A year older and a year unwiser?

I would have been a doctor by now if I hadn't been forced to spend nearly a year out from medical school. Now that I'm back to my old life, what has changed? The most obvious and relevant aspect is in my head. It's not so much factual knowledge lost that worries me, but rather it's my unfit brain taking much more time in reasoning medical problems.

I am sometimes hesitant to ask doctors questions, fearing that they sound too basic and I will sound stupid. And it doesn't help to see my colleagues holding heated discussions about this and that disease, showing off their finely tuned mind and matured knowledge gained through experience and time spent learning and thinking.

Another nagging aspect is the delay of entry into the labour market. Not that I am particularly looking forward to starting paying my taxes or arguing with the hospital administration about the work contract, but I'm looking forward to leaving the family nest for good and living on my own. The feeling is exacerbated every time I meet up with my non-medical friends, who have graduated and are working.

And speaking of friends, I did end up discovering who my real friends in medicine were. Once they realised that, unlike them, I hadn't moved on, some stopped talking to me or pretended they didn't see me when we crossed each other in the hospital hallways. And …