Medical School

I’m bringing back this blog because I have to get this off my chest.

I started medical school a few weeks ago and I have been getting an unsettling feeling that this is a career that is not for me.

I am absolutely miserable. It is not that the material is too dense or that I am not getting enough sleep or that I do not have enough free time. It is the unsettling feeling that I do not want what I am working towards.

Only in medical school have I begun hearing what life is REALLY like for medical students, residents, and attendings. Only now am I understanding the commitment that I am making with medical school. Only now am I understanding that medicine is a LOT about science and dealing with egomaniacs and very little about patients. People around me LOVE science and love learning much more than I do. They are inspired and motivated by it much more than I am.

I hate science. I like the idea of research and exploration but I hate that in order to get there, I have to spend half my life getting information shoved down my throat.

I feel TOO introspective and value my time of self-reflection too much to feel like I belong here. The lifestyle of a medical student, resident and eventually a physician, is not conducive for reflection. This is problematic for me.

I am doing what I can, however, to keep open-minded. It is presumptive to think I’m the only self-reflecting person to ever go through this process. There may be something for me after medical school… but I have to find out what that is if I want to remain motivated to finish.