For those of you new

For those of you new to Signout, I'm a first-year resident (i.e., an intern) in a medical residency program in the United States.

Medical education is different all over the world. In the U.S., we spend four years getting a bachelor's degree (which doesn't need to be science-related); four years getting a medical degree (in which we take a standardized group of courses in medically related sciences and clinical medicine); anywhere from three to seven years training as a resident (all clinical, all the time, and standardized according to the requirements of the field in which the training is); and an optional two to three years in fellowship (specialized clinical training, usually combined with research).

I'm in the second-to-last stage of that training, which for me will focus on the care of sick adults and children for about the next three and a half years.

Perhaps it's because I'm in training, or perhaps it's because I'm incredibly neurotic, but it never seems that what we do in medicine is without some subtext. A guy getting an MRI is rarely just a guy getting an MRI--there's always symptomatology, pathophysiology, or a social or emotional context to explore. My goal here at Signout to share that exploration with people--to explain why an interaction, a test, a grey hair, a cup of coffee, is something.

Thanks for joining me.