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Though I learned a lot more, I chose three that can be applied outside of medical school. Without further ado:
- Follow your interests first. Then follow your passions.
For context, when you attend medical school you will immediately and most certainly be asked by everyone,“What specialty are you looking into” or “What kind of doctor do you want to be”. Whatever answer you come up with, chances are, you truly don’t know what you want to do, because you have (if you’re like me) three additional years left. And like so much has changed in one year, much more will change in three more. With that being said, it’s okay to not know. But it’s not okay to sit around thinking your passion will magically come to you.
In today’s world, “finding your passion” is not only cliche, but adds too much pressure in an already stressful environment. Though I can go in depth about this topic in another entry, I believe that the result of the unnecessary emphasis on passion is stagnation. Which is a logical conclusion, Why would I waste my efforts on something I’m not passionate about. Though logical, I think your life will progress more efficiently by following interests first! (hence me writing blog). Join clubs, join online forums, do research, send emails, chat to anyone and everyone, and most importantly, don’t be afraid to commit to things.
Do what you think is fun, do what you think is interesting, and at the end of the day, do it for yourself. This will get you closer to your passion than anything else I’ve tried in the past.
“Discovering what you don’t like is just as important as finding out what you do like” — unknown.
2. Sleep is negotiable
Before I continue, I still believe that sleep is important! But sleep is malleable and you should be comfortable with temporary fluctuations in your schedule. If the workload of medical school is any reflection of the real world, then we can all agree that work is presented to you on a treadmill that never seems to end.
And, like a treadmill things speed up and slow down, and the type of work demanded of you will be different. Sometimes you’ll have to be mentally sharp and quick, in which prioritizing sleep will be of utmost importance. But there will be days of you’ll be handed a ton of tedious tasks where low mental energy, brute force is necessary, so you probably are better off staying up the extra few hours to finish your task.
Where medical school (years 1 and 2) differs a little bit from real world, is that you’ll have a little more time flexibility in your day. Those 20 to 30 minute pockets of naps or meditation were my bread and butter. These naps are trump any “mental breaks” that involve my phone or anything on the internet!
There will be days where you sleep perfectly and days where you can’t sleep at all but it should never dictate your days productivity or performance. I’ll finish this lesson by sharing this quote that helps me through those groggy mornings.
“If you wake up early today, you can reward yourself by sleeping early also!”
3. Your well being is non-negotiable
Well being is broad blanket, subjective term that I won’t nearly try to define, but I can try to tell you what it’s not. It’s not your emotional state, because your emotion can change by the day. It also has less to do with your stress level, because I think if you’re trying to achieve something of meaningful in your life, stress is a natural by-product. Finally, it’s not how tired you are!
When studying medicine, you can not escape the fact that the moment you are fertilized, is the moment you start to die. A million and one diseases from viruses to genetic mutations to misfolding of proteins can kill you at any second, and the fickle nature of life is a constant reminder that you shouldn’t be doing anything that you’re not proud of doing for yourself.
However you define it for yourself, it simply can not be negotiable.
Thanks for reading! These are just a few lessons that I thought might be worth sharing to to the world, this is the first blog post of (hopefully) many to come. I hope to become a better writer and doctor as I continue this journey!
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