My preceptor turned to the patient and calmly explained that we'll be right back, but then Howard will come in and take a look at you. Outside the room, he asks if he's making me nervous.
I tell him I'm terrified.
Two minutes later, I find myself walking confidently into the patient's room. I remember to knock and wash my hands, make idle chit-chat, about the weather, her kids. The lungs probably makes sense to do first-- deep breaths for me, please say ninety-nine, a as in apple. I look down her throat and into her ears, quick and professional as if it's routine and I'm almost bored. Thanks, ma'am, I'll be right back with the doctor.
It's so easy to hide behind that white coat. With the coat, I wear my confidence as brightly as the patch on my sleeve.
This week, I find out that I've been reassigned to a pediatrics clinic. On my way there, I realize I had all my equipment but I left the critical coat behind. During the commute, I couldn't stop thinking about the coat. I felt, oddly, naked that I should be walking into the clinic without one.
"We never wear the white coat," one of the doctors explained to me. "It freaks out the kids, and then they just start crying. We want the kids to look at us and think of us as their moms. There's coats in the back that we take out to wear when we take pictures."
"So we can actually look professional," the other pediatrician said, laughing.
They say it was a slow day, but I was exhausted after two hours and five or six patients. There was something joyous about the place, and somehow I managed to lose my poise with the newborn. "I've never seen a newborn before," I stammered, "and she's beautiful." There were many excited new parents, where the conversation was suddenly between a doctor and another caregiver, rather than between a doctor and a patient. There were sad cases as well, a baby with a heart defect and a murmur that I couldn't even hear; the infant's heart beat was so fast. There was the kid who was born with crossed arteries, whose first experiences with the world included multiple surgeries. Yet underlying each case was a spirit of joy, an odd celebration of life, and the promise of hope.
We were handed these coats with tremendous ceremony, amidst speeches and photographs. I remember wearing the coat for the first time and looking into a mirror, and trying to find a doctor in my reflection. Surprised, I tugged at the sleeves, but the coat didn't seem to fit.
At the children's clinic, without a coat I look into a mirror, and finally see myself.
