When I was 18 I had this fire burning inside me. It`s that determination that starts to grow as you`ve made up your mind about what you want to do. I was binge watching series like House MD and Grey`s anatomy, I was buying anatomy books and trying to read X-rays. All the biology, chemistry and physics projects and essays I was assigned in college had a medical twist to it. When I graduated I only had one place in mind that I wanted to go to… Medschool. It seemed like a dream to walk around in a white coat one day and be part of this world`s lifesavers. I shouldn`t tell you guys how excited I was when I finally got accepted into medical school. It was like entering paradise in the afterlife. I was excited and I thought I have finally made it… But I hadn`t made it yet. Medschool wasn`t the end of a road it was but the mere beginning. Where I come from medschool consists of 3 years’ bachelor studied and 3 years’ master studies. I`m half through my fifth year and next to all the medical courses I`ve learned some hard truths about life as a medical student. Together we are stronger! In my first year, I thought all medstudents would help each other from beginning to end. However medical students always must bear in mind that other students can be potentially competition to them. Sadly, the stigma around the grading system and the limited places to certain specializations cause students to distrust one another and in worse case scenarios compete to levels that are harmful for others. I was astonished medical students were scamming other students, or retaking certain subjects when possible competitors had better grades than they did. This feeling or need to be better than others was like a virus that spread through our entire class infecting basically everyone. I learned to let go of that feeling of trying to be the best or beating friends and colleagues with my grades. I learned that staying true to yourself is one of the most important qualities of succeeding in your job as a doctor and I also believe it will keep you in a healthy state of mind for the rest of your career. Together we are stronger, that counts for everything, especially in medicine. There is no such thing as failing The number one concern of medstudents is how they perform and how they score on exams or clinical rotations. That`s why we study so hard. We are perfectionists and there is no room for failing but the bottomline is… we will all fail at something at some point. No one is perfect, no one will never make a mistake. And that is okay! Having room to make mistakes from time to time gives you room to improve and better yourself. Failing shouldn`t demotivate you or even scare you. It should give you strength to do better next time. Bettering yourself doesn`t sound that scary now does it? Yes, you can achieve everything! I used to be a very insecure person when I first started out in medschool. Oral exams freaked me out the most because what was scarier than being interrogated by a professional about his profession that you don`t even know anything about. It sounds funny but I was sometimes even scared to start studying, because I was afraid to fail to understand certain subjects. Overcoming your fear by proving yourself wrong is one of the keys to success. When I started getting out of my comfort zone and started paying attention in class and helping struggling students and setting up study schedules my confidence grew. Even though certain exam schedules seemed impossible to go through, we did it all and we succeeded. Every step we take, every day that passes, every grade you achieved are little reminders that we are capable of things we first deemed impossible. Believe in yourself, because you can do everything you want. Taking care of others is taking care of you People sometimes say you can`t expect people to love you if you don`t love yourself. I am a big supporter of that quote and I can also add that you can’t take care of people as a physician (or any other caregiver) if you don`t take care of yourself. It is no secret that medschool is very demanding of us. If we don`t study for exams we are taking classes, if we`re not there we`re doing a bunch of extracurricular activities and on top of that we find time to write papers, read articles and hand in assignments. All of these deadlines and expectations people have from us and the high goals we set ourselves can cause a lot of stress. This is also why some students call it quits after a couple of years or during practical internships. It`s also proven that too much stress can cause brun-outs or addiction to substances amongst physicians. This is why I chose to get some hobbies that had nothing to do with medicine. I started drawing and playing videogames with my friends in my free time. I even started a twitch channel to stream and meet new people to play videogames with. It works as a destress mechanism to just empty your mind and put your full focus on something else. Be awesome, be you To end this article, I want to stress that you`ve already proven your worth. You are a medical student, you are the living proof of determination and dedication! There is no need to be insecure or compare yourself to other `better` students. Bear in mind that no one is the same and every person is unique in their way. We all contribute something different to the medical world and to our patients. It`s important to stay true to yourself and your values and motivations to become a physician. When you do that, you will shine and you will get noticed and everything will be worth it! Do you have similar experiences? What did you learn during medschool? Author: Somedicalness Twitter: www.twitter.com/somedicalness Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfcAL9e5DxgNfypmNv7fiuw
Well written, you said everything most medical students feel. Sadly many medical students consider other medical students as "Potential Competitors" although relationship between doctors and medical students should be much better than just competition. We are always seeking for the impossible perfection cause we were always perfect since childhood which adds more load and pressure. We have to enjoy our life as we are humans before being doctors or medical students.
I totally agree with you! The burden of being always perfect and the stress of the enormous amount of information you have to gather daily is haunting almost every med srudent. It's hard road to take, but I think it's wortg it after all. Given you got into medschool by choice will make things easier.
" you can't take care of people as a physician if you can't take care of yourself " I couldn't agree more ! How to expect medical students to be future caring and professional doctors with all this stress, depression and anxiety caused by the education system and even ourselves
