OR How I Learned to Love/Tolerate Medicine
I spent first semester feeling guilty. What was I doing here? Anatomy wasn’t my cup of tea, Metabolism and Function scared the bejeezus out of me. Long story short: I was not having fun. And I felt guilty because isn’t everyone in medicine supposed to love every second of it? Aren’t there other people out there who’d kill to be where we are? And seriously, we all worked our little tushies off to get here. I thought about quitting. I was pretty sure I’d made a mistake; there were bigger fish to fry in the world of global politics and health policy and I just was not cut out for all this technical stuff. Medicine was a recent decision for me – and clearly the wrong one.
I don’t know if it was just having a vacation to unwind and regroup that made January seem brighter, or if I’d, unwittingly, had an epiphany in my subconscious over the Christmas break. Either way, coming back in January, school seemed less like the bane of my existence and more like something I could perhaps tolerate. Euphoria reminded me of the good life outside my books, and a spontaneous realization – I mean a deep, honest-to-goodness, in my heart not just in my head realization – that the M&F exam would not determine my future helped me make the final step from tolerating school to maybe enjoying it a tiny little bit. I mean tiny.
Then, all hail the wonder that is PIM. Things began falling into place. Tutorials weren’t a place where I tried to hide because I didn’t have a clue, but a bright spot in my day (okay, not THAT bright… going home and eating supper is really bright). Pathophysiologies, causative agents, even a little global health were all coming together. Halleluiah!
I don’t know much about blogging, but this one has three components: a personal story, an intended audience, and some lessons learned. The personal story is done. Now the audience. Why a blog to say I had adjustment problems and love bacteria and parasites? Well, it’s because I don’t think I’m alone on this one. But I think the people who feel like this are afraid of admitting it. And maybe I’m talking to future first year medical students, as opposed to people in my class. Lots of people – I’ll even venture to say most people – come in to medical school with the 100% certainty that this is what they want to do and they love every minute of it. But there are a few people who don’t. And those of you who love it, and have wanted to do it since being in utero, don’t go looking wide-eyed at me like that. It is possible not to love medical school right away. It’s even okay not to love medical school at all. It’s okay to be holding on to school by a string that might snap at any moment, convincing you to drop out. My audience: other people who feel, or at some point felt, like that.
Now the lessons learned. Medicine, as a field, is immense. Seriously immense. Bordering on infinite. So there are lots of potential strings to hold on to. I finally found a little one, and I hope that sometime, someway, there will be other strings and eventually it’ll be a big-ass rope, complete with belay and harness (another element of this blog: ludicrous similes). Some Med IVs I’ve spoken to have said that might take until clerkship. Communication skills got me through first semester, and reminded me why I wanted to do this at all. People, dudes, it’s about people (please don’t vomit, it is true, even if it’s over-said). Now parasites and bacteria are looking pretty darn good – it’s about people (still about the people) with bugs. I feel super lucky I caught on this early. But if it’s not bugs and worms that turn you on, maybe it’s research or maybe it’s administration or maybe it’s policy or maybe it’s people, people and more people. It’s really okay to hate medical school; it’s just important to get rid of the guilt about that, and ignore the people who used Harrisons’ to learn to read. Let them be – they’re okay too. Something – even if it’s a fleeting concept, or a session that comes only once in first year – will get you, just hang on. I know now that I can make of medicine what will work for me. So: Lesson 1: find just one itty bitty thing you like, and don’t let go; it will (I’m fairly certain now) be worth it. Lesson 2: exams, shmexams. Lesson 3: Euphoria maintains sanity. Musical is pretty awesome too.
The End.
3 Comments on “Climbing Similes”
Brilliant post.
I’ve had this conversation with a few people—and pretty consistantly as well.
Medical school is definitely a scary place to fall into. Its even more so for people like you and I (and let me tell you, there ARE others too—Med IIs, Med IIIs) who have a slightly ‘twisted’ view of what medicine might mean to them. Not everyone is in it for the microbiology or pathology or anatomy or pharmacology.
I know i’m certainly not. In fact, these two years of pre-clerkship are going to be seriously trying times for me—because frankly the science simultaneously bores and scares me. I know i need to know it, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy learning it.
I’m here to bring back the ‘art’ in medicine. And by-george, thats what i’m going to do. Its the people that i’m in it for…..just like you.
Sometimes, it can truly be difficult to wade through all this basic science, pre-clerkship learning—and recognize and REMEMBER, that there is a greater purpose to this profession, and that those opportunities are going to be there once we make it through. If that sounds like gobbledeegook—well then you’ll just have to trust me.
With all that we’re exposed to in our pre-clerkship years, it truly can be tough to bear in mind that the lymphatics and neoplasms and antimicrobials and brachial plexuses are only a part of medicine. Its not the be-all-end-all.
In fact they say, and many of us forget this, that medical sciences (like biochemistry, microbiology, physiology) are the science—-but that medicine itself is truly an art.
And trust me, thats what i’m here to do. To learn the art of healing. I just remind myself regularly why i’m here and what it is I plan to do with my professional life once i’m done here. Its tough, when you have a cohort of peers who might not see things that way, but you just have to remember why you entered this profession—and more importantly, remember that there is so much you can do with it.
People seem to forget, nay, most don’t even REALIZE, how flexible medicine truly is—and how diverse the profession is in terms of opportunities to apply that knowledge. You can do just about anything with medicine under your belt (and this will be a post coming soon!).
I know i’m ‘different’ (no comments please from the peanut gallery)— but day-in-and-day-out I just remind myself that I have the complete and utter power to make what I want of a career. And thats what I will do.
So long of course, I make it through pharmacology on friday. Three cheers to azathioprine and clopidogrel!
It’s funny, there’s almost this social taboo in medical school against expressing anything but adoration for medical school itself. It’s almost like you don’t deserve to be here unless you thank god every morning for the oppurtunity to pull yourself out of bed at the sound of a buzzing alarm, and drag your groggy ass to a boring lecture on drug mechanisms (which you require copious amounts of caffiene just to struggle through).
I like some aspects of medical school and hate others, but it is all relative. I’d rather be in a microbiology lecture than serving tables downtown. I’d rather be out snowboarding empty slopes of fresh powder than doing learning issues. I’d definately rather not wake up at 7:45am. Regardless people should not be afraid to say they hate learning all this crap, and are only doing it as a means to an end.
If everybody truly loves medical school and everything to do with it, why do only a handful of people show up to the optional lectures on friday afternoons…
Good job breaking the taboo, Ms. Horne-Douma
Tim
a.k.a. the class jerk
It’s oddly comforting that someone besides me was wondering what the fuck they were doing here for a while.