As intern year comes to an end and another off-service rotation bites the dust, it means one thing: It’s time to be a doctor. Now, don’t get me wrong – I am aware that by definition interns are physicians, but we are protected physicians. We have spent the better part of our first year of training trying to figure things out.

Whether it’s the technique of placing a chest tube or the importance of replacing electrolytes, or realizing that the orders we write actually get followed, we are still following orders from seniors so things get done right. But now it’s time for a new intern class to arrive and to look at us the same way we look at our second-year residents … like they know what they’re doing.

The question is, how do they know what they’re doing? Did they have a secret intern training that made them especially competent to treat the 110,000-plus patients that came through the Detroit Receiving emergency department last year? Did they take a class, and if so, did I miss that class? I do acknowledge that I know far more than I did a year ago, but it seems I am now also keenly aware of the litany of things I don’t know, and this might be the reason that intern year coming to an end is both incredibly exciting and admittedly daunting.

Fortunately for me, it doesn’t much matter if I’m “ready” to be a second-year resident, because as sure as time passes July 1 will come with or without me, and I will be forced to resume the role of the responsible and capable person my mother likes to think I am. And why? Because it’s time. Because I have watched very good residents ahead of me teach us how to be successful and warn us what not to miss. And while I have no doubt that I will make plenty of mistakes, miss diagnoses, and run the gamut of ineptitude at times, the truth is, I’m secretly looking forward to it.

Overall I think that I, like most of the interns with whom I work, are pretty excited to no longer be interns. Among other things, it means that we finally get to spend the majority of our time in the specialty we chose; perhaps more importantly, we get the privilege to have more chances to be wrong. Yes, I think being wrong is a privilege. Because when I look at those things I believe I now do well, it’s because I was fortunate enough to have screwed them up at least once before, and I learned. Maybe that’s what being an intern is actually about.

So as another year bites the dust and life as an intern comes to an end, my fellow Receiving interns and I created a list to remind us that no matter how overwhelming next year may seem, there are some things we are glad we will never again hear as emergency medicine interns, and some things that we did wrong that in the future we will get right. And some things that are just so ridiculous, they just had to be written on paper.

Top 10 Things You Never Want to Hear as an Emergency Medicine Intern

10. Oh, good. The intern is here. Can you suture all the lacerations in the emergency department?

9. Your patient’s subclavian central line is in good place on x-ray, but now he needs a chest tube.

8. Welcome to your OB rotation.

7. Oh, you’re an intern. So you’re a student doctor?

6. Patient’s family: “Can we talk to our dad’s doctor, please?” Intern: “I am his doctor.” Family: “Really?”

5. “ER bashing”– because it never gets old being an ED intern on an off-service rotation being told how incompetent you are by the superior, overworked, and underappreciated consult services.

4. Blood from the internal jugular vein isn’t usually pulsating and bright red. Try again.

3. Despite its frequent placement in the esophagus, the endotracheal tube doesn’t actually belong there.

2. You are still holding the wire from the central line, right?

And the No. 1 thing you never want to hear as an emergency medicine intern is “Attention, ladies and gentlemen. This is your flight attendant speaking. If there is a doctor on board, please ring your call button.”

Dr. Maso is an intern at Detroit Receiving Hospital. She also holds a master’s degree in public health with an emphasis in community health.