Tachy Med Student: What's In a Third Year's Pockets

Today when I took my white coat off to go into the operating room, my Attending physician (the boss) picked it up and said, "Oh my gosh. What is in this?"

Later he told me, "I conducted a randomized survey. Everyone agrees. There's something very wrong with your coat, it's far too heavy."

As I spend more of my life doing interesting things, learning new skills and making more internal observations about the crazies around me, I'm starting a new category of post: Tachy Med Student.

In this, the first installment, lets take a look at my pockets, and what might cause my Attending to survey everyone around me about its weight.

It doesn't really look like that much. 

Left to right:

Top row: Stethoscope, Badge, Pager, Skill Log Books 

Middle row: Phone, Folding Clipboard, Pharmacopia, Notebook, Maxwell's Reference

Bottom row: Keys, Chapsticks, Pens, Penlight, Tide To Go, Surgical Recall, Map of med center

There's a few other papers inside the clipboard, and I forgot to take out the $20 bill, 3 ibuprofen and 2 pieces of gum that I was also carrying around. 

As far as I know, this is a pretty standard collection of items. It is, however, accurate to say that it's quite heavy.

Call it combining my cardio with weight training. 

The way my Attending put it, "On this service, you get free Jenny Craig."

Then again, there seems to be food around every corner, so I don't really know how that's going to work out.

You know what else is on every corner? One of these:

[source]

Confession time: I managed to spill coffee on my white coat today, and really that's the reason I took everything out of the pockets ... to wash it. 

And finally, I present you with the ugliest, most comfortable shoes in the world: Danskos.

Anyone in a profession requiring lots of standing has probably heard of these, and I resisted getting some because really? I mean really. 

Just to be clear, the clog is not back no matter how many brilliant healthcare professionals rock these, but I will wear them and the awesome arch support every single day if it means I get to the end of the day and my back and feet don't hurt so much like they do in other shoes. I ordered them last week and wore them for the first time today, and yes, they were awesome. Usually the top is made of leather, but they do have a vegan line. Unfortunately they don't have any plain vegan ones, because apparently we're a bunch of crazy hippies who wouldn't possibly just want our feet to look professional. 

These are reasonably neutral, though my Attending did tell me my feet look like a zebra. 

2 days down.