When did I stop having friends and start having colleagues?

On my first week ever as a clinical student, I showed up for a ward-based teaching session and the doctor leading it asked if we were expecting anyone else to show up. Without thinking, I answered, "Yes, I saw one of my friends in the corridor on the way here." I remember immediately thinking that using the word 'friend' in that situation felt distinctly odd. I now know that there are 2 reasons for that. I have since always used the word 'colleague' in that context.

First of all, comparing the kind of relationships I have with my peers now with those I had in school, there are quite a few obvious differences and these are not unique to medicine. There is a new, business-like approach to the 9 to 5. We all have goals, both personal and generic, that we are working toward and ultimately we are learning to do a job. A job we will have to beat each other to get at the end of 5 years.

It's ok to be just as good as the person next to you but it helps if you were just that much better.

In school, it was all about 'being the best you could be' because we all had different interests and career paths. Now, things are a lot more stream-lined. You learn to be just polite enough and approachable enough to avoid being the one in the group that nobody likes (so people will swap clinics with you when you need time off) but not being so soft that people walk over you (ie take your clinics without asking). It's a fine line. But you learn to walk it well.

Secondly, you develop a private life. It's this thing that adults talked about that I never really understood because the people you spent all day with in school were invariably the people you invited to your house for sleepovers.... Who else would you invite? Duh. I appreciate that for many people, though, this is probably still the case. During fresher year, you make lots of friends and many of those friendships have carried on into our latter years as students.

But what you find is that as you go on in life, you accumulate stuff.

Your stuff: old friends, old stories, interests and hobbies that only certain people would understand. Things that it would be difficult to share with one of your peers when one of you is busy writing in a patient's notes and the other is on another ward trying to find a senior. Time is limited and often it's much easier to simply learn to be content with the friends you already have rather than trying to make new ones. Maybe it's laziness. But maybe it's self preservation. It's nice to have a part of you that isn't completely engulfed by your job.

It's a good idea to be friendly with your colleagues but it isn't always possible to be friends with them. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing?