The Megha Project

Hi!! I can’t believe it’s taken me four months to actually write a blog post. My drafts are filled with half written posts, but today I’m feeling extra inspired by my girl, T Swift, and I’m going to write a coherent, fully formed update. If you live under a rock, you might have missed Taylor Swift re-releasing her Red album. I was never a huge fan of the original album (I’m a die hard Speak Now girl) but the 10 minute All Too Well is a true masterpiece. If you haven’t heard it or seen the accompanying short film, go watch it right now. I’ve always found it absolutely incredible how artists like Taylor Swift can convey every emotion they experience and tell these deeply intimate stories so beautifully. This post won’t be anything like that lol. 

It’s been a very fast four months. I have finished three whole blocks of my second year already (Cardio, Pulm, and Endocrine). We’re nearing the end of GI right now. I’m in awe of how quickly it’s all gone. It hasn’t been easy. Not by the slightest. I don’t think I anticipated how much harder second year would be from the first. Throw in the fact that I am going back to school in person after over a year. I haven’t woken up at 6 am and gone to school for an 8 hour school day since high school, and that itself was an adjustment. A few weeks ago, I actually ended up spending 12 hours at school and that was just class, labs, and clinic responsibilities. 

I have also moved out of my parents’ home and have been trying to adjust to being an independently functioning adult while also being a medical student. It’s a lot to juggle and I’ve tripped up. There have been setbacks that felt like tragedies in the moment. That’s all I’ll say for now. 

Aside from my living situation and the hectic nature of M2 year, my life is largely the same. I’m a lot more at peace in my academic environment than I was a year ago. I think it just comes from accumulating knowledge. My classmates are no longer strangers and medicine is not as much of this hazy hard to understand cloud. I’m not saying that I’m ready for the MD right now lol but I guess I’m not as lost as I was this time last year. 

When I started this blog, I wanted to fill it with quirky, funny stories. Even though I’m in person now, I don’t have any of those. I have a pretty great group of friends at school who I spend most of my time with. I find that spending time with them socially is easier than mingling with my non medical school friends. This is a bit ironic considering a year ago I found connecting with my medical school peers to be a challenge. Now that I’m fully immersed into the life of a medical student I find it frustrating when my other friends live the kind of life I can’t live or when they don’t understand why I spend most weekends at a desk reading and taking notes endlessly. I guess the balance between being an actual human being and a medical student is not one I have aced nor do I think I will.

My last real update is that I think I know what specialty I will ultimately pick. I had entered medical school with this field in mind but I tried very hard all throughout M1 year to remain open minded but time and time again it was this one speciality I felt completely drawn too. Drumroll!!!! It’s obstetrics and gynecology!!! 

This past summer, I spent a night shadowing in labor and delivery and knew immediately after that this was my calling. Throughout my first year, I joined the obgyn interest group and tried to pursue research in the specialty. I also am on leadership for an organization at my school that pairs medical student health coaches with high risk pregnant patients in the urban community. It’s my absolute favorite thing, and has made me realize that these patients mean so much to me. Recently, I also joined a mentorship program between medical students and Obgyns who practice abortion care. My mentor is a wonderful physician and she has taught me so much and given me such amazing advice. 

MY FIRST YEAR OF MED SCHOOL IS DONE. INSANITY!! I passed all my exams and in August I’ll officially be an M2. It’s a little surreal I just did a whole year of med school sucessfully. I still feel like I know nothing but there is some level of uneasiness that has disappeared. 

Mid October, I didn’t sleep the night before my week in the hospital began because I was so unbelievably nervous. I had no idea where anything was, I barely knew my classmates, and my medical knowledge could be summed up in three sentences. Flash forward to April, my friends and I decide to stop by the hospital after a meeting at school to check out a bake sale. We’re pleasantly chatting and laughing as we make our way to the hospital cafeteria. No hesitation about if we’re going in the right direction or if security is going to stop us..this is such a small instance of comfort and if I was walking into the hospital to do anything legitimate I’d still freak out, but hey, I’ll still count this as a win!  

