MY LIFE AS A MED STUDENT

med school: expectations versus reality.

I decided that I was going to medical school when I was fourteen. I
was going to complete my schooling, go straight into medical school, do
my internship at some big fancy hospital, save a lot of lives, and then
train as a psychiatrist.
I checked off the first two. And then medical school was happened and
completely messed up my plans.

If I’m being honest, I coasted through high school. Then I almost
flunked the first semester because I assumed I could do the same
thing. Med school is hard, not only because it’s complex, but because
there’s a lot of it to learn. Instead of having discrete subjects with set
deadlines and small classes, medicine is a huge volume of material, the
only deadline is the exam, and the classes are made up of hundreds of
people.
I had to teach myself how to study for the first time. I wasn’t the only
one.

As soon as we hit clinical medicine, we learn to do paperwork. If we
party all night, we’re not safe to practice during the day. Doctors
don’t use elevators – they take the stairs, it’s quicker. And trust me, the
stairways are not ideal for mid-round throwdowns.

No one saves lives in the first year of med school. Before we can
learn to save lives, we have to learn the physiology, anatomy, biology,
and psychology of the human body. We can’t diagnose without
understanding how everything works. No one becomes a doctor by
merely entering medical school. It takes years to even feel remotely
doctor-ish. And I’m two years out of med school, and I still haven’t
saved a life.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/t5CRf2TdfOSv0Pw03

Yes, one can do it all. But not all at once. A lot of people need to
work to afford med school – I did. But plan your time and have
reasonable expectations. If you need sleep, don’t hit that party tonight.
Try and schedule work hours in such a way to leave time for
studying. Make getting to class a priority. Don’t try and be everything
to everyone all the time. Self-care is important.
So, medical school didn’t meet my expectations. But it was still pretty
incredible – and it taught me that maybe, what I had wanted wasn’t
really what I wanted for my life.