Terms you need to know during your journey!

This is going to be kind of a very general post on the common terms used in the States both in the Medical or Non-medical field.

Initially when you start your journey, you (or at least I) do get confused who is a resident or what is fellowship and so on and so forth. So here is my two piece information.

USMLE/MEDICINE RELATED
	INDIA	USA
	Internship/ Housemanship	3rd/4th year medical student
	PG/ Post Graduate	Resident / PGY (1,2,3)
		1st year resident is called an Intern
		2nd, 3rd year - Resident
		4th year – Chief Resident generally
	Super specialists-  MCh, DM	Fellows, Fellowship
	Lecturers/ Staff -  Assistant, Associate, Professor	Attending - Assistant, Associate, Professor
	Super Specialists – Cardio, Neuro etc.	Sub Specialists - Cardio, Neuro etc.
NON MEDICAL
	Parcel food	To go
	Milk	A huge variety - 1%, 2%, Whole, Cream, Skimmed
	Drive on the left side with geared vehicles	Drive on the right side with automatic vehicles
	Celsius	Fahrenheit (Also there is something called as 'Feels like' meaning the ACTUAL FEEL OF THE WEATHER, It takes into account the wind speed.)
	1.6 Kilometer	1 Mile

I know that most of you might know about the terms used in this post. This one goes out to the average person like me who used to get confused when I was searching for electives like what exactly comes under the purview of sub-specialties

I also had a fun time talking to the cashier about parceling food- I kept shooting all the random terms I knew like parcel, take out and what not till finally at last I said the words to go. Similarly when I went to buy milk for the first time I was overwhelmed at the variety, since back home though variety is available we generally go for whole milk or maybe skimmed if one is very health conscious. 

Moving on, when they ask what would you like to have with your coffee I was a little taken aback since in my head it is natural reflex - MILK. Thankfully my cousin was nearby and realized that I had no clue what just happened and he told me that cream is considered like milk in fast food places and so you specify the number you want. E.g. - 2 cream and 2 sugar is my standard. You can increase or decrease based on your preference. Also coffee is not like the one we have back home. So should you say you want coffee it is considered BLACK coffee, you will have to say cream along with it or you will repent your decision.

Oh and it is common courtesy to tip the waiter here 5% of the total bill. I know it is not something that most of us follow back home since it comes in the service tax of the bill, but as the saying is ‘When in Rome behave like Romans’.  I am NOT saying that you HAVE to tip 5% exactly, since we are students and we are literally living off our parent’s money but at least 1-2 dollars maybe. This is my personally opinion. I am sure most will not agree with me on this.

Should I realize that I missed out anything I will try updating this post.

Again best of luck for the journey towards USMLE!