February 18, 2009

• Why I love being a med student

  On multitudinous (isn't that a great word?) occasions, I have been asked, why did I choose to be a doctor. Whether it was friends, interviewers, application essays, it's something everyone seems to want to know. As though I have some kind of secret monopoly on motivation not available to investement bankers, janitors, or retail salespeople.

  Well I will be more than happy to go into that again at a later post (ha, you see what I did there?-go read backlogs!) but really, wanting to be a doctor is only a small part of the medical school experience. There is so much more that has made the last couple years among the best of my life, and I figured rather than trot out the same old dog and pony show you usually get, I would take the time to enlighten you as to why it's great to be a medical student. So let's begin, shall we?

  1. First and foremost, it's that you ARE a student. You don’t have an MD after your name. It often feels to me there’s an assumption that if you’re a doctor, you have to know everything. That “I don’t know” isn’t an acceptable response to a patient, family member or friend. The best answer you can give as a medical student, second to the correct one, is “I don’t know, but I can definitely find out.” ‘Cause see, you’re not expected to know–you’re a student!

  2. You get to see patients. I know this one seems like it should be first, but remember there are at least 2 preclinical years I went through where I had no interaction with non-academics because, let's face it, I was dumb. I mean, you spend 2-3 years just learning all these facts about health and disease and physiology and anatomy and it's overwhelming. You know it's important on an abstract level, but practically speaking, you can't separate the wheat from the chaff. Until your clinical years-then you get to take your knowledge, everything that you’ve learned, and try to figure out how to make it useful and practical for a person that comes to you with a complaint.

  I am still constantly astounded at the level of trust and openness people give me when I am wearing even the short coat. Asking probing, very personal questions and they are answered...sometimes they lie, but it's just assumed on everyone's part that some answer should be given-doctor and patient alike. AND IT WORKS! Men and women who might otherwise not feel comfortable expressing themselves–be it through laughter, tears, or anger–would open up. And people get better! And some are even APPRECIATIVE! It’s fun to say “you’re welcome” when someone is thank you for helping them. It feels even better to know that sometimes just the sheer catharsis of talking it out does a lot for some people.

  3. My peers! I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of my best friends for life in medical school, to have gone through this experience with them. After all, *sings* I can't do this all on my own, no I know I'm no superman. * Its no joke that med school is a meat grinder but having such fun, brilliant and compassionate people to suffer through it with makes it all bearable, even on the worst days. Not to mention that come match, I know I will have friends in every field of medicine, in every major city that I can turn to if I should ever have a question about anything. Can't beat that kind of networking.

  4. People like to meet medical students. (And it’s fun to have people like to meet you!) Yes yes, attention grabbing narcissism aside, after you get past that “Ooooh, a future doctor!” bit, you can easily become the life of the party with stories you’ve stolen from your rotations or quirky little medical history tips.  

  5. It’s easy to beat expectations. As the saying goes all you have to do to pass a rotation is show up. I don’t know if the bar was just set low, but it really seemed like doing well was pretty straightforward:

  Show up on time.
  Do what’s expected of you (and know what’s expected of you-this is actually harder than you might think sometimes).
  Be genuinely interested. (The fake way to do this is to say “Why yes, I’m considering Neurology” when you’re on the Neurology clerkship.) But don’t be so naive to think that what you learn on rotation X will not apply to your chosen specialty. it will!
  Ask questions if you can’t figure something out by yourself. (I remember on my optho rotation, we were at lunch and my intern mentioned “PORN” and I was thinking he clearly meant something else. I finally asked, and found out OOOHHH,  progessive outer retinal necrosis)
  All of these rules are actually just this simple gestalt: Do not make more work for your resident and intern.

  6. It’s a safe environment to make mistakes and learn. Most of my residents and attendings have been responsive and interested in teaching and education. Some certainly more than others, but it was a rarity to be around a jerk. In fact, now that I have the hang of patient care, I am usually asked, “Well, what do you want to do with this patient?” forcing me to think through things myself. I'm not always right, but it makes a huge difference that I am even asked. The best rotations were the ones where I was actively involved–that I was treated like a valued member of the team. Just feeling included means a huge deal. Even if the team was going to start cefepime whether I suggested it or not, just giving me the opportunity to respond instead of writing the order themselves was huge.

  7.You can be proud of what you’re doing! I have friends who hate their jobs; I have others who don’t mind them–that they pay the bills, at least. For some people, optimizing a bottom line is probably as much a thrill as medicine, but this is mine. There’s a lot of crap we have to deal with, and plenty of reasons to complain–but that’s everybody. Cliche as it may sound, I can honestly leave the hospital dang near every day and feel that I have made a difference

  8. It’s amazing to watch your brain learn. It’s a similar feeling to how I felt when my brain just started “understanding” Spanish. I was watching a telenovela at my uncle's house in mexico city (this was way back in middle or highschool-ancient times, I know but it was salud, dinero, amor), and realized I was following it without the need to translate. Similarly, it’s almost Matrix-esque to be able to spit out the doses of morphine or vancomycin or lipitor without ever sitting down and memorizing them. You wonder, “Where the hell did that come from?” It’s just the osmosis of being around clinical medicine for long enough. (At least for me–I learn best by doing.)

  I am sure there are many more reasons, but those are the biggest ones that I have been able to winnow out of my pysche. But it is not all sunshine and lollipops. So sometime in the future, I will also cover why it sucks to be a medical student.

  And to all my fellow meddites out there, Grrsh, freakforjc, wenyin...did I miss anything?

  -Almost Dr J

  • 12:41 am
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