Senior consultant, head and neck surgical oncology, Aster Medcity, Kochi. He is also director, Aster Head & Neck Oncology Network (Kerala cluster)
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.
Finding a vein is not just technical, it is human. Thin veins. Deep veins. Anxious patients. Crying children. The art of reassurance. The patience of second attempts. The humility to ask for help. The responsibility of making someone feel safe while you are still learning yourself.
To many, these were routine. To me, they were fascinating. Each vein felt like a small challenge. Each successful cannulation, a quiet victory. Despite the exhausting hours, I genuinely enjoyed internship.
We were also lucky. Our batch had stayed together since MBBS, grouped by something as arbitrary as alphabetical roll numbers. Anatomy cadaver tables had turned into ward teams. Familiar faces became anchors in unfamiliar territory. We were not just classmates anymore. We were comrades.
But while the hospital was teaching me medicine, life was teaching me fragility. My niece was seriously ill. Phone calls came between ward rounds—about investigations, admissions, costs, uncertainty. My father had health issues. During internship, he passed away.
There was no dramatic pause in hospital schedules for personal grief. You finished your duties. You wrote your notes. You went back to the wards. Between inserting cannulas and clerking patients, I was learning what it meant to carry sorrow quietly.
At the same time, another uncertainty hovered over me: my future. Many of my colleagues were clear. “I want to be a physician,” said one. “I want to be a surgeon,” said another. Some had already chosen cardiology. Some orthopaedics. Some neurosurgery. They spoke about careers with confidence. I couldn’t.
I loved medicine—the logic, the detective work, the way diagnosis emerged from careful listening and observation. I loved surgery—the action, the decisiveness, the privilege of physically correcting what was wrong. I wanted to be both. But medicine doesn’t allow that luxury.
People had opinions. About degrees. About entrances. About which paths were “useful”. I was told more than once that an MBBS alone meant little, that specialisation was everything. I listened, nodded, and went back to work. I didn’t have the emotional space to absorb advice. I was too busy becoming.
One day, a fellow intern needed blood investigations—recently married, likely pregnancy-related. She also needed an IV cannula. Her veins were faint and fragile, and despite being a doctor herself, she was quietly afraid of how much it might hurt.
Naturally, everyone suggested anaesthesia residents. Some suggested senior nurses experienced in cannulation. That was the standard route. She listened quietly and said, simply, “No.” Then, in front of everyone, she said, “Shawn will do it.”
I was taken aback. I wasn’t an expert. I was still learning. And here she was, choosing me over seasoned anaesthesia residents. It was a small moment. But it mattered.
I examined her veins. Not easy. My first attempt failed. I punctured the vein. I paused. Adjusted. Tried again. The second time, the cannula slid in smoothly. She didn’t flinch. Later, laughing with friends, she said, “It was hard to see. But it was the right decision. Even Shawn punctured.”
Everyone laughed. So did I. But inside, something shifted. She probably forgot that moment soon after. I didn’t. Because at a time when my father was gone, my future uncertain, and my confidence fragile, someone had trusted my hands.
Medicine will give you critics. Life will give you competition. People will question you, compare you, test you. That seems inevitable. But once in a while, someone does the opposite. They lift you. Often without realising it.
That day, she gave me more than procedural practice. She gave me belief. And I learned something important: we grow not just through mentors. Sometimes, we grow through peers. Through shared exhaustion. Through quiet faith. Through colleagues who say your name when easier options exist.
I learned early that courage doesn’t arrive suddenly in operating theatres. It begins quietly, sometimes with a cannula in a crowded ward.