Well, I have some good news. Evidently, a 15 question internet survey has confirmed my original decision to become a doctor despite my recent doubts! (see below) I have to admit, over these last few weeks since school ended I have myself wondered long and hard if I am making the right decision. The first two years of medical school have been very hard for me. Not the book work, which is both mind stimulating and mind numbing at the same time. That is tedious and hard for someone so ADD as myself to focus on when all I see are words on a page. I need life, experience & challenge to focus my thoughts and solidify my memory. No, that has not been the hardest part.
There is a certain amount of urban wisdom about how different people handle medical school. It seems there are three dominant types of medical students (although
other's have claimed there are 12 types!). There are those that easily excel in the first two years of books and lectures but have a lot of difficulty (emotional or intellectual) adapting to the world of patients, life & death. There are the opposite, those that struggle in the lecture hall but seem to come into their stride in the clerkships where they feel more effective, practical and motivated to learn about the
person/patient in front of them. Finally, there are the gunners, the chosen few, the
gifted. The future chief cardiothoracic surgeons of the world or simply the excellent family doctor that becomes legend in the area in which they practice. They excel and enjoy the first years of books and when the clerkships begin they also seem to slide naturally into the clinical rhythm, reveling in the new experiences and opportunity to apply all that they learned the first two years. As expected, the last type is the rarer breed and envied/despised by many of the other two. The hardest thing for me in medical school is realizing that I am not that last type as much as I had expected to be. I am seriously hoping that I am the second type at the very least, because I need to excel soon or these negative feelings will win.
I fatigued of the lecture hall early on and have a hard time focusing on books, words and PowerPoint presentations. When I became an EMT I was in love with the didactic portion of training, but it was short, to the point and we were soon in the field dealing with people in trouble in their crushed cars, living rooms or kitchen floors as their hearts stuttered or they struggled for air. With every real world experience with someone in trouble it doubled my craving for more knowledge in hopes that I could help or at least not hurt these people. You would sit in class for a few days studying the musculoskeletal basics and the next day you would be trying to assess, treat and comfort a mother and her 3 children after their car rolled on a late night drive home in the mountains. I was an
"intermediate" EMT which meant I could give some drugs and had more medical decision making responsibility than most EMT's, but not as much as paramedics. It was a world that favored street smarts, thinking on your feet, finding quick solutions to get the job done.
People's lives depending on my decisions. I seemed to excel as an EMT and at one point was the director of our small, rural EMS department. I enjoyed everything from patient care, to ordering supplies for the ambulance to spending the day in the fire station polishing the lights and chrome when there were no calls. With a background in academia and research this was a great contrast and it felt intoxicating to love something and be so good at it and truly
offer something of value to those around me in an immediate and tangible manner. It took another EMT to point out the fact that if I loved this so much, I should leave my research career and become an MD....and here I am. Now I sit in lecture halls or in coffee shops reading and regurgitating Latin words and obscure facts about
very rare conditions that I will likely never see in practice.
I thought medical school would be a more intense and rewarding version of being an EMT. Perhaps at some point it will be. What I also did not bargain for is the amount of competition there is in medical school. Not so much among one another, but us against the system. As in many things in my life, I came to this with high hopes and expectations and that is always my first big mistake. Medical school takes the top students from all across the country and then makes them compete against one another for the few student slots. I think the average is 1 student accepted for every 7 applying. This ratio varies greatly by school and at a place like UW School of Medicine, the
#1 primary care medical school in the country for over 10 years, it becomes insane. I was dedicated though and armed with my experience as an EMT. I knew that I was good at this and I
knew that I would excel. It felt like I finally discovered who I truly was, what my talents were and I was motivated to follow it. It took my two attempts at applying and 2-3 years of prep work beforehand (I was a physics major in college and needed many medical pre-requisite classes). I finally made it at the age of thirty-five.
