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| “All the world's a stage.” ― William Shakespeare, As You Like It |
The elephant in the room needs to be addressed. The time has come to shed some light on what some may have heard throughout the first three years of medical school, and what others may be told when they begin their journey.
There is nothing greater to the person whose passion is medicine and whose desire it is to be at the service of others, than to be given the title of "Doctor."
Before I started my journey as a medical student, I never fully grasped what so many medical bloggers meant when they wrote "the easy part is getting into medical school, the hardest part is staying in." How dare they? I thought as I sat in my apartment on my night off, with my Pomeranian on my lap, working diligently to complete as many tasks on my medical school application 'to do' list. The most daunting being completion of my personal statement or the autobiography sketch as some schools may call it. At that point in time, trying to convince a committee of admissions directors to grant me acceptance, was far from easy. Studying for the Medical College Acceptance Test (MCAT) in and of itself while working full-time appeared an even greater challenge-not impossible, just challenging-and here I was reading that this was the easy part.
Makes you wonder whether or not those medical bloggers had a high threshold for challenges or if they were simply crazy. Now that I've completed most of my medical school training, I now understand what they meant and I'll admit they weren't exaggerating either.
As you sit probably with your rough draft of your personal statement either on your lap or rolled up and tossed on the floor, once you soar over this hurdle, you will be well on your way to gaining acceptance and entry into the medical society.
You see, with each passing day, the challenges we face intensify and our ability to face our obstacles and fears and to supersede them not only become easy, but more bearable. We are strengthened in our capacity to overcome our challenges and fears; we become more resilient and sooner (rather than later, hopefully) what use to have us down for the count, won't even knock us over.
With my acceptance to medical school, came excitement as well as fear. Fear of failure, fear of not being able to stay in medical school, not to complete the courses on time and the list goes on. Mixed with the fear there was some excitement, mainly due to the fact that here I was with a youthful appearance but years older than my teenaged counterparts who were just as intrigued by the mechanics of the human body as was I. We were all ignorant and in it together.
Due to the large class size, we were alphabetically categorised into smaller groups for just about everything from laboratory classes to clinical skills sessions. This allowed the laboratory directors and clinical skills instructors to teach in a less intimidating manner and also afforded us the opportunity to "network" and to get to experience medical learning in a different way. It was in these sessions where we were told how OSCE's were all a 'big show' and that in order to pass all we had to do was 'to fake it' until we made it.
You may have heard how competitive medical school is. It's true. But it doesn't have to be. What I believe most students fail to realise is that regardless of how many persons are accepted into your graduating class, the last thing any school wants to do is to see you fail.
There aren't shortages of medical degrees that can be awarded per year or per class. However, this is how medical students act. Rather than perfecting skills that will ensure their success in the long run they limit themselves to faking it and doing all that they can to hoard material and preserve themselves whatever the cost.
QUIT FAKING IT!
1. Invest in Your Career
It is easy to become distracted by the idle talk and lose sight of your overall goal. Especially if you're surrounded by persons who have already graduated who want to offer their "advice". You must remember that not all advice is good advice and in regards to decisions you have to make for yourself that relate to your career and your overall happiness, the experience of others should be taken with a grain of salt, especially if you realise that advice is coming from a bitter vessel.
Once you enter medical school, make the decision to utilise every resource available to you and never stop exploring your options as your interests may change or evolve as you advance in your schooling. Be sure to reach out to persons who are in your field of interest and have a conversation with them regarding opportunities that are available in that field that would allow you exposure you would otherwise not be exposed to.
Do your own research into programs that you can sign up for during your summer months, that would allow you the opportunity to practice your speaking and to exercise your medical vocabulary as much as possible. By investing in your career, your medical education becomes more than an education but the catapult for your future success.
2. Consider yourself as more than just a Medical Student
Sometimes as students we find ourselves limited in what we can do but doing more than our licensed medical counterparts. The minute you start referring to yourself as just a medical student, you're short-changing your reality.
When you graduate and take on the role of an intern, you'll then find yourself, walking away from things or referring to yourself as "just the intern". The time you're spending in medical school is the time you are to grow as a medical professional. This is your time to use the platform to exercise your muscles by becoming involved in humanitarian organisations and giving back to the community in which you reside. This is the time to be present in the hospital and to make your face a familiar one to the nurses and other staff on the wards and in different departments. Why? Well because the way in which you will learn, will begin to shift, you'll start to transition from the library to the radiology department, the emergency room etc piecing together the basics in order to construct a sensible assessment and treatment plan that you can discuss with your seniors.
By doing this you're now allowing yourself to grow and believe it or not becoming more than prepared for your final exams.
3. Learn to Practice
As a child, I grew up in a home where expressing oneself was expected. I can recall standing at the foot of my parents bed reciting from memory a book report I wrote hours before to my father who was listening to every word. He offered constructive criticism based on what I said and from these exercises it was easy to speak in front of anyone on anything.
With lack of practice, I do find it hard to eloquently express myself as I once was able to, but like anything, once time is dedicated to doing something, I'll be back to where I was in no time.
As students, we often become fixated on studying in the library, reading all of the books, watching all of the videos and then find it hard to convey all that we spent time reading to our peers or seniors. So I would encourage you as you study, get in the habit of studying in groups early on in medical school and take the time to verbally review what you learnt as you covered a topic. Come up with a system that you can follow that would make it easy for you to cover the salient points on any topic in ten minutes or less.
4. Learn to be a Motivator
There are few people in medicine who are motivators. It saddens me whenever I read posts from other medical bloggers about their day on ward rounds and how their attending belittled them, or how after a day of ward work, rather than receiving words of affirmation, they were criticised and as a result felt as if they were unworthy of becoming a doctor.
In a field where empathy and respect are core principles, they often don't exist. The culture has now become one where tearing someone down to get a foot ahead is commonplace and expected and teamwork although it is spoken of, is lacking.
The culture is so superficial and sadly with this comes patient negligence and a lack of accountability but a whole lot of blame.
Learn to motivate your peers. You don't have to be their friend or go out of your way to make friends with persons you just aren't compatible with, but once you learn to accept the fact that the people who fill the seats of the lecture hall with whom you may have to interact with will eventually become your colleague and at some point your paths may cross in the form of a consultation. At the end of the day, you're learning to be a practitioner that is capable of respecting others, building them up in the process and placing the needs of the patient first.
5. Be Consistent
Learning to be consistent from the beginning makes it hard to fake anything. By adhering to a study schedule where you incorporate practicing your physical examination skills, summarising your findings following your examinations and reviewing past papers, you will find that medicine and all that it entails is now second nature. You will become fluent in the language and when placed on the spot to perform an exam, rather than breaking out in a sweat and panicking, you'll confidently step to the plate. You'll be more open to constructive criticism and comfortable with things that once were foreign.
Consistency is key in your overall success as a student. That is if you're consistently practicing good habits. If you're consistently procrastinating then you can see how that would just lead to you being a consistent fake and unreliable in the end.
The goal is to be consistent, intentional and bold with good habits from the inception and to learn to grow with each semester that starts and finishes. By doing this you'll find that you're no longer faking it, but evolving into a Physician patients will be wanting to see.
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