lost

for nearly three years i've been studying in the up-pgh complex. i've been doing wardwork for almost a year. i've been given numerous maps and tours around pgh. so why do i still get lost?

maybe it's the lousy architecture. maybe it's the identical corridors. all i know is that the moment i set foot on pgh, patients gravitate toward me for directions. (they have this notion that every person wearing a white uniform or colorful scrubs knows the location of every ward, department, comfort room and office.) as a responsible future doctor, i practice a very important value: honesty. i give a sheepish smile and tell them to ask someone else.

in fact, it's much easier to admit to the patient that i don't know where ward so-and-so is. what sucks is when i, myself, don't know where i'm going and have to ask for directions. the common response is a wry smile, a glance at my nameplate, then the directions i need.

it's funny how i'm able to stuff chapters and chapters of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and histology into my head and not remember where the sports science department of pgh is. it's funny how i've been to lots of ward and have forgotten how i got there from the main gate. it's funny how i'm a medical student and don't know my way around my training hospital.

oh, and after three years, i realized only a few days ago that all odd-numbered wards are on the first floor and even-numbered ones except are on the second. when i triumphantly mentioned this to my classmate, she told me ward 14 is on the first floor. i just nodded.

i have no idea where ward 14 is.


verse for the day:
"what do you think? if a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? and if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. in the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." [matthew 18:12-14]

time check: 6:00 PM