All is not fair in life and medical school

"Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens, not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes. It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results."

-anonymous



Good advice, no?


Well here I am, ten weeks into my first year of medical school. Don't I just look so professional and serene in my fancy white coat???

But truth be told, it's been a rough ride so far. I left San Diego at the end of July, saying goodbye to all that has been my life for the last six years. I drove across the country with my cats, my rats, and my mom for five very very long days. Arriving in Richmond was like arriving in hell.....at first. It was so hot and humid I couldn't catch a breath for the first couple days. After that, I came home from my first orientation day to find that my kitchen had been flooded from a leaking pipe in the ceiling. I had a giant hole in my ceiling for four or five days. Then of course one of the cats got up onto the refrigerator, went into the ceiling and somehow ended up getting stuck between the wall of the bathroom and bedroom. We had to knock a hole in the bedroom wall to get him out. So yeah, life was not fun at that point. The high point of my orientation week was the white coat ceremony, during which I first recited the hippocratic oath. To finally be recognized as a medical student....well there is no way that I can describe how that felt. It was amazing. At long last I stood at the gateway to all that I had dreamt of for so long. The culmination of my application year, the joys, sorrows, and tears of the long battle had come to an end. I felt in that moment that my life, brimming with all the potential my imagination could conceive, was really just beginning.

So life in medical school began. Our first block consisted of medical biochemistry and population medicine, along with the year long Foundations of Clinical Medicine course. I settled quickly into a routine: lecture every morning, periodic sessions in the afternoon, and of course studying in the evening. I spent what free time I had talking on the phone with people back home, or attending one of many school sponsored social events (How cool is an open bar tab paid for by the medical school?). But I did start to feel the homesickness. It took a while for it to kick in that I had really moved to Richmond and now resided there. I had trouble coming to grips with the fact that I had just moved three thousand miles away from everything and everyone that I loved. Yet despite my loneliness, I persisted in my studies, enough that I sailed through the first two exams with flying colors. Alpha Omega Alpha (top 16% of the medical school class) seemed like it would be a breeze for me.

Unfortunately, just when I least expected it, things got bad. Real bad. I experienced what you would call a life shattering event. It felt like someone had just dropped a nuclear bomb on my life to be more exact. I will spare you the sordid details of my personal life, but trust me, a worse thing couldn't have happened at a worse moment. I sunk into a depression that took me places so low that you couldn't even imagine unless you've been there yourself. I stopped attending class and stayed in bed for a long time, about a month to be exact. The population medicine course had ended after the second exam, and was replaced with a human genetics course that I didn't bother to attend even once. So what about the exams you say? Well, I managed to drag myself in there on the next two exam days, and believe it or not I passed both of them. Not with flying colors, but I passed. All I can say is that I must be either extremely brilliant or extremely lucky. Maybe a little of both. But truth be told, I fully expected to fail those exams, having studied maybe all of two minutes, and I know that unconsciously I wanted to use that as an excuse to drop out. I really did seriously consider taking a year off to get my head on straight. I knew I still wanted to be a doctor, but I wondered how on earth I was going to be able to concentrate on medical school when I felt so bad inside. So what did I do?

I finally reached out. I spoke to my professors, one of the deans, and some of my classmates and new friends. I let it all out. And you know what? Every last one of them was there for me, and offered more support and encouragement than I could have hoped for. How amazing is that? I realized that while I may be far from home, I am most definitely not alone.
Slowly but surely, I have begun to get back on track. I still have plenty of moments in which I feel the despair and the sting of life's betrayals, but fortunately they are becoming less as time goes by. We have started anatomy now, and I think the thing I enjoy most about it is the time my group spends in the lab together. The comraderie and the connections that are being forged feel as nourishing and as necessary to me as water is to a thirsty animal.
The studying is not going so well, but I really can't expect everything to fall back into place right away.
So maybe the Alpha Omega Alpha thing is off the horizon, but my potential and opportunities are not. I feel pretty ok about it right now, and to quote the second year students' favorite piece of advice: "P = MD baby. P=MD".

And one more thing...... thank you to everyone who has tuned in this last year. You were an unseen, but significant source of strength and support for me. Thank you.