Congratulations to all the new medical interns starting at hospitals across Victoria this week.  This is an exciting and terrifying week.

Medical school (and human nature) doesn’t manage expectations well.  After five years of medical school, working hard, learning anatomy, physiology and pathology, cardiology and gynaecology, and all the other ‘ologies, we expect to know what we’re talking about.  It suits us to think that much study makes us an expert.

Unfortunately, medical school teaches how much there is to be scared of.  It robs young doctors of common sense, as they know all the possible consequences of an action, with none of the gut feel that helps you deal with that.

This week, we are working with a bunch of very smart young adults, who are overwhelmed by possibility.  They are more susceptible to bullying than any 24 year old has any right to be.  And most have little experience in the ridiculous hospital red tape that it is now their job to wrangle.

This week, I am quiet-counting may way through ward rounds and referrals.  A patient surgical registrar, rarely seen in the wild.