An Intergenerational Reflection on the First Night on Call—plus ?a change, plus c'est la même chose? (The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same?)

摘要

On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 30, 1969, I picked up my ‘‘whites’’ and presented myself to Osler 3, one of the internal medicine house staff services at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. My internship formally began later that day (12 midnight, July 1). That afternoon I read through some of the ‘‘off-service notes’’ written by the interns who were themselves about to become ‘‘JARs (junior assistant resident).’’ As I recall, one of them may even have served as a source of continuity for the Osler 3 service team, which included 2 JARs, 3 interns, and 3 students. By tradition our attending physician would go on rounds with the team 3 times a week, hearing about our patients as we ‘‘flipped the cards’’ in the doctor’s office or did walking rounds. I stored my black bag (a gift from Eli Lilly) and the Barnes Manual (the Washington University handbook of inpatient medicine) on the shelf above the desk in Osler 3 (next to several vials of Ritalin someone had left behind), introduced myself to Amy (the Osler 3 charge nurse), and went home to my row house apartment 1 block behind Hopkins Hospital in the neighborhood where my new wife and I would live for the next several years while I completed training.