Meg Cline

May 23, 2009

The Doctor’s Wife

It’s amazing that 4 years of medical school have come to an end. From my perspective, they flew by. However, I did not take even one night of overnight call, study one day for boards, take one lecture on the Krebs cycle, go on one residency interview or tolerate one pimp session from an attending.

What I will say though is that being a medical school wife was easier than I thought it was going to be. To be honest, I imagined the worst. I imagined a husband who would never be home, would be stressed all the time. I underestimated my own independence, my own patience, the wonderful friends (wives) who would be always be around.

As I write this, my husband is CLEANING THE IRON. (The iron, that is dirty because I melted something on it.) Meanwhile, I write blogs. Not exactly how I imagined being a med school wife would be. I never dreamed we’d go on a road trip nearly every other month. Or that Matt would get to spend as much time on the golf course as he would in the wards 4th year. I never thought I’d come home to find my garage organized and shelves hung. I figured free time would be minimal, patience would be short, and I would have to do everything around the house. That as the “doctor’s wife”, I would always come second to my husband’s career.

This statement is nothing short of laughable.

Don’t get me wrong. There have been challenges. Boards studying sucked. Watching my (then boyfriend) stare into a computer screen for 34 days straight? Quizzing him on pharmacology drugs so frequently that even I started to dream about them? Worrying about what his scores might be, how that might affect residency and where would we end up leaving? Sucked. But, it passed. (He passed.)

OB-GYN rotation. Surgery. Medicine. Early mornings wake ups. Visiting him in the call room that looked the worst Quality Inn you’ve ever visited. Driving 1700 miles in one week to do 4 residency interviews. Sucked. But, it passed. He passed. We passed.

When I look back on medical school, I know I won’t remember the dog-eared copies of the STEP-1 book. I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the attendings who pimped him or what that one rotation was where he had to write the absurdly long SOAP notes. I will remember that during med school we made some wonderful friends. That we created vacations resourcefully – visiting friends, bartering personal training for resorts (see: next week’s vacay), staying in vacant apartments of family members. That we had potluck dinners where one couple brought the margaritas and one couple brought the salad and another couple brought the hamburgers. That we remembered to thank each other for going out of the way to help when one was busy or just simply needed a break. (Thank you for ironing the curtains while I blog.) That we got married and bought a house. That we had fun, more days than I can count. That we made it.

Contrary to the Worst Case Scenario I might have imagined medical school wifery to be, it turns out that when we look back on medical school we may remember them as nothing short of a wonderful way to start a life together. If anyone is surprised by this, it is most of all me. I wonder what I was so scared of?

Happy Graduation to you, and happy completion of a chapter to us.

May 18, 2009

Graduation Recap

A Graduation Recap for all of you who weren’t there. You, I guarantee, were much warmer than I.

Joe Biden was the commencement speaker. There was much to-do about the increase in security and we hustled over to campus about an hour & a half before the ceremony was to start, imagining TSA-like security. The line was indeed about 2 football lengths long. However, when we got to the front we realized the slow down was due to the fact that 2 kind ladies were holding open boxes of Krispy Kremes at the entrance.

The purse check at most Wake Forest games were more rigorous than the security. Hold open purse, walk by as they wave wands, hope they did not see my flaskoculars…. and go.

Oh and the weather? Was freezing. I have been to 4 WFU graduations in the last 5 years. All had temperatures in the 90s. Today the bookstore sold out of jackets, sweatshirts, socks, blankets, anything with bundle-like properties was gone. So you can imagine. I had bought a cardigan at Target the day before that was on clearance and kind of was a cross between a cardigan and a pashima. It quickly became known as the “dressy snuggie” (or, the druggie) and despite the questionable fashionable-ness of it, I was SO thankful for it. (Example of the dressy snuggie.) I sat indian style with my stocking-feet underneath my body swaddled in my dressie snuggie, breathing on to my body for warmth. New Yoga Pose: Mother Hen?

The fact that I just devoted an entire paragraph to cold and what I wore should pretty much sum up how I felt about Joe speaking at the ceremony. And also: could not hear.

After the ceremony, at which my Dad declared there was “no such thing as cold weather, just poor dressing” a mere three times (but also gave me his suit coat. Pity WIN!), we relocated to the recital hall for the medical school diplomas. En route, we found the Krispy Kreme krew had overestimated the donut needs of the crowd and was passing out boxes by the dozen.

Jason: “I’ll just take one.”
KK lady: “No, take the box.”

Well. Twist our arms.

The indoor ceremony was nice, climate controlled and all. They also seemed quite aware of the idea that we had all our major AWWWW THEY DUN GONE BECAME DOCTAS moment yesterday and this ceremony was short ‘n’ sweet. No whooping in between names, no long speeches and congratulations, no political agendas in the speech.

Speech, speech, diploma, clapping, standing up…more clapping….they are DOCTORS now! Doctors!

And with that, commencement comes to an end.