My Future Intern (Part 1)

My Future Intern knows heart sounds. I taught her overnight as we both lay there, two insomniacs, in a state of pure, brilliant ecstasy. We converse now through an outwardly protruding umbilicus. She tells me of all the wonderful things she learned and I advise her on their meaning. Her thirst for medical knowledge astounds me. If only she had room to read her own books, once again, I’m reminded of her limited real estate. She informs me of things she has planed and I laugh. How she will have to catch up on her own blog, because internet access in not currently available in her area. But there will be time for that and she will have her chance to outdo her father.

Thus far, we’ve covered heart sounds, lung sounds and even body parts. Soon, we’ll get to the really difficult topics like how to give bad news and all the other stuff they never teach you.

Every so often when I can’t fall asleep I will touch this growing mass of life and wonder whom leys within. Our future is in that tummy. It will be our responsibility that this Intern should know how to tap veins, place IV’s and do all the procedures a good intern should know.

In my imagination this future Intern is practicing breast exams, reading Harrison’s and learning Anatomy. She is taking the opportunity to experience life from within, life via placenta, a special opportunity that only special Future Interns like her will remember. This experience may bias her towards a future in gynecology and obstetrics and I will have to caution her against this. She will have to listen and she will have to learn just like a good student does. She will be my Intern and I can be her Resident.

In her seventh month of training now and she is steadily improving. She can do physicals, take histories, do neurological exams and form her own second opinion. In her womb she is Attending, better yet, she is the Chief of Medicine. My future Intern is training there, in her womb, and her papa is training in this crazy world she will soon call home.