. I can just see the script: Cut to: Small,cute Asian resident making 'scared-face' talking about her first admission... Resident All I could think was - 'this kid needs a doctor! Oh, right! I'm the doctor! ' I'm not sure who was more terrified - me or the septic-2 year-old!!! These films generally as a rule give me the willies; the goose-bump factor increases exponentially when they are adorned with lame graphics and horrible background muzak on the synthesizer. After making it through the video, we were unleashed to our respective destinations and I made my way up 29 to Fairfax, excited as ever to see my bro and of course, adorable and ever-faithful Geordie.
I got home with plenty of time to spare, unloaded my stuff and Matty and I decided we'd hit up The Sunflower quick-snap for lunch before I had to meet up with Sara, Pete and Scott for orientation-part-deux-chez-Fairfax. So Matty and I drove over in two separate cars, all the while I'm running my order over in my head: Edamame and Lam Curry Tofu...no, maybe General Tso's Surprise...yes, definitely General Tso's...only to arrive at the restaurant and realise I had forgotten my bag (filled with absolutely everything I needed) at home.
Heck, YES. So lunch instead was tuna-fish on the go but I made it to the hospital in plenty of time to meet my equally-as-compulsive fellow med students at the shuttle we were to ride over to the hospital, all of us almost 40 minutes early. So far, so good, save for a small slip-up. The last part of sanity that I remember was right around the time we were getting our ID badges and photos taken around 2:00 - there were still jokes flying, nervous laughter, a confident smile here and there - and then, WHAM! "Boys and girls, welcome to world's most confusing hospital. Let's take you on a tour - my name's David, and I'm the Chief Resident...but don't worry, the other Chief is named David too. And then there's a gazillion other people who are likewise far more senior and important than you - and a good number of them are named David as well - shouldn't that make life easy!
Not to mention the women residents - who by definition don't like you if you are: a) Cute b) Little c) Wearing anything Cute or Little (like my fitted-pink BR blouse, awesome) Here are your teams: Team I is Heme/Onc and GI...and nope, sorry Allie, not you this time even though those are two of your top five in terms of things you could picture yourself doing in life. We are going to give those spots to Sara and Scott. Instead, you are Team II - with Pete, two intense interns, and the non-intimidating fields of Cardiology and Pulmonology. Remember all 26 of those congenital heart defects you got to learn in that mammoth hand-out last fall? Time to brush up your repertoire. What's more, we're going to assign you 3 patients to round on and present tomorrow morning at 7. How long do you think it'll take you to do a physical exam? 1 hour? Let's make it two patients then.
What do you know about CF? You said you were from Toronto - let's hear about that gene sequencing then, I believe it took place in Toronto..." I don't even remember how the rest of the day went...somewhere in the midst of it all, however, I popped my Blimpie's-cherry. As the day drew to a close, I managed to stop on my way home to get my eyebrows waxed, if only to feel remotely human again. And I arrived home to my little bro who had won the doubles of the Montclair Open, was runner-up in singles, and wanted to celebrate and order some wings. Now my belly is full - my brain and anxiety are appeased as I've researched the CF paper from The Hospital of Sick Children in Toronto, brushed up on Cyanotic and Acyanotic heart defects, and I'm feeling quite ready to take on the world. As overwhelming as it all was, I am somehow left feeling totally excited. Bring it on, Davids. 
