Has anyone felt like this before?

[russiandoc]

I know that i want to be a doctor because that is the best career for me. I enjoy educating myself, helping others, and love the feeling of achieving something that i know was going to be difficult. But sometimes when i have to sit down to study chem, physics, and bio i get frustrated. I feel like the information is easy to learn, but these are not common sense subjects so therefore you have to study in order to get an A in the class. My problem is that sometimes i feel so lazy that i just want to give up and not study for a test. Have you people felt this way before and what did you do to convince yourself to get crackin. Did you take less classes so that you could relax more and not get frustrated because studying is taking up lots of the free time a college student has who is takin 3 science classes per semester plus 1 other non-science. All this with volunteering and reading about medicine takes lots of time and this upsets me sometimes. Any words of advice from you people? I am asking a personal question like this because i highly respect the professionalism and knowledge of this forum. Thanks in advance.

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[Amy B]

Hi,
You are not alone in what you are feeling. You can't let school and your quest for medical school monoploize your life. You must make time to do something totally unrelated to medicine and school. What hobbies do you have, do you like yoga, working out, going to the gym, taking a hike, biking, swimming, boating, etc......

You need to get out and do something so that your studies don't bog your mind down. I have been in your shoes and it is hard to fight the urge to not study. It is burn out and is not good for you or for your grades.

How many classes are you taking now? Is the material just boring or is it too hard for you and you feel you need to study all the time? Are you able to take a class that is purely for fun, something you would enjoy doing, such as art or rock climbing, etc..? That way you would be taking academic courses but also a fun course to break up your class load.

If your mind is not fresh you can't study no matter how hard you try. I would find this happening. I would read something over and over and have no clue as to what I was reading, or I would play computer games excessively even though I had a test coming up. I finally had to change where I would study. I moved form my home to the school library and found the distraction were gone. I would telll myself to study for 1 hour and then take a break for awhile and do something I liked to do. Then I would get back to the books and study for an hour and 1/2 , then take a break.

I made sure that on weekends I would take a 1/2 a day and spend it with my family or hiking in the woods or photographing things, or kayaking, basically anything I enjoyed that wasn't medically related. Now as I prepare to start med school in the fall, I am trying to come up with a schedule that I can follow so that med school doesn't become my total lief.

I don't know if anything I wrote here will be of help to you. I hope you are able to pull yourself out of this rut. Good luck.

 

[russiandoc]

I am glad that some people feel the same way and have gone through the same things.

 

[BigRedPingpong]

EtOH--get some

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by BigRedPingpong
EtOH--get some

LOL. I agree

Anyways, even after you get into med school, you'll most likely still think about the workload and stress in med school, and contemplate whether you really wanna do it. In fact, I think (and I believe many will agree), motivation's one of the essential thing to survive med school.

So when interviewers ask you "What do you do outside medicine?" They're not just routinely asking that, we all just have to find ways to relieve the stress.

 

[TTSD]

Originally posted by BigRedPingpong
EtOH--get some

Hahaha, you ain't peddlin' vacuum boy. Alcohol is the best way to relax after a day of hard work.

As for you Russiandoc.. I FULLY sympathize with your situation. In the beginning, I felt overwhlemed and undermotivated as well while taking the full-loads of the routine premed requirements and other courses.. and routinely had my @$$ smeared all over the wall. But this could also be attributed to my many other personal interests I took up in college (this will come up later in my rant).

When all seemed helpless, as my GPA had become wrecked, I honestly thought I was not cut out for medicine but I gave myself one shot. I told myself not to be a whining c*nt and get cracking. If I want to be a doctor, I have to understand that what I face now is nothing and I should be able to sit down for hours at a time and do nothing but study. So, to test myself.. I took the HARDEST science courses that were available to me. Those courses that fail 40% of their advanced students, and took them 3-4 at a time.

Either SINK OR SWIM, was my philosophy of the day. But I also changed the outlook of HOW I studied as well. I no longer studied to take TESTS, but I studied to LEARN. Needless to say, I kicked butt in the classes.

And those other outside interests that cut into my time as a lower division schmuck? They've actually come back to aide me in a big way. Because of my familiarity with the computer, that immediately puts me as a big asset to whatever research I'm doing. Plus my extracurriculars also put me in high standing that I knew how to go out there and mingle with people from many walks of life. So they were not a complete waste.

The lesson learned? It doesn't matter how long it takes for you to get to medical school, it matters what you learn on the way there. I feel sorry for those people who just sit there and memorize and regurgitate information to get the A. What have they learned? So live life a little, cut back on the classes if you need to.. but WHEN YOU FEEL READY, get in there and KICK SOME @$$!!!

 

[BaseballFan]

Originally posted by russiandoc
Did you take less classes so that you could relax more and not get frustrated because studying is taking up lots of the free time a college student has who is takin 3 science classes per semester plus 1 other non-science. All this with volunteering and reading about medicine takes lots of time and this upsets me sometimes. Any words of advice from you people? I am asking a personal question like this because i highly respect the professionalism and knowledge of this forum. Thanks in advance.

Preparing to be a doctor is bound to be upsetting. The job itself will probably be even more upsetting...when your first patient dies, or when you've worked long hours but don't have the energy to see any more patients, even though there are people that need your help...

Preparing to be a doctor is bound to be frustrating, since the job is often frustrating..When you need to get a lab test done, and there's no one there to do it...when you've spend hours in surgery trying to fix someone with heart disease, only to see them smoking a cigarette in the parking lot days later...

If you know it's what you want to do, then stick with it. The road is long, but the destination is worth the struggle.

The best things in life don't always come easy- but that is what helps to make them so worthwhile in the end.

Good luck!

 

[bella_dottoressa]

Wow, I have felt this entire quarter the exact same way you do. I took the second ochem, a bio class and physiology and was working 20 hrs a week and volunteering 7. Maybe this doesn't seem like a huge workload to someone else, but it really kicked my butt. I found myself doing poorly on a bio test because I had midterms in all three of the classes on the same day, or I found myself failing an ochem test because I couldn't bring myself to study I was so burned out. I knew I could do well in the courses...I had before, but I just didn't have the time or energy anymore. It's been hard; thankfully, I get a break come Wednesday.

Now, to be a little corny....The other day I was walking across a huge parking lot, and I mean huge, to reach my car. I could see my car wayyy over at the other end, but it seemed so far away. I sort of made a realization about med as I was walking towards that car. I could see my car, clearly, and as long as I kept my eyes on it, I didn't feel as tired and I sure didn't feel hopeless, because I knew that eventually I would get to my car and every step I took brought me a little closer. It made me realize how frustrated I was with my quarter and the way things had gone and how much I wanted to give up. I figure, though, that as long as you keep your eyes on that goal...because you can see it, you can see a med acceptance happenning one day...as long as your gaze is set, the road doesnt seem so bad and things dont seem as hopeless. You keep going because you realize that every second you're getting closer and closer and eventually you'll be upon what you've been walking towards all this time. Your path might not be straight, as I had to go around cars and barricades and all sorts of things to get to my car; that made the path longer for sure, but despite all the obstacles if you keep your eyes fixed, nothing is hopeless and everything is attainable.

Good lord, I am never so cheesy.

 

[russiandoc]

Thank you guys. I am glad to be in the same pool as all of you. I am only 19 years old, yet i rarely find people who are on the same levels of maturity as all of you here. I am glad that such fine human beings are going into the medical profession because that is where people like us belong. I can see that we can set our motivation towards any goal we choose, and eventually somehow achieve it, and those of us here have definently chose the right career to work hard for.