Hey readers, I just finished my first year of medical school just a few days ago. It's been an unforgettable journey, for so many reasons. It's hard for me to really condense it into a few sentences or even as much as a couple paragraphs, but I'll try my best.
First off, I've actually really been enjoying medical school even though there is the feeling that you're kind of being waterboarded non-stop with so much information and extremely high standards. So many blogs I've read of other medical students seem to be so full of suffering and and angst and burn-out and I seriously feared a little bit for myself as I began medical school and a few months into it. However, we're so lucky to be able to go into a career where you can take care of someone from birth to when they pass; a career where you can catch a child's brain cancer early and give a proper treatment and prognosis because you studied like a monk for ages, or become even more engaged in helping an ambulatory care patient quit smoking because you've seen so many people suffer from lung cancer or emphysema, and all they want again is their health and life back.
Second, what has made medical school so great for me is the people I've met. I'm sort of slow to warm up when it comes to new people and new settings, and although it took a year to really get comfortable, I have such solid friendships with a good core of intelligent, warm-hearted, funny, and brilliant people. I actually had a hard time at first and wouldn't really hang out with my classmates because the only thing they seemed to have going on was school, school, school, but I finally sifted a little more and more through all the people there and made some great friendships.
For those coming in and those interested, don't listen to the cynics, the burned out doctors, peer detractors, you can handle medical school. It requires a lot of sacrifice in so many ways: you'll be tired, sleep-deprived, you might see positive scotomas/lights along with hyper-reflexivity from chronic sleep deprivation, you might gain extra weight (or even lose a lot!), you'll at times feel isolated and searching for a purpose, but don't lose sight of why you're here: to touch people's lives and help them regain their health and in that, their life.
Don't ever lose your passion for medicine, or your patients. And to do that, don't just hope or keep positive, you have to actively fight burn-out, keep searching for the good things in your field, let yourself feel emotions like sadness, happiness, failure and success, because medicine is probably the most human of the careers out there, and you shouldn't deprive yourself of the range of emotions we all feel.
I never let it get to my head when people said medicine is the most noble profession or that those who are doctors or becoming doctors are heroes, and you shouldn't either. Remember we're all in this together, with the mission to not just help cure disease or support our patients, we're in this to be guides, teachers, and pillars of support for those who have no one else in the world and are suffering in their most vulnerable time.
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