I guess you could say that I am at the infancy of my pre-med career and I can't help but notice that I am plagued with fears of failure. I know that in most cases fear is an illogical feeling but I can't help but realize how easy it is to screw up as a pre-med. I guess my question is if anyone else is going through this or has gone through this? Also, for those of you who are further along in your careers, was there ever a point where you realized that you were going to make it and get into medical school?
First off, it's good to differentiate failure as an individual/person from failure to achieve an objective (med school matriculation). One can fail at the latter but be very successful as a person. I think it's VERY important for people in general to appreciate this and more so for premeds. We do invest tremendous time, effort and sacrifice in the quest for med school acceptance and falling short can be a severe blow. However, and for the sake of one's sanity it's critical not to conflate failure to achieve this objective with personal failure, doing so can invites self-doubt, low self esteem, depression etc etc. It's important to bear this is mind bcos only a minority of freshmen premeds actually make it through the prereqs, ECs etc (and if they r still interested in medicine), to successfully apply and matriculate into medicine. So the majority of premeds will have to contend with this "failure" issue and for some it's a blessing in disguise.
Having said this (and I'm sure u meant failure as in med school matriculation but I want to state the above regardless bcos I think it's important), fears of failure to matriculate are common especially when faced with challenges (academic, financial, family etc) that can hamper ur admission chances. It's good to determine if ur fears are specific or generic (failing p chem VS damm the road ahead is very daunting). If it's specific deal with it head on and get help if needed and if it's generic, divide out the things u need to do into manageable chunks and focus on one chunk at a time.
Also it's critical to realize that you don't need a perfect application to get it, if u have shortcomings in certain areas and they are reasonable and u explain them (PS, interviews), they won't hinder ur admissions (all else, equal). The best policy to inform urself on admission requirements, stats etc this way u have a realistic picture of what is takes (on avg) to get in and the distribution of stats for the acceptees.
Finally it's good to air out ur feelings/concerns to friends, family and SDN (i guess), sometimes just talking to people and getting support/reassurances is all what's needed.
Goodluck!!