I wish I had some advice to give about the first year but I don’t. I think my experience was so different given the pandemic. I will say that while the vast knowledge that is demanded of you is incredibly difficult one of the harder aspects for me was the loneliness. For the first time in my life, I found myself standing in unfamiliar territory that no one close to me understood. My life looked so different from my friends and family. In the past year, there have been so many instances where I would go to dinner with my childhood friends and I would simply stay silent and smile as they told me about all the wild adventures they go on as “normal” 21 year olds. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t leave me feeling insecure. 

 I decided to seek out help. I started seeing a therapist in January, and it’s been great! It’s nice to have a neutral third party to rant to, and even though I like to think I’m pretty self aware, she brings a fresh new perspective. She has made me realize things about myself that I was pretty oblivious to before. That being said, I sometimes find all the psychoanalysis annoying. I already spend so much time overthinking my every move. I think I’m learning my journey with therapy may be a bit disjointed and infrequent.

While there have been difficulties and breakdowns, there have also been successes and wins! I like to think I’ve made a few friends. They’re all great and I genuinely love spending time with them! I am excited to make more connections as we move to a more in-person format in August. Whether it feels like it or not, my medical knowledge has increased. 

Medical school was nothing like what I anticipated. I think when I first started this blog I expected to fill it with cute, rom-com type funny stories..ya there haven’t been very many of those LOL. Medical school isn’t the fantasy musical I had created in my head. I blame myself for that but it was also EVERYONE around me who perpetuated that. For years, people in my life told me that I just needed to put my head down and work hard because when I went to med school “everything would fall into place”. I think something a lot of medical students learn fairly early on is that in this long journey there’s never a time where it gets easier. Fun doesn’t disappear. Not at all. You just have to make time for the fun and the “easy”. There won’t come a time where you can be like “okay! it’s over!” because the path to becoming a physician is relentless. 

I’m honestly a little shocked at how I carried myself this year. This is the most academic stress I’ve ever endured yet I wasn’t as “crazy” as I have been in the past. Maybe it’s maturity and maybe it’s exhaustion. Caring is important. I still find myself occasionally answering emails in the shower lmao..but am I checking my grades while I’m out with friends or while I’m driving? No.

It’s my birthday tomorrow! The first year of med school ends in 5 days! So, obviously I’m not okay lol. This past year has gone by so quickly it’s hard to comprehend. I want to post an in depth recap of my M1 year, so look out for that. For now, I’m reflecting on the fact that I’m turning 22 tomorrow and feel strangely the exact opposite of the way I felt a year ago. 

I made a whole post a year ago (scroll down for that!) about how I felt this need to mature and age. I had a lot of anxieties about being so young in med school, and most of those feelings turned out to be valid. I am indeed much younger than my new friends and in a very different place in life-- mentally, emotionally, in all aspects really. At times, this bothers me. It doesn’t bother me now as much as it did in the beginning because I’ve developed this mechanism to deal with it: blaming it on my youth haha. Every time I’m out with my classmates and the conversation shifts to plans for the future, engagements, children, etc. I simply tell myself: “oh! I’m only 21!! I’m so young I don’t need to think about this!” 

I guess now that I’m turning a year older I’m confronted with the fact that I’m aging too. I can’t be 21 forever even though that sounds like a dream. I feel lost in a way I haven’t before and for the past few months it seems like everyone in my life wants me to figure out what I want fast. In order for my head to not explode, I’m going to start small. 

In my post from a year ago, I proclaimed a desire to not be as neurotic as I had been in the past and I think in many ways I accomplished that. As stressful as this past year was at times, I kept it together for the most part! Good work, Megha! However, I will say that in this attempt to adopt this new more relaxed take on life I’ve become such a people pleaser. I have always been someone willing to bend in whatever direction asked of me but recently I’ve noticed it’s become an extreme. It’s awful and not who I want to be. Of course, being accomodating is important but I can’t spend my whole life just doing whatever other people want. I have to have some backbone. It’s interesting because for a period in my life I was pretty difficult to deal with and could really stand my ground. I guess with age I’ve started to lose that? Instead, I have this desperate need to be liked..the kind of feeling you have when you’re 13 so it’s mortifying that I’m dealing with this at 22.  

ANYWAY, for my 22nd year, my new mission is to learn to live life for myself. To be truly myself! 

