As a med student, you meet a lot of new people.
For every rotation, you are obliged to meet at least a hundred new people. There's the attendings, the fellows, the residents, the interns, and the patients. I always found it disconcerting, because it meant I kept running into people who looked very familiar and saying hi, but in actuality having no idea where I knew them from.
For example, on my way to the library one day, I ran into this guy who I was certain I knew, especially after he gave me a big hi. I was searching my brain... he definitely wasn't an intern or a resident... was he some kind of PT? A nurse? Then it hit me: he was the renal fellow, Joe. I felt relieved for remembering.
Then again, as I was leaving, I saw this girl who I was certain I knew. She didn't say hi to me, but she looked so familiar, I was certain she was someone I had met. What's more, I got this distinct feeling that I hadn't liked her when I knew her.
Then it hit me: she was my roommate from one year previously. Damn, what a thing to forgot.
And it was true, I didn't like her.
I've never commented before, but this is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves in medicine. You work with someone (an attending, resident, whoever) for WEEKS. And then you pass them in the hall and give a big HI and they look at you like who the heck is that. Especially bad now that I'm an intern (at a program at my medical school) and I bump into people IN MY PROGRAM who ask if I matched into another specialty. WTF. Sorry for the rant. Maybe I have an uncanny ability to remember people and just should let it go, but it kind of hurts when people don't remember you at all. Was I really that unmemorable? Ugh.
ReplyDeleteYou don't really want to be memorable. I'm extremely memorable. Nobody ever doesn't remember me. That means I can't really screw up and I ALWAYS have to watch what I'm saying or doing.
Delete