Hi,
So to give you a perspective first–I am a first year medical student and I have gone through about 4 weeks of school so far.
There are many ups and downs from the whole university experience, like meeting new people, making new friends, being exposed to a totally new environment… But this blogpost isn’t so much about my thoughts on my freshie uni experience, I want to share more about my 4 weeks in medical school specifically. The reason for wanting to share my experience is to see if anyone else out there feels the same way as me, and also as a reflection for me to look back on in years to come.
Firstly, let’s start with the interesting and fun bits of med sch, shall we? There was the white coat ceremony in the first week, where I felt so lucky and blessed to be able to be part of this interesting journey ahead. I couldn’t have come so far if not for my family and friends who had my back all this time. The white coat ceremony was really a significant part of my experience so far, like as if I was validated and welcomed into the medical fraternity as a Year 1. Then came the lessons. We were learning anatomy, biochemistry, health ethics, the healthcare system…it was mostly all new to me and yet so exciting. It was so different from my Junior College days, where I studied science (mostly) for the sake of it without really understanding the practical applications for it. The things I’m learning now, although I just started my pre-clinical years, but I could really see how they could be practically applied in the later clinical years. Anatomy especially, really opened my eyes–I could actually identify the bones, muscles, vessels and nerves in my body now! Overall, it just felt so cool learning the basics of the human body, and seeing little glimpses of the clinical applications.
However, despite the coolness of learning about the workings of the human body, there were some challenges that I faced of course. Sure, anatomy is fun, but it gets challenging. On a real human body, the muscles are so much more difficult to identify, I couldn’t tell apart the blood vessels from nerves, I couldn’t identify significant bony landmarks…but my classmates could. In those times when they could identify and I couldn’t, I felt so dumb and had a strong feeling of imposter’s syndrome. This didn’t only apply to anatomy sessions though. During tutorials, when the professor would shoot fire questions at us, I couldn’t confidently give an answer to some of his questions but my friends could. I was a physics student, so I struggled to grasp certain biochemical concepts, while my biology classmates were dozing off in lectures because they learnt it before. All these incidences, they made me feel so inadequate and feel as if they (admissions officers) let me into med school by mistake. Like how could a dumb, blur person like me be in med school? I mean, just compare my classmates and me, they were so confident about their material while I was always trying to grasp the concepts barely. With the exams coming up in less than 2 weeks, I haven’t really started my revision but I’m pretty sure my classmates have. While others skipped a day of school to study, I skipped to catch up on sleep. The coming exams scare me, because it’s my first ever exam in med school, and I’m not sure if I’ll even pass. I’m aiming to pass, but what if pass is not good enough?
All these bad thoughts aside, of course, I must not forget to mention the fraternity in med school. Everyone is so open to helping one another, it’s like everyone has each other’s backs and this feeling is so reassuring amidst the stress and tribulations of the med school journey.
Although the stress of exams is slowly creeping up on me, I want to always remind myself about why I’m in med school and to not let the people (who will always have my back) down. I need to tell myself to just try my best, so what if i fail? It’s not the end of the world, I can try harder for the next one. So what if they really made a mistake when admitting me into med school? I’m in already, so might as well make the best out of it.
Good luck to those taking A levels, O levels, or any other exams! Let’s do this together!! We can all do it! 🙂
XOXO
J
Heyitsjojo 