MD2: 1 Me: 0

So, this probably isn’t the best time to be writing a post, but I’m going to go ahead, be real, and do it anyway. Most of the time I try to write cheerfully and with as much positivity as possible. But when I think about it, I guess it’s important for everyone to know, it’s not all rainbows and lollipops around here. My goal with this blog is to let people know what we go through as medical students, let people know what to look forward to, and to give me something to reflect upon in the future. So capturing the tough moments is as important as the happy ones. Prepare for some verbal diarrhea:

In this moment, today feels like one of the most difficult and disappointing days of my life. It was the first day of block one exams in MD2. They were tough. MD2 has been vigorous so far. Especially physiology. For the past several weeks, school has consumed my life (not that it hasn’t since I started in September). The material has been difficult, and the pace has been insane. From the moment I have opened my eyes in the morning, the focus has been class material. When I go to bed at night, I fall asleep either listening to lectures, watching youtube videos about whatever concepts we are learning about in class, or watching extra video lectures (usually at 1.5X speed so that I can get them in faster, even though it makes the lecturer sound like a chipmunk). I have barely spoken with my friends and family from home, other than the odd text message here and there or a 5 minute Skype call on the odd occasion. This disconnection has been hard for me because I need these close relationships to keep me going and to remind me why what I am doing is so important. When I was home at Christmas, there was so much going on with everyone. I sit back and realize, I don’t even know where everything stands, and that really bothers me. I have faith that everything is being taken care of and that everyone is doing OK, but I still feel the disconnection and that really hurts. I feel selfish because everything I have is being put into what I am doing here.

When you are in this kind of program, you miss out on so much in life. You talk to best friends and find out they are going away with their boyfriend for a week (“oh, you have a boyfriend?!”). Your sister is getting ready to get married and you have no part in it. Close friends and family members are facing huge health obstacles and you can not be around to help, physically, emotionally, or otherwise. Your cousin’s children are growing up before your eyes, and you only see this through Facebook photos. You go weeks without talking to the people who are closest to you sometimes. I am the type of person who has always been the first one there in a time of crisis. To provide an ear, support, and guidance. I can’t do this now, and it is so hard.

Anyways, back to school, and back to this day. Despite having had to disconnect from everything that is important to me and despite countless hours of studying, exams today did not go well. The physiology exam was very first thing this morning. I left the exam feeling horrible. Immediately after the exam was finished, a bunch of us headed to the library to cram for the neuroscience exam which was happening a couple of hours later. About an hour after the exam was finished, someone noticed that the marks were already posted. I logged in (which was a mistake) and found out that I failed the exam. I failed by only a couple of points, but I have never failed an exam in my life, and my heart started pounding…I felt like I was going to be sick. The library was filled with my classmates. Everyone was checking marks, everyone who checked, failed. You could feel the disappointment in the room. I have never put so much work into something to receive such poor results. I immediately regretted even looking as I tried to maintain focus on neuroscience, knowing I hadn’t studied enough for that course because of all of the time I had spent on this exam that I hadn’t passed anyhow. This had to be the most discouraging this I had ever felt. There is a difference between knowing that you didn’t put enough time or effort into something and doing poorly, but to put everything that you have into something, and still not do well STINKS. I didn’t care that everyone else seemed to do poorly as well. I wouldn’t care if the class average was 10%. My standards are higher than that. I feel at a loss. Aside from NEVER sleeping, I don’t know what else I can do differently. I can only hope that in this process I learned how to better study for the course. I know that there’s no way I will let this defeat me and I will do whatever it takes to win. I guess that means stepping it up one notch higher. To top that off, I didn’t feel like the neuroscience exam went as well as I would have wanted because I had put so much energy into the physiology exam. What a vicious cycle.

Another tough part about it all is, you get home after it all…feeling so terrible, and now you have to buckle down and get right back into the books because you get to do it all over again on Monday when you write the other half of your exams. You know you have to…because there is so much material to go through and you have to do well in your other courses, but you really just want to curl up in bed and sleep the afternoon away. Or go to the beach. Or spend the night on the phone with your family. But, back to the books I go….

I apologize again for the negative post, but I am sure any other student out there can relate to the fact that this is the way we feel sometimes. I wanted to write this post right as I was feeling the way I am in this moment. This journey is one of many ups and downs. The stress and the fight is real, and you’ve gotta fight till the end. I will say though, that not one part of me regrets my decision, and not one part of me wants to give up.