With age, you get exposed to the harsher realities of the world: your parents are human too, the people you love don’t always love you back, and many other cruel truths. For me, I’m entering this birthday without someone important to me yet again. It makes my heart ache a little to think that last year I had to figure out how to do this without one of my best friends and another year later I’m in the same boat. BUT I have also made many new friends! They’re all great and it’s nice to have people who “get it”. I’m definitely more comfortable in my life now than I was 6 months ago. 

Hi! Quick life update: I’m almost done my first year of medical school which is insanity!! We’re in the middle of the hematology/oncology block which is overwhelming to say the least. All these leukemias seem the same to me and I barely remember all the anemia stuff we learned weeks ago! It’s a lot and part of the reason why I was dreading going to clinic today.

Normally, I love clinic. I get to go so infrequently so any chance I do get is amazing. Talking to and “treating” actual patients is a surreal experience, but with the horrible weather and my three page to do list staring at me I really was not feeling it. In fact, I silently hoped that with the bad weather, more patients would cancel and I’d get to leave early. 

The patient I saw today looked visibly distressed from the moment she walked through the door. She only spoke Spanish which neither myself nor my M3 speak so we had to call a third party over-the-phone translator. Our patient had recently been hospitalized for a sudden medical issue and had come today as a follow up. She repeatedly conveyed she was still in immense pain and as she pulled out her numerous bottles of medications, my M3 whispered to me that we’d probably have to send her to the Emergency Department across the street. It was puzzling as to why this simple antibiotic wasn’t providing any kind of relief. After several minutes of back and forth, my M3 and I finally realized that with the numerous medications she had and the language barrier, she had been accidentally taking the incorrect medication. In fact, in all the confusion she hadn’t even been given the correct antibiotic. My M3 and I shared a look of relief when we finally solved the mystery but as we began to explain the misunderstanding to her, tears filled her eyes. 

It’s so easy in medical school to get so wrapped up in your own issues and the pressures to study and perform well. We’ve been having a lot of career advising meetings recently and I’ve been feeling an immense pressure to out-compete my classmates. I’ve been adding extra-curriculars and more research exposure but what is the end goal here? Isn’t this all at the end of the day meaningless if we’re neglecting the patient in the process? I was so hyperfocused on the medicine and on the technicalities of the visit that  my attention had shifted from the true reason I was even a medical student: the patient. 

When the patient got emotional, the M3 and I tried our best to be reassuring and compassionate. I’ll be honest. I was thrown off my game. She was clearly worried, and here I was equally frazzled trying to do a physical exam--something I have never done on an actual human being. This was not the right situation for me to fumble around and I think my M3 understood when he offered to step in. 

By the end of the appointment, I felt largely disappointed in myself because I barely did anything. I also felt guilty for complaining earlier about having to even be there when here was this patient, uninsured and in pain, looking to us for answers. I had begun thinking of how I was going to explain my poor performance to my M3 when the patient got up to leave and the most absurd thing happened...

She grabbed my arm warmly, smiled, and said, “Gracias! Thank you so much!” She might have even accidentally called me “doctor”. 

Aloha friends! I did it!! I am one full semester into medical school, and it feels...weird. It’s honestly such a mix of emotions. I feel both relieved and grateful for a break but also anxious and a little lost when I think of the long road ahead. 

I’m sorry I have not shared more on this blog like I had intended to, but to be honest the semester wasn’t the exciting adventure I was expecting. Of course, the global pandemic had a lot to do with that. However, there were moments, when it seemed as if the situation was improving, that I was reminded why I wanted to do this in the first place. 

I’ve only been to clinic once. I don’t know what came over me that one afternoon but I channeled this engaged, fierce version of myself that I used to only see when I did high school debate (I’m a proud, passionate academic nerd, fight me!). A lot of the first month of medical school was me questioning why I was there. As I met my classmates, who were a lot older and more experienced, I had this growing pit in my stomach that I had somehow cheated the system and accidentally found myself in a place that I wasn’t even sure I should be in. After that first time in clinic, I was able to resolve at least one inner conflict: I wanted more than anything to be a doctor. 

