Someone hit the panic button, please

Have you ever heard stories about charlatans and con artists who faked a profession? Passing off as doctors, airplane pilots, businessmen.... but there always came a moment of truth, when they were revealed for who they truly were.
Well, you all probably know that I have been very busy studying very hard, but when it comes to knowing my stuff with medicine, all I can say is please hold off on getting sick for a couple more years, because I'm not ready to have your life in my hands.
Or at least I thought I wasn't ready.
Wednesday this week I walked into a busy ward at a nameless hospital (we wouldn't want anyone incriminated here....) to meet my supervising doctor, who had told me she'd be there when I got there.
"Hi, I'm Heather Davies." I introduced myself to one of the nurses. "I'm one of Dr. G's students and I'm supposed to meet her here."
The nurse looked relieved. "Oh good! Well, I'm sure you'll want to see Mrs. K first of all."
She thrust a chart into my hands.
"She's having an MI (heart attack) right now, we think. The lab results are in and she has high troponin levels and very low potassium. Her ECG looks sort of stable right now and we've followed all the ACS (acute coronary syndrome) protocol so far. I've sent a stool sample off to be tested for C-diff. I'm just about to give her potassium. Do you think that looks like 20 or 30 mg of potassium to give her?"
I suddenly felt the moment of truth hit me in a slow wave that made me feel sort of sick. Wait a second, I wanted to say. You've got the wrong person. I'm not the doctor. I'm just a know-nothing, stupid, first-year medical student. I didn't understand anything you just said. (Haha. Actually, I did.)
"That looks like 20 mg." I answered, gasping for courage. "You said she's stable right now? Let me take a look at the lab values, but I think I'll wait for Dr. G to arrive before I assess her."
Crazy, crazy Heather, I told myself.
I won't bore you with the whole long story. Instead, I'll skip forwards a few hours. Dr. G sent me to attend 'Morbidity and Mortality rounds' with another doctor. This very distinguished senior cardiac surgeon escorted me to a luxurious board room with a catered supper spread out and doctors sitting in plush chairs, with a view of the whole city from the wall-to-wall tinted windows that looked down from the top floor. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat down next to him in one of the plush chairs. More doctors came in, and suddenly I found myself in the middle of a meeting with 6 senior surgeons, 1 cardiac resident and the head of medical staff, as they went over several surgical cases that had ended in failure over the last few months. They were all male. They were all distinguished. They were all doctors.
I tried to sit tall in my chair and nod knowledgeably along, but inside I felt like a silly little girl.
One case that came up was a man whose wife had last seen him sitting by the computer in the evening, and the next morning she found him still sitting in the chair, in a coma. He was rushed to the hospital and one of the surgeons had performed open -heart surgery on him, but it was a lost case from the start and the man eventually died.
I suddenly felt like laughing out loud, and I opened my mouth to speak, but as I did, the surgeon next to me spoke, and I swear that he spoke the exact words that I had been forming on my tongue:
"Well, the moral of the story is, gentlemen, always sleep with your spouse."
We laughed for a long time, and afterward I thought about that for awhile. Maybe I wasn't as far off as I thought....
Today I was working nursing and the nursing supervisor asked me to take a toenail scraping sample for a fungal C&S.
"You know how to do it, right, Heather?" He asked.
I don't remember saying yes, I just remember him walking away and suddenly realizing, whatever it is, I certainly have never done or even heard of a toenail scraping before.
(Rest assured, readers, I did learn how to and did correctly perform a toenail scraping today.)
I don't mean this to sound like I'm fudging my way through medical school like a charlatan, and indiscriminately covering up my lack of knowledge, but the fact of the matter is, there are certain risks that have to be taken. One of my professors in Antigua gave me the best piece of advice I've ever had about such things. She said, "If your supervising physician asks you, would you like to do a spinal tap on this baby? Your answer is, yes sir. If they ask, would you like to assist in surgery? Your answer is, yes sir. If they ask, can you intubate this patient for me? your answer is, yes sir. If you don't know how, you learn. But you never say no."
It's not about putting your patient in danger just to save your pride. In fact, there are many times when it calls for extraordinary humility. To say, yes sir, I'd like to try the procedure, but I'm going to need you to walk me through the steps. Or yes sir, I'll take the toenail scraping, but you're going to have to remind me how to do it. Or yes ma'am, I'd love to see the patient, but I honestly can't give you an opinion on what to do with the lab values because I don't know much about them and I'm going to have to wait for the doctor. That all calls for humility.
And I suppose as a last resort, I could always just ask someone to hit the panic button.