{"id":79324,"date":"2013-06-14T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=79324"},"modified":"2013-06-14T10:20:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:20:17","slug":"how-medical-residency-is-like-lord-of-the-rings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/06\/how-medical-residency-is-like-lord-of-the-rings\/","title":{"rendered":"How Medical Residency Is Like \u2018Lord of the Rings\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Dr. Runjhun Misra<\/a>, a UConn Today contributor for the last year and half, has graduated from UConn School of Medicine\u2019s Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program<\/a>. Following is the text of her graduation address to her fellow residents. <\/i><\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Runjhun Misra (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I found out I\u2019d be delivering the graduation speech, I was elated.<\/p>\n

But as the realization set in, I panicked.<\/p>\n

How do you write a graduation speech to summarize a journey that showed us life, death, suffering and salvation? I really didn\u2019t know where to begin.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been three years, or 36 months, or 1,095 days, or 26,280 hours, or 1,576,800 minutes, or exactly 94,608,000 seconds since residency started. You get the point.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long journey\u2014at least 23 years of education\u2014and it\u2019s finally coming to an end. How could I explain this journey in the best way possible?<\/p>\n

So I tried to find another journey that could compete with our ridiculous one.<\/p>\n

And then it came to me: \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d and the journey through \u201cMiddle-earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let me clarify some similarities between the two journeys:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d starts with a handful of strangers who are assembled and led by a white-haired wizard atop a horse. We\u2019ll call him Gandalf. Our class started off with a handful of strangers, who were assembled and led by a white-haired individual atop a motorcycle. We\u2019ll call this man Dr. Lane. (Dr. Lane, I guess horses aren\u2019t really that fashionable anymore?)<\/li>\n
  2. Frodo and his pack were the first group Gandalf assembled. The class of 2013 was the first class Dr. Lane assembled. I would like to point out that it was the best class he ever assembled. Ahem. Thank you.<\/li>\n
  3. In \u201cLord of the Rings,\u201d the days were tough, the hours long, and the rest little. Our class was the last one to experience \u201creal\u201d medicine, before ACGME, the governing body, imposed limits on resident working hours to a maximum of 16 per shift. That meant, for us, the days were tough, the hours long, and the rest, little.<\/li>\n
  4. Like Frodo forced to eat stale bread and water, our meals during calls often comprised of saltine crackers and ginger ale from the emergency room pantry.<\/li>\n
  5. In the journey through Middle-earth, Frodo and his team were often travelling all day and sleeping short hours. Like them, we worked long hours and sometimes never saw the sight of a bed during our 30-hour calls.<\/li>\n
  6. Sm\u00e9agol was often a big hindrance and threat during the journey through Middle-earth. Although I haven\u2019t seen any slimy bald hobbits crawling around at New Britain hospital, I know that we have all fought our own demons in the past three years.<\/li>\n
  7. Although we were a bit weary of one another initially, like Legolas was to the red-haired dwarf, we soon realized that in strangers we can find family. In both stories, by the end, these strangers had become inseparable, their lives being intertwined forever.<\/li>\n
  8. Gandalf was always aware of his team\u2019s strengths before they realized it themselves. Dr. Lane, not surprisingly, knew of our potential before we were tested.<\/li>\n
  9. And lastly, Gandalf was always the biggest supporter, advocate and guardian of his team. Even when he wasn\u2019t physically around, he was present in spirit. Dr. Lane was no different. His unwavering faith in his team and unconditional support and encouragement led his team to where they stand today: graduation. When the end was near and the travelers tired, Gandalf sent in eagles to fly them home. Dr. Lane went a step ahead: he didn\u2019t just give us wings, he taught us how to fly.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I guess in that sense, wizards come in many forms. They don\u2019t all have to come on horses with long white hair billowing in the mountain wind.<\/p>\n

    Carson Mullers once said, \u201cThe closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.\u201d In that sense, we have all been well cared for these past three years. At some point, all of us realized that we had taken not only taken the Hippocratic oath, but also a personal one to be a lifelong caregiver. Unknowingly, the same patients we took care of were also the ones taking care of us.<\/p>\n

    As we travelled this road, we provided care in many different forms. It wasn\u2019t always administering the right medication at the right time. Sometimes it meant holding a wife\u2019s hand while her husband took his last breath, or bringing water to a patient who had just passed his swallow test after a stroke. In that respect, defining a physician was a little tough. So I decided to look up the definition. I went to Webster\u2019s Dictionary, and it said: \u201ca person skilled in the art of healing.\u201d I was intrigued. This was a very unconventional definition, a broad one that encompassed many unsaid truths. Knowingly and unknowingly, we heal in many ways. Sometimes, a human touch is all that is needed between sickness and health. There is so much to the art of healing that we are still learning that I cannot begin to unveil today. However, I do remember that healers have been linked to divinity in ancient times, because they were a means of guarding and safekeeping our most prized possession: our health. Healers are no different today. They work hard to preserve health and ultimately, life.<\/p>\n

    A smart man once said to Peter Parker that, \u201cwith great power comes great responsibility.\u201d I am reminded today, of how true it rings for all of us on this day when we will finally take our solo flight. We have been given this gift: the opportunity of being able to protect life. With that immense ability comes an even greater responsibility.<\/p>\n

    In a world where war is ever prevalent, where hatred lurks in school yards, buses and in places of worship, the hospital is perhaps one place where everyone is treated equally, regardless of creed, race or social status. As a healer, then, we have the ability to convey a strong message: If people are mandated to receive the same quality of medical care, why shouldn\u2019t we be mandated to treat everyone with the same love and respect we reserve for our friends and family?<\/p>\n

    In medical school, we were given the privilege to dissect a human body. More than just teaching us about human anatomy, it reinforced the fact that we are identical inside.<\/p>\n

    Although it\u2019s been a long journey, I\u2019m glad we took it together. We are leaving today having made countless memories together. Like \u201cThe Fellowship of the Ring,\u201d our journey has come to an end. Everything we have been through in the past three years will never be forgotten. The lessons we had to learn in the toughest of situations will continue to mold us through our lifetime. Nothing worth having in life comes without sacrifice. And residency was no different. In order to be where we are today, we have had to sacrifice the things we cherished and the time we spent with people we love. I just wanted to say, on behalf of you all, a thank you to our loved ones for enduring this journey with us. A thank you to our dedicated faculty whose time spent with us often meant missing their child\u2019s recital or science project.<\/p>\n

    It takes a village to raise a child. And although we are no longer children, it definitely took a hospital to raise a doctor.<\/p>\n

    We thank you today for every time we forgot to acknowledge an act of kindness bestowed upon us. I know we will never forget the last three years, our teachers, or each other. The end is today, but our fellowship will endure for many years to come. So let us celebrate what we have been looking forward to for so many years, and let us make this a night to remember.<\/p>\n

    In the words of Tolkien, \u201cIf this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n

    Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Dr. Runjhun Misra explains in her graduation address to her residency class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":48338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-79324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 14:26:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79324"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79338,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79324\/revisions\/79338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/48338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79324"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=79324"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=79324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}