Through the Aided Eye

There once was was a girl who really enjoyed learning. She rarely had problems with her school work. Science has been something she had a particular interest in.

She has always been one of the best students in her school and her fascination in biology and chemistry has been noticed by her teachers. She Attended an individual education program in these two subjects, where she could learn faster and learn more with a couple of students with similar interests. At that point in life she wanted to be a scientist and work in a laboratory. So whenever anyone suggested she became a doctor, she would just say that it’s not something that interests her.

Her idea of future has changed the day she started high school. She decided to leave the door open for other ideas and see what life brings. The thing she was sure of was that in adult life she wants to help people. Her family, teachers and friends were telling her that that’s where they see her in the future- in a hospital helping patients. She really wanted to become a doctor at that point.

She read a lot of medical books, did volounteer work at an organization, which helped cancer fighters and worked extremely hard to pass her finał exams in order to be accepted into med school.

And then it happened! She got several messages from several medical universities that she is accepted! But the university of her first choice said no. She felt extremely proud, because her tests went great and she could pick from university offers, but that one university she was wishing to study at the most turned her down. That’s when she started having doubts. What if she wasn’t meant to be a doctor and life was giving her a hint? But she got accepted into other schools and that had to mean something aswell.

She decided to give medicine a try. She packed her bags, rented a small flat in a completely unknown city and set off for the biggest adventure of her life. The first couple of weeks were amazing! The new books, new friends, new classes. Everything was so fascinating to read about! But after some time, after the first fascination, the struggle started.

She no longer enjoyed studying the subjects that she was taking. Some days she couldn’t concentrate at all and just sat at her desk for a couple of hours not getting any work done. She missed her family and old friends a lot and didn’t get along too well with the new buddies. She cried every night, but she knew that these studies were hard for everyone, so she kept moving on, despite the health problems she started having.  After all, she wanted to help others.

But one day something inside her cracked. Within minutes she completely fell apart. She couldn’t stop crying for a couple of hours. She decided to call her mother and ask for some comforting words. They were on the phone for 2 or 3 hours. That’s when she told her mom, that she doesn’t want to do it anymore, she just can’t handle it any longer. Her mom understood and said that she noticed that something has been wrong for a long time now, that she was miserable and forgot about her health. Her mother wasn’t angry or disappointed. She wanted her daughter to live again. That moment of understanding, her mother’s words gave her the courage to stand up and get herself out of the hopeless state she found herself in. 

And that’s when the girl decided to quit, to end the struggle. She tried her best and fought till the end, but medicine just wasn’t for her. She’s been thinking about it for a couple of weeks now, but that phone call gave her the courage to do so. The next day, she signed her resignation paper, handed it in, packed her bags and headed home.

That girl is turning 20 in a month and her name is Zuzanna, or Zuzia as people call her. 

Yes, I am that girl. I quit med school after nearly a year of hard work, many tears and generating health problems. I tried my best to fit into the med students community, to start enjoying studying again, but I failed. But I don’t feel ashamed. It took me almost the whole year to understand that medicine is not for me. It took me a year to see that it only seems so perfect form the outside and on the inside it’s just full of abnegations, disappointments and illusions. It took me a year to see that my teenage dreams of becoming a scientist are my true dreams.

I am full of respect and appreciation for all the doctors and medical students, who sacrifice their lives to serve every person in need. The career you have chosen is probably one of the most amazing and wonderful paths in life. But as doctor Luanda Grazette once said: 

“Medicine is only for those who cannot imagine doing anything else.”

And I could imagine myself doing something else. I actually want to study biology, something I’ve always been charmed by, and try to help others either by teaching or working in a laboratory. But for now, I’m planning on getting healthy and finding peace and happiness in life again.

If you are going through relatable problems, have comparable doubts about your studies or have any questions concerning this issue, feel free to message me either though this blog or through my private page here.

“Sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get you to the right place.” ― Mandy Hale 

“Nature lives in motion”.  James Hutton, the father of modern Geology.