By Brent Schnipke
If the average reader is asked to imagine a typical medical student, he or she might picture the following scene: a group of frazzled young people in short white coats, scurrying around the wards of a large academic medical center. They travel in hordes, flocking to the nearest attending, who calmly asks them asinine questions and then chides them for their lack of knowledge. This scene is stereotypical of an often-stereotyped field, and might be something one would see in a caricature of the hospital – on a show such as Grey’s Anatomy or Scrubs. Although this is only one example of what medical education can look like, it is helpful for giving a simplified look at the life of a third-year medical student in the throes of clinical rotations.