The Long White Coat

I just got my long white coats with Angela Qualey, M.D. embroidered on them and it fills me with fear and incredible joy. For those of you who don't spend your lives roaming around academic medical centers, the long white coats are for doctors while medical students wear the shorter, far less flattering and uncomfortable ones. Seriously, I hated my short white coat. It looked even worse on men, but I avoided wearing it whenever possible. It didn't help that they gave us one that was to last us for two years. I am cheap and refused to pay to have it cleaned and I am also lazy and so I rarely cleaned it. It became a petri dish that I am sure would provide instant immunity from everything to any newborn who was wrapped in it. I pondered saving it for such an occasion, but decided against it. Now I have four coats that will be dry-cleaned whenever I want on the surgery program's tab and I will get several more coats every year.

Life is good. Well it is for another week until I introduce myself to my first patient as "Dr. Qualey" and write an order in a chart that doesn't need to be cosigned before it is put into action.


One of the best things said at graduation was that "society expects a transformation to have taken place". Somehow on May 10th when they gave me my degree and called me "Dr. Angela Hope Qualey" a magical shift took place and I became competent, professional, and everything else you expect of a doctor. I assure you that there is a ton that I don't know and I'm still working on the professionalism (I did have a patient tell me I was treating him like the Jews treated Jesus). These next few months will be some of the hardest in my life (or at least that's what everyone has told me), but I will learn more in them than ever before. In the meantime I've got a few more days of vacation before orientation begins. Let the good times roll!