Dr. Katie

It's finally here!

I'm a doctor!

It's surreal...yesterday I woke up and was just regular old Katie, now I'm Dr. Katie. I don't feel any smarter, that's for sure. Actually, I still feel sort of dumb. Like I need to go get out some of my textbooks (before packing them away for good when we move) and learn something.

Am I really qualified for this?

Yes, I am. Even though I don't feel like

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but a doc that I worked with once taught me this: She said nurse practitioners and PAs come in to her office to work and are confident in what they do, but medical students come in and are so unsure and nervous about making decisions. She then went on to tell me that, as medical students, we learn SO MUCH MORE than these other healthcare providers and have an extensive knowledge base. The difference, then, is that the NP/PA books are less detailed - almost excessively so. Their books simplify everything, but these providers KNOW everything in their book. They got a 100% on their exam. They are ultra confident they know everything there is to know.

Not us medical students. We have huge textbooks filled with every detail and we know that we have no idea what is in most of them. We realize we are limited in our knowledge, so we are hesitant to make firm decisions.

She's not discounting NP/PAs. They do a lot of work and there are plenty of them in her practice! She just wanted us to realize that we understand and know much more than we give ourselves credit for. This made me feel pretty awesome!

Sorry for all the rambling. I'm a doctor now! Hooray! We had a nice party at my mom's house and had a great day. I actually got everyone--and I mean EVERYONE--to come see my new house (we had the realtor open it up). It was fun to see everyone checking out our place - they all seemed to like it a lot. Which is good I suppose, because I like it a lot too!

What am I going to do with all my doctorness now? Well, today I'm making monkey bread to make up for the fact that I missed one of my best friend's bachelorette party last night (sorry Sab!) - I don't think this quite qualifies as hangover food but it's making my house smell amazing. This coming week, I'm making my first trip ever to Ikea and then...getting our puppy! The next week we'll close on our house and then I'll be moving. Lots of big changes coming up and I'm so excited to see what the future holds!