Monday, October 21, 2013

The Scariest Part of Medical School

At first, I thought the scariest part of medical school would be relinquishing "a life," thanks to insanely excessive amounts of studying that take over every aspect of one's existence.

After adjusting to this inhumane lifestyle, I've come to realize it's not scary at all... it's just become a fact of life. I am used to studying for hours almost every day. What I've come to realize is that the scariest part is having to actually KNOW this information forever! It's not like in undergrad, when it was good enough to know the information to get you through an exam - then your brain is free to empty it all out. With medical school, your brain needs to really soak in most of the information, even the little mundane, boring details, because it's the stuff that will help you to help others. Your brain needs to retain that information beyond the next exam or block final because it will 1) show up on boards in a couple years and 2) because that's what will help to make you a good doctor.

It's extremely scary when I think about how hard it is to study everything and to really really know it so that I can treat patients on my own one day. I sometimes think it's simply not possible to know most of this stuff.

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