I HATE MEDICAL SCHOOL.
Oh yes. Not the kind of hate where you can say, "Oh you hate it now, everyone hates M1 year, but it gets better, at the end when you're actually a doctor you'll love it." No no, I think I honestly hate it.
Why? Is it the subject matter? Not really. I suppose it's pretty interesting, learning this or that, how this works, seeing organs, whatever. Is it that I hate people? Perhaps, I don't really LIKE lots of people, but I have nothing against sick people. But I just don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy learning this stuff. I'm not enthusiastic about it. I don't even really care about taking someone's HPI or learning how to write a proper HPI or complete history or going into LPC and following the doctor around.
The longer I'm in medical school, the more I start thinking the "What if" questions. What if I pursued a different path? Where would I be now? If I wasn't in med school, what would I do? If I could do anything I wanted to as a career and enjoy it, what would it be? If I didn't do GPPA and applied to other colleges just as colleges not as direct medical school programs, where would I be? What if I just go through med school, graduate with an MD but then I don't want to practice medicine?
Maybe it's UIC. I hate our class. Except for a few people. Otherwise, I don't think I'd miss them if I transferred. It's so segmented. The curriculum sucks. It takes multiple times for me to GET something. Like a concept or something. The first time I see it, I'll be confused, probably just memorize the facts but not really understand it. The way it is here, it's NOT systems based, so I'll see this thing once, have to learn it on my own for an exam, learn it again later, but it's so fragmented, I learn the physio at one time, the histo at another which they try to incorporate with it's function and cell bio which we have to learn on our own which is ridiculous, the biochem behind it, and anatomy. All at different times. WTF. That's so stupid. And it brings down my self-confidence like six billion notches. I always knew that I wasn't smart, I don't consider myself smart, just that I can work hard at something and see some sort of results. Now that the work hard/material has increased a million fold, I can't keep up with it and SUCK at school, the one thing that I guess I was pretty good at up until now. Makes me feel even worse about myself, that I will be terrible as a doctor, that there really isn't a way I'll be able to get through STEP 1 to get into a good residency, that really, aside from being GPPA, I probably don't even belong in med school.
Do I really want to spend the rest of my life doing this thing that I don't even enjoy? I don't think my patients would really benefit from it. Hating what I'm doing...obviously the output won't be as good as someone who is doing what they love right?
BUT. I still have to do it. It's too late. Not because I'm in medical school, of course there are people who leave. We've had one person from our class leave already. But because I just have to do it. Family primarily. Secondly, what the hell WOULD I do if I wasn't in medical school? Bio degree? Econ degree? The only thing that I have on my resume outside of science-y things is my internship at Morgan Stanley. Where really, all I did was cold call and some computer things. NOT...impressive.
So. I am still here. Finishing up first semester as an M1. Hating it. Being miserable. Seeing that I'll probably be pretty miserable for the next decade or so. But really, there isn't much that I can do about it. So. Suck it up? Just don't fail? Or fail an exam but not the course? Uhhh. Yeah. We'll see.
Why? Is it the subject matter? Not really. I suppose it's pretty interesting, learning this or that, how this works, seeing organs, whatever. Is it that I hate people? Perhaps, I don't really LIKE lots of people, but I have nothing against sick people. But I just don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy learning this stuff. I'm not enthusiastic about it. I don't even really care about taking someone's HPI or learning how to write a proper HPI or complete history or going into LPC and following the doctor around.
The longer I'm in medical school, the more I start thinking the "What if" questions. What if I pursued a different path? Where would I be now? If I wasn't in med school, what would I do? If I could do anything I wanted to as a career and enjoy it, what would it be? If I didn't do GPPA and applied to other colleges just as colleges not as direct medical school programs, where would I be? What if I just go through med school, graduate with an MD but then I don't want to practice medicine?
Maybe it's UIC. I hate our class. Except for a few people. Otherwise, I don't think I'd miss them if I transferred. It's so segmented. The curriculum sucks. It takes multiple times for me to GET something. Like a concept or something. The first time I see it, I'll be confused, probably just memorize the facts but not really understand it. The way it is here, it's NOT systems based, so I'll see this thing once, have to learn it on my own for an exam, learn it again later, but it's so fragmented, I learn the physio at one time, the histo at another which they try to incorporate with it's function and cell bio which we have to learn on our own which is ridiculous, the biochem behind it, and anatomy. All at different times. WTF. That's so stupid. And it brings down my self-confidence like six billion notches. I always knew that I wasn't smart, I don't consider myself smart, just that I can work hard at something and see some sort of results. Now that the work hard/material has increased a million fold, I can't keep up with it and SUCK at school, the one thing that I guess I was pretty good at up until now. Makes me feel even worse about myself, that I will be terrible as a doctor, that there really isn't a way I'll be able to get through STEP 1 to get into a good residency, that really, aside from being GPPA, I probably don't even belong in med school.
Do I really want to spend the rest of my life doing this thing that I don't even enjoy? I don't think my patients would really benefit from it. Hating what I'm doing...obviously the output won't be as good as someone who is doing what they love right?
BUT. I still have to do it. It's too late. Not because I'm in medical school, of course there are people who leave. We've had one person from our class leave already. But because I just have to do it. Family primarily. Secondly, what the hell WOULD I do if I wasn't in medical school? Bio degree? Econ degree? The only thing that I have on my resume outside of science-y things is my internship at Morgan Stanley. Where really, all I did was cold call and some computer things. NOT...impressive.
So. I am still here. Finishing up first semester as an M1. Hating it. Being miserable. Seeing that I'll probably be pretty miserable for the next decade or so. But really, there isn't much that I can do about it. So. Suck it up? Just don't fail? Or fail an exam but not the course? Uhhh. Yeah. We'll see.
