Arjuna's recollections – Part III (or) an endocrine version of the “Motorcycle Diaries”

The ultimate dream of every young student stepping into the hallowed portals of a medical college is to achieve the holy grail of medical education, a DM seat. However, the real battle begins only after the DM seat is won. The residency is a veritable roller coaster ride all through the three years, with the student alternating between exhilaration and despondency, wisdom and foolishness, hope and despair and ecstasy and agony. The long working hours, logistic difficulties, interpersonal conflicts and resource limitations are the anvils on which the callow postgraduates are beaten into shape, to bring to fore, their inner steel. While the DM residency does succeed in shaping the students into capable and empathic healthcare professionals of the highest order, on quite a few occasions, it leaves behind a host of bittersweet memories, that prompt the student to look back often, not with fondness, but with a sense of regret and heartache. Encompassing all these experiences, is an unvarnished first-hand account of my peregrinations as an endocrine resident at Osmania Medical College.