After my interview I head back to the hotel, change into more comfortable clothes, and take a stroll around town. Street jazz bands play while the warm breeze gently caresses the city. People take it slow down here in the South. Today during the interview a woman stopped our group, “Y’all should know I’m the survivor of a pul-mow-nary em-bow-luss. Thanks to God Almighty and to y’all wonderful doctors, I’m still here today to speak with you. God bless”. And she continued upon her way, a smile on her face.

An Irish pub with cheap Guinness beckons, and I sit at the bar with a few NASCAR fans. One offers me some chicken tenders, which I politely decline. Eventually the conversation turns round to jobs. The guy next to me, Budweiser in hand, with a flannel shirt and a trucker hat, speaks up.

“So, buddy. What brings you all the way out here from the southwest?”

Slowly, drinking my beer, I reply. “ER residency, actually. Your hospital out here is one of the best in the nation.”

“Now, that’s a job I can respect. Me, I roof houses.” He pauses, catching a quick glance at the cars flying around the track. “You seen people die? And there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it?”

“Yep,” I reply, “it can be pretty rough.”

“So what makes it worthwhile? I think I’d up and quit the first time someone died on me.”

I pause. This is the most honest question I’ve gotten on the interview trail, and it isn’t from an attending, a resident, or a program director.

“I suppose,” I slowly say, “I suppose it’s when you can help people that makes it all worthwhile. When you can look someone in the eye and tell them they’ll be ok.”

He smiles quietly, as though I said just what he expected to hear from a doctor in the making. I smile too. We clink glasses and toast, then sit back and watch the cars race around the track in comfortable silence. This is a good place for me.