white coat weigh-in

i have these weird paranoias, which i usually keep to myself, but for some reason or another, im in the mood for sharing. i think my voice is too high and therefore everyone is thinking, wow, maybe shes a nice girl, but i cant talk to her because only dogs can hear the pitch of her voice. crazy, i know. my other paranoia is that i walk (and esp run) funny. like, ive never actually seen myself walk (ive tried to walk in place in front of a full length mirror, but even i know that looks insane). one of my friends once told me that she thought she saw me walking on the street because 'it looked like the way i walk'. which i interpret as 'you walk weird and totally stand out' which just fed into my beliefs. but now, i have a new theory on the walk (although its limited to the hospital) and it all has to do with the white coat.
i can feel the weight of my white coat physically and emotionally. while the medical student wears a short white coat, the weight from the slightly less fabric is more than made up for by the pounds of everything else we shove into the pockets. this morning when i got to the hospital i almost pulled out my back trying to lift my friends stuffed, bulging white coat off of mine and i was about to silently mock her, only to realize that the weight of mine wasnt that much better. and i still had to shove my stethoscope, a pager, a phone, and some replacement reading material for the day. for balance, i removed one old ekg from the coat.
my white coat census includes:
1. stethi the stethoscope. takes up a lot of space in the pocket. now, to make some room, you might think you could throw it around your neck, but little did you know, that you might look like a tool if you do. it is obvious that surgeons NEVER put the stethoscope around their neck (you can hear bowel sounds from the doorway, right? and thats all we care about). medicine people do the neck thing. but what i didnt realize is that subspecialties in medicine go for the pocket look. now, im on my cardiology rotation where most normal people would think, easy access, need stethi. but youd be wrong. anyways, you use your stethoscope for a total of 10 sec per day as you spend most of the time staring at slightly elevated troponins or telemetry strips trying to find the reason people freaked out. in other words, make room for stethi in the pocket.
2. splenda. a lot of splenda. this would be an object that maybe i could carry less of with me, but god damn it, i like my fake sugar. whatever its doing to my body, its worth it. and it goes so well with caffeine.
3. pager. um....has anyone seen mine? i lost my text pager. and i think my fellow hates me for it, because that means if he needs me he has to pick up the phone and maybe talk to me (also, so high pitched voice comment). i think i actually get less consults because it takes that much more effort to talk to me. wait, in that case, i dont want my pager back yet : )
4. paper/references/ scraps of paper. this is a great deal of the weight. ive even tried to decrease this, but as a student we need as many pocket references so that the length of time that we look stupid for not knowing an answer can be minimized by easy access to my little red sabatine pocket medicine book (people laughed at me when i wanted to get it autographed when sabatine was here for a talk. i was serious). plus all of our patient papers because really, they are all the same to me and i cant tell patients apart. everyone has elevated troponins (troponitis). everyone is age >75. everyone smokes/ed. everyone has bad cholesterol. so we need papers to tell them apart. i carry so many papers, im lopsided. right shoulder lower than left. ill be an orthopedic case by the time i graduate, whenever that is.
5. etc. throw in multiple pens because your attending will ask you for one and he never will return it, glasses (see prev post), lip gloss (a girl has to have shiny moisturized lips if she wants any self esteem), gum because otherwise i will smell of coffee and trader joes indian food and have a high pitched voice so again, no one will want to talk to me, my phone so i can feel like i have some connection to the outside world even though i have no reception in this hospital and no one calls me, plus a maxwell reference guide...and im stuffed. and weighed down. i walked into a patients room once and the first thing my sick patient said to me was "girl...you need a backpack."
oh the burden that is me.
so i propose a great white coat weigh in. whoever walks around with the most crap in his/her white coat wins a prize. probably a white coat with bigger pockets. that would be useful.

addendum: i am not opposed to the white coat. i need the white coat. http://www.slate.com/id/2220925/ believe me, my opinion has nothing to do with public health. if it was because they are disease carrying, then they would also have to ban our stethoscopes and put the fisher price ones in eveyones rooms. then, everyone would have 'distant heart and lung sounds' or id be making up S1 S2 because honestly, i hear nothing in those things but my ears screaming in pain. white coats are pure function. im freaking out because in my anesthesia years, we dont have white coats. and im going to have to invest in a HOT fanny pack. where else would the splenda go?