Happy Spooky Season folks! In honor of both Halloween and tonight’s episode of American Horror Story, as well as my newfound free time as a fourth year, I decided that I’m going to share my secrets for attaining Supreme status in medical school. Listed below are the Seven Wonders, seven acts so advanced, each pushes the boundaries of craft into art.

• Telekinesis – The ability to manipulate objects with the power of the mind.
  • Operating the DaVinci robot is probably the closest you’re gonna get to this. It’s really cool seeing all of the laparoscopic procedures that can be performed on it – hysterectomies, prostatectomies, lap appys, you name it. Just don’t fall asleep on the terminal next to the operator or you will be burned at the stake.
• Concilium – The ability to impose one’s will onto another, allowing control of the mind.
  • By the end of fourth year, you will have tried every way of asking your residents if they can let you go if there’s nothing else to do. “Is there anything else I can help with?”  being the most commonly spoken incantation. There are many spells that can produce the same effect, but beware, if performed without the appropriate sacrifices made, this spell will backfire and you will be trapped on the floor forever.
• Pyrokinesis – The ability to create, control, and manipulate fire with the power of the mind.
  • There is nothing more thrill-inducing than feeling a jet of flame come forth from your hand. Successfully operating the bovie or plasma jet during surgery without charring too much of the surrounding tissue is a skill that takes much practice. With this great power also comes great responsibility – many who have come before you have been burned, even through two layers of gloves.
• Divination – The ability to obtain direct knowledge of an object, person, location, or physical event through means other than the user’s physical senses.
  • You will be called upon to use this ability many a time during the ancient and sacred ritual called “Morning Rounds” by the High Priest or Priestess also known as the “Attending.” Being able to tell the Attending the exact answer to their vague and often esoteric riddle is necessary to ascend the ranks of the coven and attain great power. Fail, and you will be retrieving printed scripts from the printer on another floor for all eternity.
• Transmutation – The ability to transform physical mass into something else or transport it across space.
  • This ability is invoked when you are asked to admit a new patient in the ED while also calling a consult and ALSO applying fundal pressure during a C-section. OoOoOh spOoOoky.
  • Secondarily, you will also be tasked with transforming your handwritten pre-rounding note, etched in an ancient and dead runic language into something actually legible before your impress your Attending during Morning Rounds with your spellcraft.
• Vitalum Vitalis – The ability to balance the scales between one life force and another.
  • This ability often takes its form in a maneuver called CPR when resuscitating a patient or on yourself when you are balancing the scales of life and death by figuring out how little you can eat or drink during your surgery and OBGYN clerkships.
• Descensum – The ability to descend into the netherworlds and successfully return.
  • You will be challenged to perform this daunting feat when descending into the pits of the underworld of the basement to deliver the sacred talismans called the “Outside Hospital Imaging Disk” or “Patient Specimen” to the Radiology and Pathology Departments. Like the great Labyrinth of Crete, danger awaits you at every turn. If you fail to make it back up before sunrise, you will be doomed to wander the halls figuring out which elevator to take.

You will perform the Seven Wonders. Or die trying.

Ok, maybe not die, but you probably won’t be happy. Good luck performing them and I’ll see you on the other side.

– TS℞, The Supreme

Hat: Asos

Shirt: Target

Jacket and Jeans: Zara

Boots: Menlo Club