#assessments
"I've seen medicine that breathes life into stone" - Shakespeare
A wet-eyed med-student was roaming the hall earlier. She’d lost
her mind around the half-hour mark of an oral assessment - whether from the questioning or the expression on the examiner’s face - it happens. It’s designed to happen. We must handle pressure.
On break, she’s was an absolute squirmfest of emotion - trying to
look part of the linoleum and not meet anyone’s gaze. She’ll be ok,
until the next professor, having a bad day, picks her apart for sport.
But tears dry fast under fluorescent lighting. I gave her a smile that tried to say ‘Come on, it was just a bad moment.’
She’ll probably go home and watch an episode of ‘the Pit’ to remind
herself why she signed up for this masochism and maybe she’ll post about it with hashtags like #KillMeNow and #INailedThatRespiratoryQuestion.
By Monday the feels will have passed like bad weather and she’ll paste on a smile. Future doctors aren’t quitters. Later, she’ll laugh about it with the kind of laugh that means it’s not funny yet, and this weekend she might weaponize her trauma at some rude guy in a bar
- it happens.
.
.
A song for this:
This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan
Hurricane Waters by Citizen Cope
Apr 18
Apr 18, 2026 at 1:09 AM UTC