The night before my first shift of fellowship, I diagnosed myself with appendicitis. Again. Unfortunately, this was not my first bout with appendicitis. Early in intern year, I snuck away on-shift to ultrasound the gnawing right lower quadrant pain that I couldn’t quite ignore, only to find an enlarged circular target on the screen, proof of the diagnosis that I wanted to wish away. Through a combination of optimism, fear of surgery, and a firm desire to not call out sick and inconvenience a colleague (the aphorism “you can either be rounding or rounded on” came to mind), I chose antibiotic management, which carried me through residency with a more-or-less steady hand.
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