MD How do I enjoy medical school/change myself?

[canmed96]

The past 4 years of undergrad, i've been a total loser. Much of it is my doing. I never went to parties, clubs any sort of social events because "too busy tryna get to med school fam".

Got accepted to med school last month and I was probably the least happiest person about it in my family and friend group. I almost felt nothing as i read the acceptance email.

Because of not enjoying myself in undergrad, I had a brutal fourth year even though i made it through as far as marks go to the point where i started blaming the pursuit of medical school for taking my youth away from me.

While all my friends made memories, hooked up with girls and had fun, i have nothing to show for my "best 4 years of life" than a med school acceptance- which a part of me is sure proud about and hopefully I'll be happy about it eventually.

My question is for you guys to give me some advice on how i can change myself and actually enjoy my time for the next 3 months of summer and in medical school so I don't end up wasting and regretting that also. I know people say it's much busier than undergrad but what can I do for fun and how do i make time for it?

What's done is done, but I hope there's still time left for me to enjoy all those things. Any advice is appreciated.

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[deleted407021]

Congrats on the acceptance. It's a huge deal to get into med school! I'll just offer up some ideas on how to manage in school.

You acknowledge that you've worked very hard the last year(s), so you should take as much time you have now off, enjoy it with family, friends and whatever it is you enjoy the most. You sound burnt out and you should take care of yourself and rest up before school starts.

Once you're in and taking classes, lean on the new friends you make and really become part of the team, because you'll need one another. You'll have some time to go have fun, but definitely not as much as undergrad. That said, if you get invited to go somewhere and that nervous voice in the back of you head is nagging you to study a few more hours, but you've already worked yourself to the bone ... go out and have fun. A few extra points on an exam here or there isn't going to do you any good if you're loosing hair and developing an ulcer.

Lastly, absolutely seek out and use the counseling resources at your school. They're talented people whose job it is to make sure students have a professional to talk to if ever they feel overwhelmed, over-stressed, depressed or anything else. Never be afraid to go to a counselor.


First year is an adjustment period. Second year gets tougher, esp. around boards. We're all in it together, though, so reach out whenever.

 

[atomi]

So you've been successful but now you regret that you didn't "hook up with girls" like a total d-bag? You can do that tomorrow if you want. Any loser can find a girl with low self confidence and have a meaningless encounter. You have clearly held yourself to a higher standard, which is something you should be proud of. You should keep up whatever it is you have been doing. You can be a total jerk who parties, uses drugs, and hooks up with random people at any point in life. Not just anybody can walk into med school and become a doctor. Stop letting your buddies make you feel like you've missed out on a great part of life. You haven't. Those experiences are meaningless and will be easily forgotten unless they happened to get a criminal record or herpes out of it.

You call yourself a loser, but you are not a loser. You did college RIGHT. A loser is the guy I knew who went to college, did cocaine and banged random people every night, failed out, worked at red lobster for years until getting fired, and now is in and out of rehab in his 30s. When you are in your 30s you will be making $500k/year and vacationing in Tahiti with your family. You are not a loser. Keep working hard.

 

[seekere]

you posted this on reddit and I replied to you and also defended you when someone had an inappropriate response. Stop posting this everywhere bro. See a therapist and work with them on taking steps to make you feel better now and plan for the future. In the meantime, hit the gym, get an eating plan according to your goals, get a good haircut. All these should be you feel more confident socially and appealing to the girls like you want. But you won’t get any response on SDN that is better or different than what you got on reddit. It’s time to stop lying in a pile of your own pity (as I have done in the past) and actually take some steps. Meet with a psychologist ASAP.

 

[MedicineN'Jazz]

Or...defer a year for medical school (although it might be too late), and use the free time to travel and do what you have to do. It’s sounds like you’re in depression, which is a very dangerous state of mind for incoming medical students. If you can’t defer, please seek professional counseling at the very least!

 

[Redpancreas]

The past 4 years of undergrad, i've been a total loser. Much of it is my doing. I never went to parties, clubs any sort of social events because "too busy tryna get to med school fam".

Got accepted to med school last month and I was probably the least happiest person about it in my family and friend group. I almost felt nothing as i read the acceptance email.

Because of not enjoying myself in undergrad, I had a brutal fourth year even though i made it through as far as marks go to the point where i started blaming the pursuit of medical school for taking my youth away from me.

