I was intoxicated with the idea of being of being a surgeon

 Surgeons acted boldly and decisively. They achieved cures, opening an intestinal blockage, repairing a torn artery, draining a deep abscess, and made the patient whole again. Their art re- quired extraordinary precision and selEcontrol, a discipline of body and mind that was most evident in the operating room, because even minor mistakes—too much pressure on a scalpel, too little tension on a suture, too deep probing of a tissue— could spell disaster. In the hospital, surgeons were viewed as the emperors of the clinical staff, their every command obeyed. We students were their foot soldiers. I was intoxicated with the idea of being part of their world.