panic and confusion

Last couple days have been a med student’s dream. Tuesday morning we had 6 patients and then there was only 1 person scheduled for the afternoon and it was the last visit of the day so my doctor, being the awesome person she is, asked me at lunch “so, how do you feel about taking the rest of the day off. i mean, this is your elective and your new to portland so i think you should go do something fun.” Naturally, my first reaction was to think ‘is this a trick?’
 i responded with “well, i dont want to look like a slacker... are you sure?” She was sure.

 i left at 12:30 and spent the afternoon hiking. I also had Wednesday off per her usual schedule so really the last couple days have been pretty great.

 When i got home, i spoke with a non-medical student friend [who is friends with a lot of med students] about this situation and his response was “it seems like every time one of you is asked to go home, your worried about going even though the doctor is practically pushing you out the door.” this is very true. So, just to clarify, if you ask any third year medical student what their reaction is when asked if they want to go home early the answer is always going to be no until you directly hear “yes its fine,go home” several times. You may think this question would cause a wave of excitment but really, it just provokes panic and confusion.You always have to balance how this newfound freedom will affect the rest of your rotation and of course, your evaluation. 9 times out of 10 the doctor really is just being nice and wants you to go home and relax because they know that med school sucks, but for some reason our thoughts are always geared toward several thoughts: 1) how is this going to make me look 2)how is this going to screw me over 3) will i look better than other students if i DONT go home. sad but true, we are a predictable bunch and we are scared shitless of admitting to a preceptor that we would rather be at home watching netflix than doing scutwork at the hospital/clinic. The cool part about this is that there are a few rotations that when asked if you want to go home, you actually don’t. and this my friends, is how we decide what kind of medicine to go into.