With new interns starting, I’m remembering the intern on when I was intubated. I was making an awful sound. She told me to STOP MAKING THAT NOISE so she could hear my lungs.

I told her to get her attending & she did. I was treated with high-level care. She learned. All was well.

She was nervous and out of her league. There was backup care right there - I saw an ICU attending within minutes. She came back later and told me she was sorry and she had learned so much that night. It was a weird interaction but did not endanger me at all.

This doesn’t even mention the countless of times an intern or resident handled my care correctly. They were some of the most motivated and detail-oriented doctors I saw. The system is designed to catch their mistakes.

And dare I say that interns catch other people’s mistakes too? The ones I met were so nervous that they triple checked everything. They definitely caught some errors in my care. Strengths and weaknesses from all levels of training complement each other.