When in Med School..

Now that my freshman year in medical school is almost over, I would like to list down a few things that one should expect if one does enter this profession.



1. Expect to learn the value of sleep.
If back in your pre-med days you were able to sleep for more than 8 hours, expect lesser hours when you step into medical school. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for a good grade. Sleep just happen to be one of them.

2. Expect to either lose or gain weight, the latter being the most likely to happen.
Stress can take its toll in many ways and to fight it, we eat. In med school, you'd probably eat your stress out with any food you can get your hands on. Junk or healthy foods, it doesn't matter as long as they're food. Some people even say that the weight you gain or lose(if you decide to still go on a diet or to not eat) is equivalent to the stress you acquired in med school.

3. Expect to miss certain occasions because you're studying for an exam.
Birthdays, weddings, get-togethers. Yes, at some point you will miss them. You'll find yourself staring at your papers or books, highlighting the hell out of your handouts, while dreaming of the fun of being able to celebrate with your friends or family.

4. Expect to cry.
It could be because of your grades, the stress or the feeling of homesickness. Eventually your eyes will give in and those glands will produce those secretions we call tears. Don't worry. It's normal to cry in med school.

5. Expect to lose track of what's happening in the world.
Remember those sacrifices? TV or the internet is also one of them. I'm not saying you'd completely lose track of the world but sometimes you just happen to be living in a different world other than earth and old news would sound like new news to you.

6.Expect the desire to cut class because you have to study for a different subject.
This will happen. At first you would screen out subjects and put them in two categories: must go to and it's okay to not attend. Warning: The lines between these two categories are thin that at some point they are interchangeable. Everyday you might fight with the question "to attend or not to attend" in your head even when you're already in class.

7. Expect the desire to cut class to sleep or if not possible, sleep in class.
See number 1. This is one of the solutions med students discover.

8. Expect to dislike a teacher just because of the way they teach or give exams or both.
There are teachers who expect that you know what they know or at least half of what they know. They'll either teach too fast or too slow and give questions that make you wonder if you really did attend his/her class.

9. Expect to like a teacher just because of the way they teach or give exams or both.
These are the teachers that Goldilocks would have said: "just right."

10. Expect to have read an entire book without knowing it.
Sure it happened during the whole school year and you weren't able to notice that you did but still, you did. The only problem is you're not sure if you can recall what you read the whole year.

11. Expect certain moments where you question yourself if you made the right choice.
It happens. You just have to remind yourself why you made the choice in the first place. But if you question yourself everyday, then you probably have to think long and hard before owning up to your decision.

12. Expect to get a grade you never thought you'd get (ever).
This can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

13. Expect weekends to go by fast.
Weekends are like holidays if you're a med student. After a stressful week, they are all you need. Unfortunately, they go by fast so make the most of them.

14. Expect your threshold for disgust to increase.
You won't notice it but it does happen.

15. Expect medical school to change you.