Med School Essay: A Play In Two Acts

Act I (Last Week)

E-mail From Course Director:  Hi!  You all need to write an essay on your clinical preceptor’s medical practice.  It’s due on Monday – email it to your preceptor!

Entire Class:  Damnit.

My Clinical Preceptor:  Why are you guys asking me all these questions?

Classmates: … because we have to write a paper about it.

My Clinical Preceptor:  Sounds boring.

Entire Class:  *complains about paper*

Me:  … Seriously, am I the only slacker who’s realized that, for some reason, none of our preceptors are even aware of this assignment?  Ten-to-one odds mine won’t even bother opening the attachment.

Me:  *writes entire paper off of top of head, without proof-reading, in 15 minutes*
*it is terrible and makes no sense*
*sends*

Two minutes later

Clinical Preceptor:  Nice paper.

Me:  *smugness*

Act II (Today)

Small Group Preceptor:  Next week, we’ll discuss your papers!

Me: Oh, okay.  Should I send you a copy?

Small Group Preceptor:  … It was due on Monday.

Me: Yeah.  So should I send you a – wait a minute. *horrible, dawning realization*

Small Group Preceptor:  … ?

Me:  … So when they said, “preceptor”, they meant – DAMNIT.

*and SCENE*.

(I’d like to rewrite this to make the theme come out clearer.  But I can’t decide whether the moral is  “‘Preceptor’ is a stupidly overused word”, “Karma is a bitch”, or “AP can’t read”, so… nope.)