Short White Coat: The envelope, please

Short White Coat is a blog written by second-year Harvard medical student Ishani Ganguli. Ishani's posts appear here, as part of White Coat Notes. E-mail Ishani at shortwhitecoat@gmail.com.

The results of the lottery for third-year hospital assignments were distributed on Friday morning, in thin envelopes reminiscent of medical school rejection letters. During a break between lectures, I made my way to my in-school mailbox, my stomach queasy at the imminence of this knowledge. I was happy to find that my piece of cream-colored letterhead said Brigham and Women’s Hospital -- my home away from home starting in May. The Brigham was my first choice, because it seemed to have a nice balance between classroom and hands-on learning. (72% of us received our first choice out of four, the rest our second, according to the letter.)

We clustered near the mailboxes, accosting latecomers with the inevitable question and doling out congratulations and consolatory hugs as if merit had played any role in the decisions.
Our assignments also dictate the 40-odd classmates we’ll be learning alongside, or at least passing in the hallways, in our year-long initiation into clinical medicine. By that night, Facebook groups had been formed, housing situations tentatively re-aligned, and plans for Brigham/Beth Israel mixers put forward.

One of the goals of the longitudinal approach is to give students a sense of solidarity and belonging within the vast Harvard medical system. In our pre-clinical years, HMS societies served that critical function. As we prepare to take on bewildering new challenges in third year, it’s good to have both the teams and the settings in place.