I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here

On masks, thresholds, and starting over with purple hair

Jul 01, 2026

I can still feel the nerves as I put on my new pants and sensible shoes and tried to get the folds out of my new white coat. The coat would be rumpled, ink stained, and with a permanent ring around the collar soon enough. I futzed with my hair. It was still longer than I wanted it. I’d grown it out to look like everyone else in med school and kept it for residency interviews. I’d even dieted myself down to just “overweight” as an attempt to blend in when starting my new competitive internal medicine residency. We all wear costumes when trying to get our foot in the door. The danger is forgetting to take it off.

I took a deep breath and left the apartment I had moved into from across the country just a few weeks before.

It was July 1

I was an intern crossing the threshold from medical school to actually being a doctor. This was supposed to be one of the scariest days of my life.

But—that was going to be August 1 for me when I started my first hospital ward rotation. Today, I was driving up to the idyllic geriatrics hospital set in the woods about a mile from the busy medical center. The one where Driving Ms. Daisy was filmed. I’d wanted to be a geriatrician since day 2 of medical school. This residency had one of only two geriatrics hospitals in the country associated with a training program. Having my first rotation of residency there was an aspiring crone’s dream come true.

I didn’t see a single patient on July 1. Instead, I toured the hospital with a group of Japanese doctors and administrators who wanted to see how an American geriatrics hospital operated. I got a high-level overview of everything the hospital did (and free lunch!) I was on cloud 9.

I suffered through three long years of internal medicine training after that. It made me a good doctor, but I still have PTSD from parts of it. There are several horrific patient cases that will stick with me forever, several rants from ICU and cardiology attendings that will also stick with me forever, and several trauma bonded best friends who will stick with me forever.

Then, Hallelujah!

Residency was over and I was starting my geriatric medicine fellowship!

That July 1, I had only a weekend to move across the country between residency and fellowship. Instead of agonizing over appearances, I was just thankful for a shower and non-rumpled clothes. The day again started with a tour. Coming from a residency mostly within a large under resourced and understaffed community hospital, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Each facility was nicer than the next, but the people were what gave me a gut-punch of happiness. There were more geriatricians than I’d ever seen in one spot, and even geriatric psychiatrists! The clinical sites were staffed with multiple geriatrics trained social workers, nurses, and pharmacists. Enough people to actually help you care for the patients with dignity and respect—the hospital’s slogan.

I had found my people and the mask I had put on for internal medicine started to slip.

By the end of the day, I had the song from Annie ‘I think I’m gonna like it here’ stuck in my head. I went home, pulled out my laptop, and listened to it on youtube on repeat. I’d worn out the VHS tape as a kid and was glad I didn’t have to rewind youtube.

Fast forward about ten years

I was now the grand poohbah of geriatric medicine training at my institution. As the fellowship program director, I spent hundreds of hours planning for each new class. I would play the song on my way into work each July 1, hoping to give them their Annie moment that day and ease their residency PTSD throughout the rest of the year.

Being a program director was the best part of my job, but also the hardest. I had to answer all the questions, handle the frustrations of the fellows and faculty, and constantly find ways to make things better. Nobody was ever happy. You know the kind of job where you work forever on something and people only notice your hard work when there is a minor flaw—but they aren’t willing to help fix it?

But the fellows made it all worth it. They have all gone on to do amazing things, and I hope that by teaching them, I somehow have helped many more patients than I ever could have on my own.

As my inner crone began to surface, I dyed my now short hair purple. I decided it was time to stop not just doing all the things but also leading all the things. I handed over the fellowship program in February, gave up research projects, directorships, and committee memberships. Then, I left my primary institution.

So, this July 1, where will I be?

Starting over. Part time. Teaching only.

My first day at a new institution. Onboarding, just like everyone else.

I won’t be in charge of anything—not a training program, not clinical innovations, not research. I just get to do what I love: teach and help medical students figure out what they want to be when they grow up, and more importantly how they want to be when they grow up.

This July 1, I stand at a threshold. I spent time thinking about what I’m going to wear—just like the first July 1. My hair still has purple highlights, but they are fading, and I’m debating turning it brown again (another mask to fit in), keeping it purple, or finding some sort of middle ground. I’m trying to figure out how much of myself I can bring to this new job. Will bringing my authentic self hurt me professionally? I don’t know. But I wish I had seen a doctor letting her mask slip for crone-spiration when I was in my rumpled white coat.

July 1 is medicine’s threshold. But every life has one.

Where is your threshold like a July 1? Where is your mask starting to slip?

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