What’s in a title?

Hello again! After a long delay (and one or two failed attempts at writing a blog entry) I’m back behind the wheel. Frankly, it’s probably my dread at the thought of studying heart murmurs that motivated me to write, but never look a gift horse in the mouth. I had hoped to write a little bit about my anatomy labs, but apparently according to our professionalism representatives, it would be in poor taste to bring up the incredible gift people have given my classmates and me through donating their body to the school. So of course, I will not express my gratitude to these individuals in the slightest. Nope. Not one bit.

Anyways, as a newly-minted med student I’ve announced with pride – perhaps a smidgen too much – to inquiring minds that I am in medical school. To which it seems that everyone replies: “Oh, so you’re in nursing?” or “So what are you going to be when you finish?”

I don’t know about you, but I found this kind of odd. In my mind, medical school was something that future MD’s did. Is that narrow-minded or elitist? I don’t think so. In any case, I started to instead tell people I was studying to be a doctor. This, curiously, also met with some odd questions. “Oh, like a doctor of philosophy?” or “A doctor in what?”

Finally, I’ve started telling people I’m going to be an MD. Alas, this didn’t seem to help either. I know what you’re thinking. First-world problems. It just strikes me as very odd that no matter what I say I have to explain in some detail that I am in medical school to become a doctor of medicine. As in a medical doctor. I’m at a real loss here.

Are other future health professionals saying that they’re in medical school? I guess that’s not unreasonable. How about PhD students – do they say they’re going to be doctors? That seems a little more odd to me. I would probably say I’m getting my doctorate in X.

Does anyone have another way to explain what I do? I’ve considered saying I’m studying to be a physician, but that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. I can’t say I’m going to be a surgeon or a family doctor or a radiologist, because I don’t know what I’m going to be yet. So, in the interim, I’ve come up with a few possibilities. Maybe these will be more explanatory.

– I’m going to be a quarter of a million dollars in debt.

– I’m studying to be a pill pusher.

– I’m in school to be the insufferable bore at parties that only ever talks about work.

– I’m learning to be more than a little crazy.

What do you think?