It’s just another day as you work into the depths of the night. Medicine engulfs your life as you focus on your responsibilities for tomorrow. You may or may not have time to sit down and enjoy a meal in silence. You may or may not have the opportunity to say hello or goodbye to a loved one. Sometimes, it feels like you have to be wired differently to get through all of the obstacles we do — at the rate that we do — and still stay sane. Medical school is akin to the NBA of academics, and it takes more than just brainpower to get through it. It takes persistence and sheer force of will.
I think we sometimes overlook how much we sacrificed to get here. As med students, a lot of us will have been in school for the entirety of our lives. We might not get a sense of the “real world” until residency. We might have never had to deal with monetary concerns, relationship problems, or conflicts that don’t come with a multiple-choice answer. We may go through life defining our happiness in terms of grades and clinical feedback. It’s really no different than the professional athlete who sacrifices childhood to train, or the single mother who works two jobs to support her children. But similarities aside, medical students are a unique breed. We are a hungry, competitive bunch. We tend to be neurotic, politically correct, and always trying to say or do the right things in order to please that professor or that grade. We are largely objective in thought and data-driven, leaving minimal room for emotion or other miscellaneous factors that might affect our way of thinking. You could also say that we morph into test-taking machines at some point in our training. And, ironically, given our similarities, our personalities sometimes clash. Competition brings out both the best in us (on exams, when we compete against ourselves) and the worst in us (when we try to compete against one another).
I took a gap year before applying to medical school, and during that year, I learned so much about the world! I discovered a joy for meeting people and hearing about their experiences. For me, there was inherent value in the experience; if I had gone to medical school immediately after college, I am not sure that I would have had the same appreciation for the actual experience of my time as a trainee. Granted, not everyone in medicine has the same goals and motivations. But it does seem to me that if you don’t give yourself a break, a moment to question what you want, your high-achieving mind will lead you down the line it has been set on (which isn’t necessarily the line that leads to personal happiness).
Ultimately, being different is not necessarily bad — but if all of the doctors of tomorrow are wired differently, it may create a disconnect when trying to create and maintain relationships with those outside of medicine. Taking time off (whether it be a gap year between college and med school or some other type of break) is a sacrifice, too. But if the goal is healthy relationships — between ourselves and our patients, ourselves and the world — I hope it’s another sacrifice we’d all be in favor of making.
