I had my first patient last night. It was an actual patient whom I cared for, not someone on the floor that I was supposed to interview for the sake of an oral presentation; not someone I coerced for a physical examination during their lunch; not someone who acts well and gets paid by the medical school to pretend they don’t want to give up smoking. This was an actual patient.

Bee sting, I thought. Huge, raised purulent blister on the right leg with well-defined margins, probably a centimeter off the skin. Roughly 1×3 centimeters in size. Not sure how I came to the conclusion of bee sting, but it struck me as being some sort of bug bite, or a highly localized cutaneous infection from some other break in the skin, but it was both painful and itchy from what I could gather from the patient’s behavior. I consulted with the nurse—bee sting, she, too, thought. I located a syringe to drain the puss and asked for some bacitracin. I was taking care of the patient and making unilateral treatment decisions, and it felt so, so good after having had so much doubt.

Oh yeah, the patient was a dog(?), and it was a dream. Crap. I’ll let you know when I’m taking care of humans in real, actual life.