Full circle; two years and counting

Just over two years ago I moved to Cleveland and started residency.  The first day of the medical year is July 1st.  One of the most stressful days of my life was three days later, on July 4th, when I was pulled from an elective (ie, low key, not putting in orders or really specifically taking care of anyone) to cover on 10B, which is the step-down unit (ie, not sick enough for the ICU, not well enough for the general medicine floor).  The combination of pretty sick patients and not knowing how to get anything done or even what needed to get done was... *memorable* is probably the best way to put it.  Later that night, hours after getting off work, I was still so keyed I could barely try to enjoy some fireworks.  The next day was monday, and I actually had that day off for 4th of July observance, so I went to the beach.   I looked it up online, and people were all saying that the beach near Mentor, OH was one of the best Cleveland area beaches, so that's where I went, about 45 minutes east along the lake.  The water was warm, but there were no shells. 

Fast forward to now.  At this point I am about a month into my 3rd year of residency, which makes me a senior, in charge of interns, who are very freshly graduated from medical school.  The irony is, I started out as senior on 10B, the very same step-down unit which was so incredibly stressful two years ago.  All day on the 4th I kept mentally comparing myself between past and present.  While its nice to be able to see so clearly how far you've come, it was definitely surreal.

More recently I've been studying for Step 3 of the board exam, which is an incredibly painful thing; 8 hours in front of a computer for two days in a row, trying to think hard the whole time while hoping your head doesn't explode, and just to make it better, you have to pay $750 to take it as well.  So you don't want to have to take it twice.  There is this thing called "barriers to entry" in the economic world, where exclusive groups throw up roadblocks to keep themselves exclusive; I think the medical community would recognize the concept as "I will never accept you as a colleague unless you are tortured the same way I was."

I just took this exam yesterday and the day before; thankfully I can report that my head did not explode.  However, the testing center I went to happened to be in Mentor, so after I finished, I went to the beach.