The toughest job you’ll ever love

. . .is the peace corps. Shit, I should have done the peace corps.

I was walking down the hallway at the hospital the other day, trying to keep one foot reasonably in line with the other, when it struck me that this was the last night I would ever sleep in Wishard Hospital. Wishard is the stuff of legends. It’s affectionately known as “the Wiz” and the stories you see there are more fantastical than Tim Burton’s imagination. The crazies, the junkies, the sickos all line up, and that’s just the med students. I wish I could explain what Wishard means to students at IU. It’s where we get our teeth, our chest hair, our cahones. (Funny how most of the words that imply toughness or strength tie in to masculinity). Dreams are born and expectations die every day that you’re a student there. You can fight the fight but you know that the Wiz will beat you every time. After all, it’s been there since before any of us, or our teachers, or parents, or even our oldest patients were born, and it will likely be there long after we are dust and ashes. Wishard is an institution, but it’s also a symbol–a representation of all the good and bad in the world. Forgive me if I sound extravagent, but I believe it’s true. Perhaps I say it so strongly because there is so much humanity there. It’s love and lust and heartache and pride and passion and murder and revenge and despair and hope and desperation and guilt and joy all wrapped up into diagnoses and blood pressures and white blood cell counts. And we’re there with front row seats and a box of popcorn. For many of us, it’s the first time we grab a life as it enters this world and also the first time we stand by as it passes into the next. We learns our limits and our limitlessness. We face our weaknesses and our abilities. We do the things we never knew we could–for some it’s facing blood as it spurts from someone’s artery, for others it’s touching the mangled body of car accident, for still others it is holding a patient’s hand while they gasp their last breath. For me it was the vomit–give me blood and guts, feces and urine, salvia and puss any day over vomit. But the vomit came and I stood strong while my stomach turned inside out and I know the next time it comes I’ll retch a little less (hopefully) and in between I’ll search for some answers and cry some tears and hold some hands and let go of some laughs. I hate it and I love it. And tomorrow will be the last time I walk up to a patient and say, “My name is Moxie. I’m the medical student that will be helping to take care of you today.” I’m ready for the next step; I’ve wanted it so badly for so long, but I’d be a bold-face liar if I said there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t want to stay in the safetly of where I’m at. The Wiz may be a tough master, but it’s a gentle mother as well. It’s a rare bird that doesn’t make it to the other side, who doesn’t look back with a wry grin and say, “Ah, the Wiz.” These are the days.