Questioning my readiness

[Dr. Yes]

Starting medical school in the fall at my first choice school. I was a re-applicant, and graduated last May. Since then... I've done basically nothing.

My summer was spent studying for the MCAT and volunteering once a week at a free clinic.

Then I moved away from home, and worked two pretty crappy jobs. The goal was to save money and pay off student loans, but retail doesn't go a long way in that department.

Now that I've been accepted I'm having doubts: for the last 5 years I've based most of my identity on 'getting into medical school'.

I used to joke with my girlfriend that she was 25% of my life, with the other parts split between work, the gym, and getting into medical school.

Everyone is introducing themselves on the class Facebook group, and I'm at a complete loss for what to say.

I don't know who I am, or what defines me, aside from what we all now have in common- medical school.

This doesn't seem healthy. I'm worried that I'm going to get to school, the one thing I've based my identity on for the last 5 years, and find myself miserable.

Would it be at all wise to defer a year, do some more self exploration, and go next year? I have no idea what I would do, but I don't want to be one of those horror stories who drops out after M1.

Help.

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[physicsnerd42]

I think many of us have felt the same way. I remember going to my revisit at the school I'm about to finish my MD/PhD at. This was when the job market was better. I got cold feet, cold emailed a private high school in my home town and pretty much lined up a job teaching physics during my revisit. I was dating a girl at my college on the opposite coast from my current med school and didn't want anything to change.

I am so glad that I went to med school. I feel really privileged to have earned a PhD and I'm so excited about the match next week. I also ended getting married (not to the college girl) and making a lot of good friends here. I don't know the life I would have had otherwise (The Unbearable Lightness of Being is correct), but I do know that I'm very glad I chose to go to med school.

Now, I don't know you or your life circumstances. I can't know whether going to med school is the right thing for you to do, and you can't really know either. I will say, however, that I'm glad I didn't let my cold feet make me throw away med school. Almost all people who go to med school will finish. Even more people will question the choice to go. If you go to med school next year, your life will be different, but different isn't necessarily bad. Different can be great. Think about how much you'll wonder about med school if you make the choice to not go. Your med school would not have accepted you if they didn't think you were qualified to be there.

Good luck.

 

[dyspareunia]

Go read the imposter syndrome thread in preallo.

 

[coffeesnob]

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/03/effect-imposter-syndrome-medical-students.html

good read^

i still struggle with this. well i took 2 gap years between college and medical school, so I was very certain I wanted to start medical school right away. if you are straight out of college (not clear from your post), you can look into doing something else for a year. but if you had your first gap year already, I would not defer any longer.

everyone is on the same boat whether they show it or not. trust me 90% of med students have been identifying themselves as pre-med for all their life. so you will fit right in… also you don't need to feel obligated to give into the Facebook/mainstream culture of medical school. you will find your group that you feel comfortable with. i mean everyone will be so busy after 1 month into medical school, you won't see most of your classmates except a handful that you are close with.

get excited! enjoy life before med school! i wish i could go back to this time last year.

 

[fungusman]

You got a girlfriend? Nice humblebrag thread.

 

[cbrons]

be a man.... "Oh noes my identity..." lol

 

[Dr. Yes]

I really, really appreciate the responses. Thanks guys.

After one year off, I'm chomping at the bit to get started! 5 months to learn how to relax haha.

 

[Dr. Yes]

You got a girlfriend? Nice humblebrag thread.

We just broke up. Haha probably a contributing factor to my 'crisis'.

 

[fungusman]

I would break up with you too. Your too much drama with your gender identity crisis.

 

[deleted500612]

What would you hope to accomplish by deferring for a year for some "self exploration", whatever that even means. You say you've based your life for the past few years on getting into med school, and you seemed to be ok with that. Now that you've gotten in, wouldn't the next logical step be to base your life on finishing med school? But you feel that during your class meet and greet over fb that you don't have enough other life experiences to make yourself sound interesting, so you're thinking of deferring med school because of that?? Is there some other factor at play here that you aren't telling us about? Because as it stands, it really sounds like you are considering dropping out or delaying medical school because you don't have enough hobbies to talk about on fb with your classmates, which is ridiculous.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Just go to medical school this year.

 

[VisionaryTics]

 

[deleted564496]

--OP

I didn't quite have the exact same concerns as you when I was about to start medical school, but I did feel like I was going to be very below average and was really worried about failing out. It consumed me for a couple weeks and got to the point where I was about to drop the spot, luckily my family convinced me how silly that was…. You will adjust and you will figure out how to handle it. Seriously, you spent all this time getting to this point, you can't back out now. Go to medical school this year and you'll realize that you can do what everybody else can do. Just be prepared to put that work in.

 

[evilbooyaa]

We just broke up. Haha probably a contributing factor to my 'crisis'.

Well apparently you've lost 50% of your life. What better way to fill that 'void' than becoming friends with your new medical school classmates? You don't have to have a super interesting past to be friendly to somebody.

 

[Brain Bucket]

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Go to medical school. Or don't. But don't defer for a year to define yourself.