The medical school I attend has a two week block in the fall where much of the time is spent observing different specialties in the hospital. During this time, I had many similar moments that left me knowing that the decisions I made up until this point were the right ones. I got the chance to round on the high risk pregnant patients with the attending, and I think about those patients’ stories all the time. Imagine being pregnant, having complications, and being all alone in the hospital in the middle of a pandemic. The cherry on top is that so many of the women didn’t even speak English. I cannot even begin to understand what that’s like, and it was that day I realized Women’s Health appeals to me in a different way. So many women have this incredible strength that allows them to survive situations that I shudder just thinking about. I can write a whole separate post on this. Granted, I’ve barely begun medical school and have so much to see but if there’s a specialty at the top of my list it’s that one. 

I guess all in all I don’t have many complaints when it comes to my professional trajectory this year. I accomplished a lot, and was given amazing new opportunities. Of course, I am not the star of medical school even though I really would like to be lmao. But this shit is hard and I think given the circumstances I’m doing alright. 

Other aspects of my life are much messier. With the loss of two people that I care about deeply, I spent much of the year fixated on my shortcomings in my personal life. Medical school can be isolating on its own and in a pandemic that feeling is amplified. I have been incredibly critical of myself, trying desperately to fix all the things I think might be wrong with me. It’s honestly embarrassing--the advice I listened to, the spirals I went down, and overall how miserable I made myself. I am admitting this only because I want to leave all this behind in 2020. 

I will not dedicate any more time to feeling bad about who I am or the unintended results of the choices I’ve made. Maybe I did spend too much time in the past 21 years studying and I accept whatever consequences may come from that. Maybe I do lack some natural charisma or spark. Maybe I am inherently unlikeable. I accept all of that too. 

 Okay, this is one post that I will not delete. I know I haven’t kept up with this blog in the way I wanted to but I have been nervous, desperately trying to write the most eloquent post I can curate. That’s not what I wanted this space to ever be, so I’m just going to unabashedly share my thoughts. 

Today is truely a joyous day. Former Vice President Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States of America!!! Senator Kamala Harris will be the first woman, first South Asian, first Black Vice President!!! What a legendary moment in American History. I can’t wait to watch that orange nightmare leave the White House. I think I’ve made my political beliefs pretty obvious here lol. 

I have prided myself on staying politically engaged since I was a teenager, but today’s victory makes me emotional in a different way. As I have mentioned in this space before, I lost my grandmother a few months ago. I have spoken at length about how extraordinary she was, and how deeply her passing has cut me. She survived so much devastation and tragedy in her own life, a fact I didn’t learn until fairly recently. Devastation and tragedy that is oddly similar to that of the new President-Elect. I hadn’t actually realized this until yesterday when CNN casually mentioned that Joe Biden’s birthday is November 20th...That also happens to be my late grandmother’s birthday. The coincidence seemed so uncanny that it felt like a sign from her and the universe. Joe Biden is often lauded as being incredibly empathetic, as a result of the various obstacles he faced. Suddenly, in the moment, the similarities between Dida and Joe Biden seemed so bright. I always wondered how Dida could spread so much love, choose others when life had betrayed her so many times, and now I find myself wondering the same thing of Joe Biden. They both believed so fervently in the good, both so hopeful for the future. They somehow knew it got better. Or maybe they didn’t and just hoped. 

Hi friends!! I’m four weeks into officially being a medical student!  I had intended to make a post weeks ago about my transition and thoughts so far, but every draft was so sporadic and filled with anxious rhetorical questions. I’m feeling a little more centered so here it goes..

If I had to describe medical school in one word thus far it would be: overwhelming. It’s a lot. I don’t think you can truly understand until you’re in it. I know I definitely didn’t. Of course, the pace is fast and even though much of the course material is review, it is still a lot. There’s also this sense that there’s always more to learn, more to research, and more to prepare. I found this to be true last week in ALG (group casework), I was so sure that the patient had sickle cell anemia that I barely did any other research. Of course, because it’s me and my life lmao, the patient did not have sickle cell anemia. In fact, I was no where close and I silently panicked for two hours as I tried to give meaningful input in a discussion where I knew nothing. 

