There’s no room at med school for my particular brand of vulgarity

Well, it is officially week two of med school, and I’m getting a bit worried that I’m not going to make any friends. I know I can be abrasive but I didn’t think it made me THAT difficult to like… I’ll be the first to admit that my sense of humour is a bit of an acquired taste, and it doesn’t always succeed in actually being humourous, but even so, I’ve never had many problems making friends, despite my awkwardness.

It’s not that I don’t understand social norms and expected behaviour (although with the looks I’ve been getting recently, I kind of feel that IS the case), it’s just that at some point it seems I’ve unconsciously dispensed with all the norms that I don’t agree with, or find unnecessary, so they no longer inhibit my interactions with people. Unfortunately, I’ve not been granted a terrible awful lot of common sense (I’m the ONLY person who’s allowed to say that about me), so I only realise when I’ve said/done something really ridiculous AFTER it’s happened.

To be sure, I’m not being any more ridiculous than I normally am – it’s just that I’m now in a peer group that isn’t so tolerant of it. And I can’t seem to change my behaviour, so I’m feeling a little ostracised. Even the guys I’m friendly with are kind of condescending, which leads me to believe they’re just putting up with me because they don’t want to tell me out-right that they don’t want me about.

To give you an idea of the kind of peer group I’m referring to, I’ll just say that the majority of the students on my course play the violin or some kind of string instrument (but not the viola – apparently, the viola is the laughing stock of the string family. I know this because a group of people I was sitting with were telling VIOLA JOKES). A lot of the Scottish students are in the National Youth Orchestra and things. I’m not saying that if you play the violin it automatically makes you posh, I’m just saying that an interest in the sciences and associated medical subjects doesn’t often correlate with ‘musical genius.’ The violin is an instrument that’s encouraged in the nicer, possibly private, schools. So I’m assuming a lot of the kids here are from middle-to-upper-middle class backgrounds, not necessarily in terms of income (I’m not one to judge someone on something like that), but in terms of attitude. Coupled with that awful medic-superiority complex, and it makes for a fairly arrogant individual.

For example, I was speaking to a guy on the bus to the hospital on Friday. Somehow we got onto the topic of first aid, during which I confessed that I hadn’t had any first aid training. He was inappropriately shocked.

“What, you mean you’ve NEVER done ANY first aid?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“Really?! You’ve never?!”

“Yes. Really.”

“Well how did you even know you wanted to do this, then, if you don’t know any clinical skills?”

“You don’t have to know how to do chest compressions to know you want to be a medic. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to do something.”

“Well you must have had REALLY good work experience then.” (He said this in a tone that implied he’s surprised I got into the course at all)

“Um, I went to a couple of GPs.”

“Only GPs?! I spent a week with a surgical team! What did you write as your extra-curricular activities then?”

“Oh, um, just some stuff I did at school, that I’m not doing anymore, since I’m not at school…”

Awkward pause.

(In actual fact, the very few hobbies/interests I DID list were promptly abandoned as soon as the university applications were sent off. The thing about applying to med school is you tend to exaggerate to a ridiculous extent, but just short of where it technically becomes ‘dishonest.’ The only thing I did see through to the end of my sixth year was helping a dyslexic S1 pupil with his reading.)

Me: So what were your extra-curricular things then?

“Oh, do you want the WHOLE list?”

For fucks’ sake. “Just. Abbreviate it.”

Turns out he won the dux award in his school however many years running, is profficient in first aid AND lifeguard training, he won the Duke of Edinburgh award (whatever the fuck that is) and skiis. Among other things. All in all, the conversation left me feeling a little inadequate.

I remembered a little later on that I DID have experience in a clinical skill – when I was watching minor surgeries at the GPs over Christmas, the doctor let me apply local anaesthetic to a wart someone was having removed. I got to load the syringe, and he guided my hand until the needle was in the guy’s arm, and let me inject it. I’m not entirely sure the doctor should have let me do that, but nonetheless, I was fair chuffed with myself. However, when I told this to the guy on the bus, he didn’t believe that I had done it. Such is life.