Times are changing.

It is happening all over the hospital. Fresh eyed young students arrive in their perfectly pressed short coats. They have just spent the summer studying for Step I of the boards, and can hardly conceal their excitement to touch real patients for the first time. Bewildered slightly older young interns wearing equally unstained long white coats, with pockets stuffed with crib notes. How to run a code, what dose of sleeping pill to give, normal lab values. Their arrival is like a breeze of fresh air.

Not too long from now the med students will look like hell- suffering their first post call days. When every cell in the body is SCREAMING to lie down and close the eyes, and it seems impossible that such torture will become a new way of life. The interns will no longer look frightened. With long lists of patients, hours of notes to write and endless check boxes to fill they will become engrossed in their daily tasks. They will awaken sometime in next Spring- and realize 10 months have passed.

On the flip side are the dinosaurs. Like me. Ten years ago I first set foot into the hospital. A decade of training. When I look around I remember the hospitals I entered and eventually conquered. Incomprehensible the number of patients I have laid my hands on. And then those who died, whose families I counseled. From the confidence of thinking you know everything, to the painful realization you do not, then pretending confidence (not to worry the patients), gradually evolving to the place where you really do know a lot and can do a lot- competently.

Yes times are a changin'. It is a new beginning.