Medical school is so immersive, almost like a cult. I feel like it could be so easy to make this your whole life. You might end up doing it without even intending to. It’s only been a few weeks and I found myself going through the chromosomal abnormalities in my head as I was facetiming a friend the other night...tell me that’s not insane!! That being said, anyone inside or outside medicine will tell you that you should not make this your whole life. I guess because it’s not sustainable? You’ll drive yourself to burnout quicker if you don’t step out of it sometimes, I presume. This creates an interesting predicament for me because in the past I’ve completely thrown myself into school. I was the kid who would feel deathly ill but would still force herself to go to school, because the idea of falling behind was just so incomprehensible. So, I can feel myself trying to actively fight against the desire to fall back into old habits. This fight will only become harder as the coursework becomes more challenging. Stay tuned to see if I give in! 

We are approximately two weeks away from the first day of medical school orientation. For the past few months, I had spent hours lying in bed at night wondering how the first day would go. Would I retreat in a corner? Would I try to start conversation with anyone? Would anyone try to talk to me? Now the questions have changed...Will I hit unmute at any point during the Zoom call? Will I do these calls from my baby pink bedroom or will I try to not completely embarrass myself by sitting in my neutral kitchen? 

I have been asking myself these questions everyday for the past two weeks anyway, so they aren’t very new. The medical school I attend offers a 4 week program to select first year students wherein these students have conversations with faculty, sit in lectures which review crucial undergraduate coursework, and just get to know some classmates before medical school officially begins. Normally, this program is in-person at the medical school building. This year given COVID-19 conditions, it has been modified to be entirely online. I was fortunate enough to be chosen and honestly I’ve learned so much already. I figured out how I like to take notes, I’m starting to find my own niche in group casework (otherwise known as ALG at my school), and I don’t want to say I’ve made friends because let’s be real I largely stay silent but I have opened up a lot more since the first day. 

I should also be grateful because I’ve gotten a taste for online medical school. It’s very awkward and for someone like me who thrives off in person communication it’s not the best. That being said, it’s not the worst thing in the world. It takes some getting used to but it can be done. 

I think what saddens me the most is that I have so many dreams and images of the future and it seems like these days those dreams and images won’t stop changing without my permission. It’s hard to admit that ultimately we have no control. I dreamt of wearing a white coat since I was in the eighth grade. In my dream, I was super skinny, really pretty, and I would strut down the halls of a hospital a stethoscope in hand like I really knew what I was doing. As the years went by, the dreams became much more specific and less whimsical (lmao if you know me at all, you know that they never got any less whimsical). When I was 17 and got accepted into the 7 year, the dream turned into imagining myself at my white coat ceremony with my mom, my dad, my Dadu, and most importantly my Dida. I imagined she’d be standing there with a new sari on with tears in her eyes and she’d give me the biggest hug as soon as I came out of the auditorium. When she got diagnosed, I realized the dream would have to change and she wouldn’t be able to come and I imagined all the ways we could livestream the ceremony and how I would send her all the photos. Knowing her, she would show everyone she knew those photos.. I would call her at night and she’d tell me how incredibly proud she was of me. When she passed, the dream had to change again and instead I dreamt of wearing her watch and her ring as I crossed the stage so that she could still be there with me. When COVID first hit, I had so much hope my dream wouldn’t have to change anymore, that things would get better. Now, it seems like the dream is going to have to change and I’m going to have to accept the reality of getting my white coat on a livestream. 

It’s dumb that I’m upset. People are losing their lives and the current situation isn’t anyone’s fault. Although, I do blame the Trump Administration a considerable amount. I wouldn’t be surprised if Italian medical students were out here having their white coat ceremonies but I digress. It’s not just the white coat though. Should the physicians of tomorrow really be learning medicine from their bedrooms? Would you want a doctor who learned medicine that way? Of course, my medical school is doing a lot to ensure that the quality of our education isn’t compromised but studying to become a doctor can already be such an isolating experience. I wonder what a mostly online medical education will do to my mental health. 

When I was a kid, I would cry every single year on my birthday. Sometimes (most of the time), it would just be overexcitement and my tendency to be overdramatic. In recent years, I haven’t been crying but only time will tell if the annual sob returns this year. Given the current state of the world, I feel like it would be acceptable. 

I will say that this birthday feels a bit different. I had anticipated having a crisis before my 20th birthday, but I really didn’t have one. My life a year ago had seemed pretty predictable and that was reassuring. I have always absolutely hated change and that’s what the theme of this year and this birthday seems to be. All of a sudden, I feel this desperate need to grow up which is incredibly strange because since forever I’ve felt mature. I always felt older than my age, and for the first time in my life I feel like a child. How does one even grow up? What is being grown up? 

