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I'm a MS3-4, applying for residency this fall. My stepII is next week. I'm pretty well prepared and do well on practice tests. For the past month what worried me most was not the test, but the prospect of actually starting internship/residency. I have this pathological fear of taking responsibility for pts. when my whole life I've only been responsibile for myself, and never even had a job requiring much responsibility. I'm really worried about making mistakes and sensitive to criticism. I'm beginning to question everything: my choice of residency, my competency, my committment to medicine in general. My confidence level is non-existent. It's like a down-swirling spiral that keeps perpetuating itself when I start thinking about it, and for the past week I haven't been able to force my mind to stop obsessing over these thoughts. It's the worst in the morning, gets a bit better in the evening. I've lost appetite, losing weight, my concentration is terrible. People are telling me that it's pre-test anxiety. But I'm afraid it's more than that, since I'm pretty confident about the step 2 material, and not even thinking about it, although I do need to get stabilized just to sit through it. Is my body/mind trying to tell me something? Did I make a wrong choice about going for MD? I never even really had an alternative. Is this just my nervous system unable to deal with the ever-increasing stress of upcoming tests, application process, interviews, and residency? Why is all of this coming out right now?If this is how I feel now, how will I be able to handle internship? I've been having random thoughts pop into my head that I don't even want to mention. Has anyone else been going through similar experience? Please give your best advice.
Thanks for reading this
Thanks for reading this
