When I entered the KU School of Medicine in August of 2003, I was extremely intimidated and scared. Not just by the bewildering curriculum and crushing work load, but also by how much smarter everyone else seemed to be. In fact, I often wondered how I had managed to hoodwink the powers that be into admitting me to this place at all.

I figured that as my first year of medical school progressed, I’d probably become one of those students who just couldn’t cut it and I’d get weeded out, because I was just an ordinary person trying to make it in a field where only extraordinary people succeed.

I made it through my first year of medical school…and my second year…but I still had doubts that I had what it takes to become a physician.

Then comes that life-changing moment…that day when a superior - whether it’s an attending physician or the chief resident - barks at you, “Hey, Kracht, go work up that chest pain in the ER.”

You walk briskly down the hall, accompanied by the anxiety of talking to a total stranger who may be dealing with a lifethreatening condition.

After doing your best to ask all the right questions and coming up with the most logical diagnosis and plan of treatment for this person you met just a few moments before, the attending says, “Perfect, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” You are overcome with this astonishing realization that you might just make it as a doctor after all.

I think that each one of us here has had a number of those “yes, I’m meant to be here” moments. And on this momentous occasion, I want to take this opportunity to point out the obvious…that you should now realize that you do belong here and you did make it. It’s okay to be proud and confident about the things you have accomplished over the past several years.

Some of us probably still have a few family members and friends who say that, even after medical school, they wouldn’t trust us to give them a Tylenol®. But I can honestly say that I never cease to be impressed with my peers’ responsible and caring consideration of their patients and unflagging devotion to the ethics of medicine, so much so that I would gladly put my life in any of your capable hands. +

Logan Kracht, MD, is currently an obstetrics and gynecology resident at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.