Series
Becoming a Doctor
Khalsa College to the last day of residency. 79 essays · 1 published.
III
Khalsa College and the Sciences, 1994–1996
8 essays- 027Khalsa College, 1995A young student studying biology without knowing where the road led.
- 028An Institution Built in an Earlier RevolutionKhalsa College, 1892, and the symmetry I did not notice at the time.
- 029The Physiology TextbookThe first time the body became an explanation rather than a list.
- 030Memorizing the Krebs CycleWhat rote learning gave me that I only later appreciated.
- 031The Mind as the First DatabaseWhen the physician’s head held the whole system.
- 032The Pre-Med Year Everyone ForgetsThe quiet year between ambition and admission.
- 033Studying the Night Before an ExaminationPanic, confidence, exhaustion, and promises never to repeat it.
- 034Friends Who Became Doctors, and Friends Who Did NotClassmates, and the places where roads diverge.
IV
Medical School — Sri Guru Ram Das Institute, 1997–2002
22 essays- 035My First Day of Medical SchoolWalking into SGRD and realizing medicine was no longer an ambition.
- 036The Anatomy Books I Carried EverywhereWhat we memorized and why some of it never leaves.
- 037The First CadaverAnatomy, mortality, and the strange beginning of medical education.
- 038Learning to Use a StethoscopeWhen an ordinary instrument felt almost magical.
- 039The First Patient I ExaminedThe difference between knowing medicine and touching another person.
- 040The First Time Someone Called Me DoctorWhy the title feels larger than the person carrying it.
- 041Medical School FriendshipsThe people who share the years when everyone is becoming someone.
- 042The Hostel YearsLate nights, examinations, food, friendships, and the peculiar life of a medical student.
- 043Tea Between ClassesSmall routines survive longest in memory.
- 044The Professors We Never ForgetVoices that remain in your head years later.
- 045Rounds in a Teaching Hospital in AmritsarLearning by watching where the senior physician looked.
- 046When Medicine Was Mostly MemoryPracticing before every answer was searchable.
- 047The Handwritten Medical ChartBad handwriting, thick folders, a different way of knowing a patient.
- 048The Smell of an Old Hospital ChartPaper, ink, and the physical history of an illness.
- 049What Paper Charts Did BetterNot nostalgia, just lessons worth keeping.
- 050What Paper Charts Did TerriblyLost pages, missing results, medicine before retrieval.
- 051The Honest GapWhy a visible hole in the record is safer than a hidden one.
- 052The Consultant’s Note on Page FortyThe recommendation nobody found.
- 053The Fax Machine as Medical DeviceHow information actually moved in 2002.
- 054MBBS, 2002Finishing, and not yet knowing what a physician is.
- 055A Short History of Writing Things DownFrom Hippocrates’ case notes to Mayo’s single dossier and Weed’s problem list.
- 056The First Medical AI Nobody Dared to UseMYCIN, 1970s, and the three questions we are still asking.
V
Leaving — Between Two Countries: the Embassy, the USMLE and the ECFMG
19 essays- 057Leaving IndiaWhat it feels like to leave a familiar world for training elsewhere.
- 058The Examinations Between Two SystemsPreparing to practice in a country you have not yet seen.
- 059The Visa WindowA US Embassy interview, a folder of certificates, and a few minutes that decide a career.
- 060Step 1, Far From HomePreparing for an American licensing examination on the other side of the world.
- 061The Standardized PatientClinical skills examinations and learning the American way of asking.
- 062The ECFMG CertificateThe document that turns a foreign graduate into a candidate for residency.
- 063Credentials Across ContinentsVerifying a medical education, one notarized copy at a time.
- 064Borrowed White CoatsObserverships, letters of recommendation, and the doors they open.
- 065Match DayApplications, interview season, and the Friday in March when the email arrives.
- 066The J-1 QuestionVisas, waivers, and the rural clinics that depend on them.
- 067One Doctor in FourInternational medical graduates and the American doctor’s office.
- 068The Doctors Who Came BeforeThe generations of Indian physicians who made the same crossing earlier.
- 069The SuitcaseWhat you pack when you do not know how long you are going.
- 070Landing in America as a Young DoctorExcitement and disorientation at once.
- 071Learning a Country and a Hospital at the Same TimeTwo curricula, one year.
- 072The Accent in the RoomBeing understood, and learning to listen differently.
- 073The First American WinterSmall shocks that stay with immigrants.
- 074Punjabi in ArkansasFinding, or not finding, your own community far from home.
- 075The Phone Call HomeTime zones, telephone cards, and the worry that travels in both directions.
VI
Little Rock — Intern Year, 2007–2008
16 essays · 1 published- 076Little Rock, 2007An intern year in corridors, call rooms, and long nights.
- 077UAMS Before EpicElectronic medicine before the electronic record became ordinary.
- 078The PatchworkLabs in one system, films in another, paper in between.
- 079Where Does This Fact Live?The second skill every intern learned.
- 080The First Time Medicine Became Electronic to MeRealizing computers would permanently change the work.
- 081The Pager and the WorkstationTwo devices that owned an intern.
- 082The Intern Who Was Afraid to Make the Wrong CallResponsibility before confidence.
- 083Three in the MorningWhy hospitals are different places at night.
- 084The Call RoomSleep that was never really sleep.
- 085The HandoffThe 7 a.m. handoff and the old question of Khadur Sahib.
- 086The Patient You Keep Thinking About After You Go HomeOne of medicine’s quiet burdens.
- 087When a Patient Suddenly Gets WorseThe moments that turn trainees into physicians.
- 088The First Death I Had to Face as a DoctorWhat school cannot prepare you for.
- 089Calling a Family With Bad NewsConversations that never become routine.
- 090The Longest Walk in the HospitalToward a family, knowing what you must say.
- 091The Nurse Who Told Me to Sit DownThe bedside wisdom that saves young doctors.
VII
Fresno — Residency, 2008–2010
14 essays- 092Leaving Arkansas for CaliforniaAnother hospital, another beginning.
- 093Fresno, 2008Arriving in the Central Valley and slowly making it home.
- 094Residency at UCSF FresnoExhausting years that now seem strangely short.
- 095Community Regional Through a Resident’s EyesLearning in one of the busiest places imaginable.
- 096Where Systems Matter MostPatients with the least margin for systems to fail.
- 097Ten Languages, One WardSpanish, Punjabi, Hmong, and the interpreter who was always somewhere else.
- 098The Farmworker Who Came in LateIllness, wages, and the arithmetic of a missed shift.
- 099What Residency Does to TimeWeeks that lasted forever, years that vanished.
- 100The Consultant You Were Nervous to CallA nearly universal residency memory.
- 101The Patients Who Taught Me More Than TextbooksLessons nobody formally teaches.
- 102The First Time I Felt Like a Real PhysicianNot graduation; something smaller.
- 103The Last Day of ResidencyFreedom, responsibility, and less certainty than expected.
- 104The Valley’s AirHeat, dust, tule fog, and the lungs of a region.
- 105Finding Punjab in the Central ValleyGurdwaras, farms, and a diaspora older than I knew.