Residents and fellows are physicians who have recently graduated from medical school but who are not yet practicing medicine on their own.

Residents are still in residency, that is, they are still in training to obtain their credentials in a specialty, usually in family practice or internal medicine. Most residents receive three years of training. Fellows are physicians who have finished their residency training and are now training in a subspecialty—for example, infectious diseases. As for nomenclature, “interns” are now called “first-year residents.” Residents and fellows are found in teaching hospitals that have the credentials for training specialists.

If you are in a teaching hospital, the physicians you are likely to see most often are residents in internal medicine or family practice, and fellows in infectious diseases or some other subspecialty. Their autonomy in making decisions about your medical care varies, depending on their training, the rules of the hospital, and the idiosyncrasies of the physician-of-record.

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If you fly, you know the challenges to getting airborne. Informing reservation agents of your special needs is the first step to ensuring a safe and comfortable flight. Be specific about your needs, such as requiring assistance to your seat, assistance when transferring between airlines, or a seat assignment in the bulkhead. Be sure to make these requests again at the time of departure so they are not overlooked.

Both the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 and the Americans with Disabilities Act specify that the needs of persons with disabilities must be met both on the ground and in the air. This covers accessible parking neat the terminal; signs indicating accessible parking and access to the terminal; accessible medical aid facilities and travelers aid stations; accessible restrooms; accessible drinking fountains; accessible ticketing systems at primary fare-collection areas; amplified telephones; accessible baggage check-in and retrieval areas; accessible jet-ways and mobile lounges; flat boarding ramps, lifts, and so forth; information systems with both visual and oral components; and signs indicating the location of specific facilities.

You may want to get advice from people with similar disabilities who fly frequently. Some advise not consuming liquids before flights so that you don’t have a “call of nature” on the flight. Others advise waiting on the plane after landing until your chair or scooter comes up from the hold. If you leave the plane in a wheelchair provided by the airline, you could be stranded in the airport without your own means of getting about. If you use crutches, expect different rules for their storage, even within the same airline. Some stewards say crutches go in the overhead bins, while others allow you to stow them on the floor beside you. If you are flying coach class, try to get seating in the bulkhead row, the first row in the coach section. This offers more space and thus greater ease in getting in and out of your seat.

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“Jenny, although only nine, had many long-range questions: ‘Do big girls have these seizures? Can they have babies?’ Things like that. I arranged for Karen to have lunch with us. And the two just talked. They talked about seizures, about medication, about boys. What Karen provided for her was something I couldn’t provide; she was the role model Jenny needed. Actually, it was as good for Karen as for Jen; it provided Karen with a sense of self-esteem, a sense of helping.

“You know, out of this counseling come many good things, and sometimes it takes awhile to see all of them. Another young lady who had a rough time as a teenager, both with her very frequent mixed seizures and with an overprotective father, is now married and has a baby. The family recently had a real scare when they thought she had cancer. They really panicked, but Greta remained cool. She handled it far better than her folks. The diagnosis proved wrong, and when we talked about it recently she said, ‘You know, I went through so much in learning to deal with my epilepsy that it made me a much stronger individual.’

“One of the best things about this job is the friends you make with the kids. They’ll call you up years later, as Greta did, just to say ‘Hi!’ or to tell you they’re engaged, whatever. They’ve become my friends.

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