by Arneb » Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:22 pm
I am not sure about the internship. AFAIK, that refers to a stint at hospital during the final study year. When I visited Sloan Kettering in NYC for four weeks in the middle of my courses, they called it a clerkship.
Explaining myself? No, not here. It my not breach my confidentiality, but I am wary to tell stories that I cannot substantiate and that someone with an interest might construe as slander.
I was writing a long-winded essay detailling my experiences when I thought better of it. We can take this dialogue elsewhere if you are really interested. Better not make a comfortable target. Let's just say I was throwing hyperbole at a specialty we internists traditionally have our beefs with, and vice versa.
To illustrate this, here are two very long-bearded jokes about the specialties:
An orthopaedic surgeon, a slow internist, a fast internist, and a radiologist are placed at the four corners of a football field. A $ 100 bill is placed in the middle of the field. The four doctors are told to run to the center when a signal is sounded. First to reach the $ 100 bill wins the money.
So who is going to win? Answer: The slow internist. The orthopaedic surgeon doesn't understand what is asked of him, a radiologist doesn't bend down for a mere $ 100, and fast internists don't exist in the first place.
An internist, an orthopaedic surgeon, and a pathologist go duck-hunting. One of them blows the whistle, the flock go up into the sky. The internist takes aim, decides another bird is better placed, re-aims again because he might also hit another bird, re-aims because this bird looks really better than the other... and doesn't shoot in the end because the ducks have already fled.
They wait, and the flock returns. The orthopaedic surgeon fires a single shot from his Kalashnikow. All sorts of birds fly up in panic. The surgeon rapid-fires in all directions, killing scores of birds of all species. "So, pathologist. Go have a look if there's a duck among them".
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem