I came out to UCSF as an intern, I've been a medical school student at Penn and Philadelphia,

and kind of thought they made a mistake matching me.

It's one of the great programs in the country and I was flabbergasted to get in.

That's Dr. Bob Octer, today he's professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the

University of California, San Francisco.

Back in 1983, he was a newly minted white coat in the very same program.

And I remember feeling that imposter syndrome, feeling that a lot of new interns and probably

new people in any job feel and my first day I showed up and one of the third year residents

was finishing his year and handed me the beeper and said good luck sucker.

Students have changed a lot over the last 40 years, but this first day that Bob subscribing

or medical students graduate and within a few days start treating patients, that's still

happening.

About 28,000 medical students become doctors each summer, most of them starting sometime

between June and July.

You're thrown into the deep end pretty quickly and all of a sudden people are calling you

doctor and expecting you to make decisions.

When patients arrive at the hospital, they expect their doctor to make decisions, the

right decisions.

And as we all know, sometimes on your first day at a new job, you don't always know what

to do.

Now that's not a huge problem in some professions, but in a hospital it can be the difference

between life and death.

...