Mental Mas---- what?

I don't really let things get to me. As far as school's concerned, anyway.

Im about to jump head-first into my first battery (block) of exams this semester, and I'm ready to go. I've studied more for anatomy than probably 1/2 of all my undergraduate education put together; and I'd say it's not so bad. The material can be dry, but as long as you try to organize everything sensibly in your head, it comes together.

But back to my point. I think the reason that medical school/medical education doesn't really attack and stun me the way it does to a lot of my peers is because I'm a ...well, a reductionist.

I'm not special or different or above anyone else in my class in terms of who I am, I just take things for what they are and don't expect anything more. Not that I'm a pessimist or fatalist, no, not at all. But what I see a lot of kids doing is, again what dear Uncle Panda calls "Mental Masturbation."

So much of what we do and what we expect is lofty, heaped-on happy stuff. And yeah, we need it; we as a society and culture need all of this showy stuff like student-council, activities, study groups, class president. But on the fringes of my class, I just take what comes. I go to class, come home, learn the material, then go take the tests. If I expected to have some sort of huge, life-changing experience, than I'd either construct one out of nothing and live a lie, or be sorely disappointed.

You see, a great deal of group-think is involved whenever you have a tight group of people in one place at one time. Psychologists and sociologists would have a ball with medical school classes. Everyone is understandably under a ton of stress. We all share the same locker-room, facilities, anatomy lab, lecture halls, etc. We are all funneled into the same classes, tests, finals and we're all under the same administration. It's so easy to get lost and caught up in this new reality that I see kids losing themselves already and it's only been a month.

It's just school - I don't intend on being at the top of my class. Or even in the top 15%. The amount of work it takes to do that is extreme and is reserved for the inevitable 15% that actually want to live this stuff. As I've heard a lot, someone who is all study completely lacks breadth. What does 100s on anatomy exams and a class rank of 1 mean? To them it might mean a lot...but I can't imagine that lasting forever. They might get a coveted dermatology residency position and practice in a cush suburban town earning 400k/yr doing botox injections.

But it is what you make of it...what you expect. The tendency here at this point is to put life off and say "it will get better later." Sure, to a degree, it will. Second year is supposed to be a bit more interesting and the clinical years are supposed to be pretty enjoyable (overall...the key is overall). But you can't put everything on hold. Life is going by right now - you're in your early-mid 20s and at your prime. Live now. I will keep going out (not as often as before) and playing video games and doing all my geeky things because that is who I am. You don't have to put in 100 hours a week to master this stuff.

I can't speak from experience yet...but I know that you can log your 4-5 hours a day on the material and veg-out for the rest of the day. This should leave at the least an hour or two every single day to chill, on top of getting a good 7-8 hours of sleep! If you have the discipline, log 9a-5p on Saturday and perhaps another 8-hour "shift" on Sunday, and you can go out Friday and Saturday nights without a hitch! Even before a Monday exam I know people who survived and kept up a semblance of a normal life.

I can't wait until I actually have the credibility to talk about study-habits, but I can say that studying for hours and hours every day hasn't been all that awful. Yeah, it's a marathon. One semester feels like hell and forever and there are 4 vicious pre-clinical semesters to endure. After that lies 3rd year, surgery rotation, intern year, etc etc etc.

I think that ... there's just too much hardship to get scared about. Yeah, it sucks and its hard. Everyone who applies (should) know this. It's a path to choose and to walk. But I believe it's all in attitude and what you make of it. You can go into this and just rip yourself to shreds to get into a neuro-surgery residency at Harvard. That same person would probably be #1 at whatever they chose to do in life because they're a hard-worker, period.

But happiness is relative. What is happiness to you? To me? I can't imagine someone needing so much academic achievement to be happy. Is their appetite that big that they need to immerse themselves in uninterrupted study 24/7 to become a respected doctor? I guess so. But for me, happiness is a balance of a fulfilling career and lots of friends and family. That's what everyone tells you...but don't create realities for yourself in here, you just can't afford more stress than what's already going to come.

I think my bottom line is that person A and person B can take radically different approaches, experience radically different amounts of stress, yet still achieve the exact same thing. It's all in personal preference and approach. I can commit the brachial plexus to memory while sitting at home in my PJs and listening to Tool. You can do the same thing at the medical library at 11pm in your cubicle in dead silence. That's great. Come test day we'll both have the same thing in our head. I'm happy doing my work at home and you want to stay at school to do yours; that's fine.

Just do what's best for you, I think. And, while not being a pessimist, don't expect anything more than what you see. There doesn't have to be sugar-coating on everything. People get sick, people die, kids get cancer, good people have bad things happen to them. Lots of things in this world just suck and I think all one can do is look for the glimmer of light and live according to their own principles. I'm happy - I love medicine but I will not let it enslave me. There are so many other things that I love to the point of fanaticism (rock bands/music, Japanese animation, video games, computers, my closest friends, my girl-friend). These things, for me, make the world great despite all the bull-shit, and make things worth living through.

This post has no real point. I just dumped a bunch of mental masturbation on here myself, I think. But if you haven't caught it before, mental masturbation is simply when a group of people stand around and talk BS/blow hot-air about nothing. Happens a ton in medical school...especially by first-years who want to sound cool.

By the way; remember that essay (...personal statement) you had to write to get into medical school? That's pretty much mental masturbation in purified form. I can't believe how imperfect the admissions process is, but it is the only way of screening the masses of eager pre-meds out. It's unfortunate, because once you're in, your essay is just a pile of too-good-to-be-true words written for a perfect world that won't exist. But so it goes....I can tell you now that over 75% of those happy essays mention how they want to altruistically journey abroad and work for the betterment of humanity. Lump 8 years of debt and academic/personal/emotional abuse on them and that 75% turns to the true 5% or less.

I'm out - good night.

Medical School Sucks

I'm thankful to be in, and for the vast myriad of opportunities that await me and my hard-working colleagues.

That said, medical school really does suck no matter how you spin it. It's a prestigious profession with pretty much the longest training time-scale of anything a person could choose to go into. It's expected that the training will take sacrifice, sacrifices I was willing to make when I interviewed and that I'm still willing to make now that I'm in and starting to really make them.

That said again, (bitch, moan) it sucks. My class-mates are so competitive. We're all going into different specialties for the most part - who cares who gets the highest grades? Oh no...if you're not in the top 10% of the class you might....not get into medical school or something! Truth be told, the higher your marks, the more chances you will have for residencies and specialties that you want. If I wanted dermatology, I'd be studying this instant instead of typing a blog-post...that is just how bad dermatology is to match into, for instance. Luckily, I don't want the ultra-competitive specialties. The things I think are cool are the mid-level ones, so I gotta still work as hard as possible.

Agh, it's all driving me nuts. Just nuts. The first exam block is beginning and I'm losing it.