Amateur Lectures

As a resident, I was always forced to go to lectures by one of the candidates interviewing for attending jobs. All the attending candidates gave a lecture and we were always forced to go to prove that the residents aren't as apathetic as we actually were.

Most of the lectures were actually pretty good, I guess because the applicant is trying to put their best face forward. One lecture was an exception.

First of all, the guy was YOUNG. I think he was either currently a fellow or just graduated from fellowship. He mentioned at one point in his lecture that he "hadn't been in practice long" and it was like, Yeah, no kidding. Have you noticed that there's a different style people have when they give lectures based on their level of training:

Attending: This is information I'm TELLING you based on my many years of practice and study.

Resident: This is information I looked up in a few books and articles. Does this sound right to you?

This guy lectured like a resident. I could have given that lecture. He had this inflection in his voice, like he thought someone was going to interrupt him and correct him at any time.

The topic was pretty dry too. Something about coughalators. The only thing keeping me going for the first fifteen minutes was the fact that the guy was fairly cute. But not cute enough for me to sit through an hour of this. He'd have to be, like, Channing Tatum, and I'd have to be, like, 12 years old.

I contemplated paging myself out of the room, but I was worried someone would figure out what I was doing. So instead I pretended like my pager was on vibrate and that it just went off. I jumped slightly and pulled the pager out of my pocket and pressed a few buttons. I then made a big show of holding up the pager and staring at the screen intently as I walked out of the room. I think I was nominated for an Emmy later that year.