Practicing Psychiatrist.
Med school is bad. Many people will hit the wall where studying with intensity isn't good enough - you are no longer above average. Now you will have to bust your academia to survive. I recall frequently 12-15 hour days studying (or waking at 3-4AM just before tests to cram more,) and often hitting the wall of slowing mentation due to inattention from fatigue/boredom. Not boredom in traditional sense but just a yearn for something else besides studying all day long. When faced with upcoming exams, you have no choice but to grind and get it done. The breath of fresh air was the hours following a test, and then again the reality of the next test deadline would start to sink in, and cycle repeats. (school was rolling classes and rolling tests, I selected that over the class/test block schools intentionally).
There will be classmates who cruise thru and just simply have the right study habits that work for them and are able to put in less time (they are a minority). However, odds are, that won't be you. Others I observed had families and truly had to limit their study time to still keep their home life together. But it will leave very little room for much else. Perhaps some self care for exercise. Perhaps some time with extended family if they live in the area. Perhaps the local bar with classmates if in that life stage still. But often you will find yourself devoted to your books. I missed a grandmothers funeral for med school. Only to later learn that some students had been granted test delay/make ups for family events like this, but it was not advertised - I am resentful of this.
Some 3rd/4th year rotations were exhausting with hours, and then reading once home. I fell asleep with face in book numerous times. Stress of knowing that each rotation could be a land mine of one nurse, one resident, one staff doc who might only remember one minor fault and blow it out of proportion. It takes a lot of effort to bring 100% student cheerful to every rotation. Avoid the landmine topics of religion, politics. Keep your jokes simple enough to tell to a kid. To feign interest in every rotation, to see the positive of the experience while in the grind of that moment. There is the very real risk one trivial mistake out of all the weeks would be the one thing they would throw into eval. This is an important lesson and foreshadowing for the rest of your medical career. One drop of blood in the water and sharks will circle - it doesn't take much, so always have to bring your A game. Elicit feedback often to sniff out if an evaluator smelled blood so you can do something about it. And when you get feedback, stay quiet, look interested and ONLY respond, "thank you for the feedback." Doing that is one of the hardest things for people to do, but is so very an important lesson to practice or heaven forbid learn the hard way. Medical school trains you to bring your A game for those times in residency and beyond when you are exhausted, get paged at 2AM, and the clueless nurse, or brand new nurse brings up an issue that can wait for the AM day shift, or presents a problem about a patient but has no clue what's going on with the patient or the answer they seek is in the progress note of the doc earlier that day - but they didn't read the note. Like much of the medical training process the suck is real while marching through it, but at the end of it, you develop a survival skill set to put on your rose colored glasses and say, 'that wasn't so bad, I'm glad I had that experience.' At the end of medical school, and even to this day, I'm glad I experienced medical school, the pain, the suffering, the joy, the everything, it really is an exposure to our complete life cycle that will put a lot of worldly BS into perspective, and I wish every person could some how experience medical school and all the life experiences it entails. However, if I had to repeat medical school again now as an immigrant to another country, nope, hell no, hard pass, once was enough.
There are rotations, classes, classmates, etc that are positive. That you will be engaged with, feel energy and excitement towards, and gleefully find the fun of learning about. "huh, so that's why that is that way..." "who knew, that's a variant of normal!" etc. Or trouble pausing a text chapter because of how interesting it is. But overall don't count on there being more joyous moments in comparison.
Licensing exams just suck. Constantly looming over you until you knock out step/level III. Hahaha, but oh yeah, then there is board certification, oh, and if you do a fellowship? LOL, you get another large test!
Medical school, residency, and active practice will continue to be stressful at all stages - it just morphs. Try, as difficult as it may be, to find some semblance of work life balance even in medical school. Those skills will serve you well. But fear not, one way or another at some point of your career you will be hit with something and a switch will flip and work life balance becomes more than just a phrase. Being a doctor, being psychiatrist means less and less with each passing day. I can do [insert job here] and be just as happy, or happier.
Pick your residency with self truth (if you are able to pick). I had no intention to be a psychiatrist going into medical school but got hit with realization in 3rd year, "[expletive] I actually like psych..."
There are better jobs, better careers, better options in life than being a physician. But whatever it is that lit your fire to make this choice, you better remember what it is and why, because that fire will be needed during those coming days, nights, weeks of suck. Helping people isn't a good enough reason either. My electrician helped me keep wiring from burning down my home, my plumber helped me get water into my home again, I am very grateful for their services.
In summary: Med school bites. Know why you are doing it. Good luck.