Series
Becoming a Doctor
Khalsa College to the last day of residency. 79 essays · 40 published.
III
Khalsa College and the Sciences, 1994–1996
8 essays · 8 published- 027Khalsa College, 1995A biology student, a year still being lived, and the map that is drawn only afterward.
- 028An Institution Built in an Earlier RevolutionKhalsa College, the print revolution that built it, and the network revolution after.
- 029The Physiology TextbookHarvey’s arithmetic, Guyton’s arrows, and the moment the body becomes an explanation.
- 030Memorizing the Krebs CycleA circle learned as a list, the arrow that won a Nobel Prize, and what the names were for.
- 031The Mind as the First DatabaseWhat a trained memory is for, what it cannot carry, and when it has to be checked.
- 032The Pre-Med Year Everyone ForgetsA prefix that names a stage for what has not yet happened, and the flat part of the curve.
- 033Studying the Night Before an ExaminationPanic, borrowed confidence, stolen sleep, and the vow made somewhere around three a.m.
- 034Friends Who Became Doctors, and Friends Who Did NotA pre-medical class, the roads that parted, and why no single credential ranks the lives.
IV
Medical School — Sri Guru Ram Das Institute, 1997–2002
22 essays · 19 published- 035My First Day of Medical SchoolAn ambition ends at the gate; what begins is a register, a timetable and a promise.
- 036The Anatomy Books I Carried EverywhereThe flat page, the three-dimensional body, and the knowledge that outlasts the syllabus.
- 037The First CadaverOn learning from the dead: recognition, provenance, custom, and what gratitude owes.
- 038Learning to Use a StethoscopeWhat an instrument teaches about attention, and why the attention has to be checked.
- 039The First Patient I ExaminedFrom the body that cannot refuse to the person who can: permission, role and the lent hand.
- 040The First Time Someone Called Me DoctorOn a title that arrives before the degree, and the request folded inside it.
- 041Medical School FriendshipsThe people who share the years of becoming, and what gratitude can honestly name.
- 042The Hostel YearsCommunal student life, the independence it promises, and the labour it depends on.
- 043Tea Between ClassesThe unlabelled minutes of a medical timetable, and the ordinary friendships made in them.
- 044The Professors We Never ForgetWhat remains of a teacher in a former student’s head, and what gratitude does not oblige.
- 045Rounds in a Teaching Hospital in AmritsarWhat a ward round teaches, who is in the room, and what the patient hears.
- 046When Medicine Was Mostly MemoryQuestions that died in the room, the slow search, and what a trained memory guarded.
- 047The Handwritten Medical ChartHands, order and signatures: what a reader learned from ink, and what ink could not prove.
- 048The Smell of an Old Hospital ChartWhat old paper’s smell is made of, what it lends a record, and what it cannot vouch for.
- 049What Paper Charts Did BetterFive functions of the paper record worth keeping, each stated as a requirement and a test.
- 050What Paper Charts Did TerriblyFour ways the folder failed, and what happened to each when the paper went.
- 051The Honest GapBlanks, defaults and filled-in columns, and what makes a gap in the record honest.
- 052The Consultant’s Note on Page FortyA recommendation that exists in the record, and the four things it still needs.
- 053The Fax Machine as Medical DeviceA machine that copied marks, not meaning, and why arrival was never the end of a message.
- 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 · 6 published- 057Leaving IndiaAn old verb, a qissa that opens with leaving, a concrete aeroplane, a departure still open.
- 058The Examinations Between Two SystemsPreparing to practice in a country you have not yet seen.
- 059The Visa WindowA life made brief and legible, and two people on either side of the glass.
- 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 SuitcaseBaggage arithmetic, a philosopher’s pity, late wheels, and what refuses to be packed.
- 070Landing in America as a Young DoctorExcitement and disorientation at once.
- 071Learning a Country and a Hospital at the Same TimeTwo curricula, one year: dates, floors, forms and the uneven shape of competence.
- 072The Accent in the RoomAccentedness, ease and understanding differ, and the listener shares the work.
- 073The First American WinterSmall shocks that stay with immigrants.
- 074Punjabi in ArkansasFinding, or not finding, your own community far from home.
- 075The Phone Call HomeTwo clocks, the falling price of a minute, and what a call home can and cannot carry.
VI
Little Rock — Intern Year, 2007–2008
16 essays · 5 published- 076Little Rock, 2007A river city, a first postgraduate year, and the ground changing underfoot.
- 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 address of a fact, and the second skill every new doctor has to learn.
- 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 CallTwo fears that sound alike, and the telephone call an intern keeps rehearsing.
- 083Three in the MorningWhy hospitals are different places at night.
- 084The Call RoomSleep that was never really sleep.
- 085The HandoffFrom the succession at Kartarpur and Khadur to the morning sign-out and the discharge.
- 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 · 2 published- 092Leaving Arkansas for CaliforniaAnother hospital, another beginning.
- 093Fresno, 2008Beginning again in the Central Valley, and learning a place by its year.
- 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 a threshold that does not end the learning.
- 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.