THE DRUNK TANK
Stephen Love
B
efore I started medical school, all of six
months ago as I write this, I worked
in the emergency department at University Hospital for a few months. I was one
of those millennials who took a clichéd “gap
year” to travel and “find myself ” before beginning the rest of my life. I started the job in the
ED at the tail end of my year off to make sure
that I still wanted to go to medical school, I
still wanted to become a doctor. I figured that if I immersed myself
in a clinical environment and didn’t want to run away, I would be
able to give myself one final affirmation that I was making the right
decision before leaping into the Asculepian black hole that has since
consumed my life.
I saw everything on my imagined spectrum during the short time
working there, from assault rifle wounds to the common cold. The
major trauma came at an unexpectedly high frequency as the weather
warmed up, but the commotion of “Room 9” was often an enlivening
change of pace from the banality that can be H^