The hardest part of all this for me is that I am suddenly in a world very different from anything I have ever known. I am now competing with the best, brightest and most capable people our colleges and universities produce. It is not so easy to rise to the top as before. In addition, I am much older than most of my cohort and this separates me from them in subtle yet meaningful ways. It is not so much the books that are hard, although they are not easy by any means, they are simply fatiguing. What is hard is when you struggle for mediocre grades when you thought this was your calling and that you would excel. It is hard watching your life of before, friends and activities, atrophy with the hours of coursework. It is hard seeing every crack in your emotional foundation start to widen under the stress. It is hard seeing your faults and your shortcomings every day, not only in school but how you deal with your personal relationships under such stress. It is hard to be in your thirties and see your friends getting married, having children, buying and remodeling houses and
living a life while you are buried in books at some coffee shop every day. It is hard realizing that you are exerting 110% of the ability and energy you have to simply stay afloat in a world that does not utilize your talents and seeing yourself in the lower half of the class day after day, especially when you felt you would be
good at this. It is hard when the few friends you have in your life move on in their lives and you become a memory to them. It is hard to see that your health (emotional and physical) and deteriorated under the workload and endless hours in uncomfortable lecture hall seats. It is hard when you find yourself making the decision to abandon someone that loves you very much and that you know is one of the best people you have ever been in a relationship with simply because you can't stand failing at one more thing, because you are in survival mode and the only way you know how to function is alone and focused on your task at hand. It is hard to see yourself hurt them and all the while you are only getting older. It is hard to see yourself fail them when it feels you are failing most everything else in your life, when you are struggling to stay on top. It is hard realizing that most things in your life are now memories or dreams of what the future might hold and you are getting nothing back from medicine even though you have dedicated
everything to it.
Now classes are over and I am supposed to be studying for my medical boards. The sun is out and my time is my own. I have my
clerkship schedule and I am about to head into the hospitals where I hope that medicine will redeem me in some way. But before that I need to study for my medical board exams, the first step of three, but I am struggling. I seem beat down and tired and I don't care about these words on paper anymore. Now that I have been thrown back into my life with full days and evenings to myself I see how empty it has become without exams, lectures and deadlines consuming my hours and minutes. I am dog sitting for friends that are in the Grand Tetons and staying at their house while they are away. The house is filled with photos of families and friends and ski trips and backpacking trips. Their are photos of barbecues and house remodeling parties and my face is in none of them because I have not existed for the last 3 or so years and it hurts. And in all this I wonder what I am doing to myself and my life and whether or not this stuff is worth it. I have written about this to others and some that have gone through this process for their MD or other professional degree have returned my correspondence with a single refrain.
"It will get better, hang in there." I must say that these short sentences of hope are really helpful, because I can't see it right now.
I know this is a depressing post, but it is where my head is at. I am about to turn 37 years old and I am single, about to be homeless for the next year and am selling all my possessions for the transient life my clerkship schedule demands. I will travel to a new city every 6 weeks for a new medical specialty rotation. Some will be here in Washington and some in Alaska, so I need to travel light. Still, I look around at my friends and wonder if I will ever have a life outside this anymore. What is hard is seeing those few others in your class that are doing well in school, doing well in their marriages, having children, buying houses and excited about clerkships. How do they do it? I think they were simply happier, better balanced and capable people before this all started and what is hard is seeing that you are not. Not that you are worthless or a complete failure, but not what you hoped you would be, not what you imagined you would be. Now perhaps it makes sense why I felt a small glimmer of hope when this stupid internet questionnaire, designed as a goofy distraction, telling me I should be pursing an MD after answer a few silly questions. I needed the reminder, because I don't really know anymore it seems.
| You Should Get a MD (Doctor of Medicine) |
You're both compassionate and brilliant - a rare combination.
You were born to be a doctor. |
I was on it for a while, but after quitting high school and becoming a mechanic I did not see the point. For one reason or another, I stopped taking it and never really thought much about it. There is a point to this story, but some background first...
