"Call the pharmacy and put in the order"

"Call the pharmacy and put in the order". Said like it was just another day, another doctor. Someone who'd been there forever. But it wasn't just another doctor. It was ME... Not only am I not a doctor (merely a quarter of one), but it was my first order, handed down from an attending, during a crisis situation.

So what do all good doctors-in-training do? Follow the order. Ask for help when you need it. And realize the impact of what you've learned when you finally have time to breathe, days later.

"Dopamine, such-and-such loading dose with such-and-such mcg/kg/hr?" I yelled across the unit to the attending at the baby's bedside. He nodded and smiled.

And even though someone else checked it and signed off on it, I put in my first order. Of course if I wouldn't have been standing there, anyone else could have done it... and probably more confidently. I was honored to have had the chance, for one moment, to participate in trauma care.

It was one single moment in everyone else in the room's life... and a moment that will never be forgotten in mine. It was perhaps the first moment that medicine leapt off the textbook page and into the incubator. I wasn't doing something because it was exactly what we'd done for every kid all day, but because it was what SHE needed at that particular moment.

I'll never quit asking questions, and I'll probably never quit questioning myself - at least a little. But with every day and every learning experience, my confidence is growing. My faith is stronger than it's ever been - God is closer than I've ever felt him. As long as I stay this close, I can hear His directions, those of the ultimate Attending. And He will never lead me astray.