Life is Good

…about some things that no one tells you about medical school. Medical school is akin to running a marathon at a sprint pace the whole time, and this can be really fucking exhausting. Yes, people talk about how hard it is, but there’s always a note of cheery optimism - “I got through it and so can you! How hard can it be?”. 

Well - really really hard.

First year is exciting and new; you’re drowning in new material so you always feel like you’re learning something new. But you’re also treading water constantly trying to stay above the tide of material, which means that by the end of the year, you’re exhausted. Exhilarated, yes. But also exhausted. Then comes summer and you come back in second year thinking, I’ve got this, I’m well rested and ready. The thing is, second year is more massive chunks of information. This is the part where you feel like you’re running a marathon at a sprint pace, except now you have blocks of cement on your feet; more information to shove in and it feels like there will always be new facts to learn. And I haven’t even started studying for the Step yet. 

Maybe it’s just me, but the more time I spend in a classroom and away from patients, the more I feel like I’m dragging. The more arcane facts I memorize about tuberculosis and mesothelioma and hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, the more I forget why I came here in the first place. It’s easy to lose sight of your goals in the face of the fifty-odd cardiology lectures you need to get through by Monday for your final.