Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Intern vs. resident vs. attending

I know, they all wear long white coats.  It's hard to determine who is who.  But I laugh when people say, "You're married to a doctor," as though this is some glorious designation.  Let me be a little more precise--I am married to an intern.  Basically, the intern is one step up from medical student (now, the medical students are easy to spot--they wear the short white coats and have a look of bewilderment on their faces).  The intern is the bottom of the barrel on the "team"--which is made up of interns, residents, fellows and attendings.   The intern is the bitch.  The one who works all the holidays.  Does all the scut work.   Makes approximately $10/hr.  
While some of the working conditions improve slightly throughout the course of residency (in my husband's program, this means working closer to 80 hours a week instead of 100), the pay gets only a smidge better--about $1,000 a year.   Here's the confusing part--an intern is a resident.   But a resident is not necessarily an intern.  (Wasn't there some sort of similar square-rhombus-parallelogram issue in geometry class?)

So, I'd like to clarify.  I'm married to an intern/resident.  Which is why it is 9 pm, and he's still at the hospital!  





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