Much of the anxiety over my age is connected to starting medical school. I have been anxious about what it means to be so young in medical school for a long time, but now as the beginning of this new journey creeps closer the nervousness intensifies. Do I really understand what I’m getting myself into? How can you really understand anything at 21? 

Then again, Kylie Jenner had a baby and a billion dollar business at 21 (try not to shake your head at the fact that this is my reference point for societal norms). So, does age even really matter? Probably not. Yet, as I have been for 21 years, I’ll overthink myself into a whirlpool of worry and paranoia. Sooo, for my 21st birthday I am making myself a promise and a resolution to not think so much, to choose positivity - a task much easier said than done.

My high-strung, type A tendencies have worked quite well for 21 years but I’m ready to dial it back.  In a profession such as the one I’m about to begin exploring, I think learning to roll with the punches and taking life as it comes is important. One of my late grandmother’s biggest complaints about me (other than my knotty hair) was that I was always worrying about the future and about things that in the end didn’t matter. 

Her passing also makes this birthday difficult. Every year on my birthday, not only would she send me multiple cards with too much money but she would send ice cream to all the children from the local villages. She was so generous it was honestly hard to comprehend. I could go on and on about my grandmother, but all I’ll say for now is that I fully intend to live life as I know she would have wanted me to. 

I know that this blog was fully intended to be all about my medical school adventures but since that hasn’t begun yet I shall fill this space with my other thoughts. 

A year ago, Mindy Kaling released a casting call looking for young South Asian American women to be the lead in her new Netflix show. I downloaded the script and seriously considered auditioning. I ultimately didn’t and now a year later I binged the entire season in one night. 

I had a feeling since the trailer was released that I wouldn’t like this show. I have always found South Asian representation in modern media problematic. I have my reservations about Lilly Singh and Priyanka Chopra. However, I will admit I have always thoroughly enjoyed Mindy Kaling’s work. I think it’s because she might be more obsessed with rom-coms than I am and that’s evident in almost everything she makes, including this show. The days following the release of the show on Netflix my social media feeds were filled with posts about how problematic and cringey the show was. I began retweeting a lot of these harsh criticisms without even seeing the show because I was sure they were true. I had been anticipating this. 

Tonight, I actually sat down and watched the whole thing and I couldn’t have been more wrong. I really really enjoyed it. There were parts that were very cringey and parts I didn’t agree with. My biggest complaint with South Asian representation in popular culture is that we are never shown as progressive people when a lot of us are. Never Have I Ever failed in this area in some scenes, like when a male chaperone is needed for an arranged marriage to be fixed (come on!). There were also moments where it shined like where Devi was allowed to eat meat no question even though her parents were vegetarians. She was allowed to make that decision herself which is very common in many modern Indian-American homes. 

The ongoing aspect of the show that I truly loved was Devi meeting with a therapist. Mental health in South Asian culture has been taboo for so long and the show handles it beautifully. The epiphany Devi’s mom is able to reach with the therapist had me wanting to scream about how every Indian person needs to see a therapist like yesterday!!! 

The romantic aspects were also great! Mindy Kaling always nails romance in my opinion (at least early on in her shows). Danny and Mindy were my faves until they went haywire after season 3. Devi has two main love interests both pretty adorable in my opinion. I’m personally Team Ben because come on how can you not be?! ALSO *spoiler alert* but can we talk about how epic that episode Andy Samberg narrates is?! I LOVE ANDY SAMBERG and he was the narrator!! I think that was one of my favorite episodes. 

There is so much to be said and discussed about this show. The acting all around is fantastic in my opinion. The supporting characters are all great!! Special shout out to Devi’s mom and dad for not only being a super cute couple but really bringing out the realness that is desi parents. 

At the core of it all, this is a show about grief. I don’t know much about grief except that I am experiencing it now for the first time. It’s hard and constant and I found solace in knowing that a lot of the experiences I am having Devi has had too. At one point, Devi discovers this repressed memory of this fight she had with her parents right before her father passed. A few days ago, my mother reminded me of how my grandmother tried to teach me to cook right before she was diagnosed. I acted like a brat just like Devi, and now that memory won’t stop gnawing at me.