Advice To Med Students Feeling Lonely

This question was originally posted on Quora:

I am a medical student and I feel lonely lots of the time. I stay at the hospital more hours than I am required to, just talking with patients. What do you think about this?
I don't have any close friends and I don't have anyone to talk to when I arrive home. I even bring my books to the hospital so that I have people around me with whom I can talk to if I need.
I feel like the hospital is my home. I like to hear patients talking about their life.


Answered by: Xu Beixi

While I agree that your situation is far from unique, please don't take this the wrong way- but you need a life outside of the hospital.

"I don't have any close friends and I don't have anyone to talk to when I arrive home."
- This must be remedied immediately. You absolutely need an emotional support network; all creatures with some ability to feel need one, not merely us humans.


"Spend more time around people. If you want to make friends, you first need to put yourself out there somehow in order to meet people. If you're still in school, sit somewhere with other people, it doesn't have to be the 'popular' table, or a crowded one, but one with at least two other people."

"I even bring my books to the hospital so that I have people around me with whom I can talk to if I need."
- Books aren't people, and you can't replace people with books. Do books keep you warm at night? Only if you burn them.

"I feel like the hospital is my home."

- The Definition of Home tells us:

Yet our psychological habitat is shaped by what you might call the magnetic property of home, the way it aligns everything around us. Perhaps you remember a moment, coming home from a trip, when the house you call home looked, for a moment, like just another house on a street full of houses. For a fraction of a second, you could see your home as a stranger might see it. But then the illusion faded and your house became home again. That, I think, is one of the most basic meanings of home—a place we can never see with a stranger’s eyes for more than a moment.


Home is, to me, a place where others love you back. Could be your parents, a lover, a dog or a cat- where someone cares deeply for you and wants nothing more to see you happy. It doesn't even have to be a physical place. However, I'm not sure the hospital can love you back, despite the miracles that take place in it everyday. Quite frankly, I see little joy in loving an institution, no matter how grand- I believe love should be given to people and animals, not things, objects, ideas, or even ideologies.

While I have no doubt you'll grow to collect a vast body of medical knowledge and have excellent bedside manners, I worry about your health. I have some experiences which parallels yours- I loved connecting with patients, even drawing some of them. It'd always sadden me when they left and I never got to see them ever again. However, it also taught me that you can't grow too attached to patients- in a way, they are your customers and you're a service provider. If they didn't need something treated or checked out, they wouldn't be here. They're not here to see you per se, and it behooves one to remember that.

Lastly, for your interest:



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