The first vein

Courage begins quietly, sometimes with a cannula in a crowded ward

- Dr Shawn T. Joseph

Internship humbles you. No matter how many textbooks you have memorised, the first weeks of house surgency make one truth painfully clear: you know very little. Suddenly, you are the junior-most person in the hospital hierarchy. Even the nurses, especially the nurses, often know more than you in practical matters. They move through procedures with an ease you are still trying to learn step by step. Postgraduates juggle admissions, emergencies, ward rounds and surgeries with a calm efficiency that feels unreachable.

Professors, once only lecturers, now appear as clinicians of another order altogether. In medical college, they were teachers. In internship, they become doctors. That distinction matters. They don’t just teach medicine anymore. They deliver it.

The postgraduates become our immediate heroes. We assist them, learn from them, try to make ourselves useful. They carry crushing workloads, and they quickly learn who they can depend on. Favourites emerge, not out of sentiment, but necessity.

For interns, the realisation comes in layers. First, how little you know. Then, the unsettling question: will I ever reach there?

You look around and see brilliance, reputation, confidence. Some people seem destined to become stars. Some quietly do their work. Some never quite find their footing. And somewhere in that landscape, you begin to wonder where you will land.

I decided early not to chase outcomes. I focused instead on the patient in front of me. Drawing blood. Inserting cannulas. Writing investigations. Giving medicines. Small tasks. But each carried its own complexity.