While all my friends made memories, hooked up with girls and had fun, i have nothing to show for my "best 4 years of life" than a med school acceptance- which a part of me is sure proud about and hopefully I'll be happy about it eventually.

My question is for you guys to give me some advice on how i can change myself and actually enjoy my time for the next 3 months of summer and in medical school so I don't end up wasting and regretting that also. I know people say it's much busier than undergrad but what can I do for fun and how do i make time for it?

What's done is done, but I hope there's still time left for me to enjoy all those things. Any advice is appreciated.

This whole post seems like you’re tearing yourself down unnecessarily. It sounds like your 4th year of undergrad was stressful. It would have been for me as well if I only learnt as late as May that I had been accepted to medical school. Every application process is incredibly nerve wracking and common. You’ll experience similar inefficiency during your M4 year as you await board scores, interviews, and then match day where you’ll kick yourself afterwards and wish you did more fun stuff.

These are all very common regrets. In regards to women, hooking up and short term dating is an extremely superficial venture and if you haven’t been able to land women you like, there’s a significant component of that that’s probably not really your fault. When women like a guy for that sort of stuff, it’s shocking how easy they’ll make it for you. Would you have rather wasted your time maximizing your odds of sleeping with women at the expense off getting distracted and taking unneeded gap years, etc? I’m elaborating because I feel especially for guys, college is one of those times guys are expected to “get laid” and when it doesn’t happen to them, a lot of them start feeling depressed and like there’s something wrong with them which isn’t true.

In regards to what you need to change, absolutely nothing. Enjoy your summer and do all the things you normally do. I would say that perhaps for a week or two, it’d be good to do some international travel and perhaps get a little out of your comfort zone by picking up a new hobby.

In regards to when medical school starts be outgoing and go to all the initial events and make more of an effort to make friends you have stuff in common with, but now’s not the time to switch to chillax mode and start living it up.These next two years pretty much determine your specialty and a good portion of your classmates that did not go straight through have already seen a good chunk of this material. If you want Ortho, Derm, Urology, etc. you are going to have to work hard to master the material which will set you up for a great Step 1 and good clerkship performance. Hell even if you want IM doing well on Step 1 and clerkships is how you get a good program which sets you up for fellowship. Medical school’s a grind...eat/study/sleep and everyone’s doing it. Stay physically active and reasonably happy and try to enjoy the routine by incorporating little things you enjoy into your daily routine. To avoid burn out, recognize that that Friday night where you’re out of energy is much better spent going out with some friends as opposed to trying to finish those lectures that will be there for you on Saturday.

Lastly, you’re in your early 20s and with the added stressor of medical school, like everyone else, you’re very prone to depressive episodes. Prior to medical school, I knew extremely little about mental health, but throughout it I learnt how important good mental hygiene that I elaborated on above can be. It can literally the difference between being an honors student vs. failing out. Take time to care for yourself and obtain appropriate services now to prevent crises down the road later.

 

[Tenk]

Hit the gym and become alpha.

 

[mistafab]

Get yourself some hobbies bro. 2 things you need in your life is having fun and flexin a 6 pack.

 

[Welshman]

1. Watch the movie Yes Man

2. Travel somewhere alone, stay in popular hostels, go to hostels happy hour bar, sit down with the hottest group of girls and ask where they’re from

 

[GoCubsGo20]

You can still sling some poon in medical school and party with the best of em.

 

[MedicineN'Jazz]

You can still sling some poon in medical school and party with the best of em.

I read this with an r

 

[GoCubsGo20]

I read this with an r

OP could maybe use some of that too, who knows.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

to the point where i started blaming the pursuit of medical school for taking my youth away from me.

While all my friends made memories, hooked up with girls and had fun, i have nothing to show for my "best 4 years of life" than a med school acceptance- which a part of me is sure proud about and hopefully I'll be happy about it eventually.
.

1) You thought college was hard? Residency takes more of your youth. But the final goal is so worth it.
2)Hooking up with random people is ultimately meaningless.
3)“Nothing to show for it” indeed...except, you know, a secure future with wealth and autonomy.
Learn to appreciate your own successes.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Raney Schauer]

Go outside and get some sun/exercise. Like every day. You will be surprised at how your mood changes. Remember this well because it's going to be a critical skill in the next few years. You need to learn how to take care of your psychological and physical self.

Immediate step - Go over to the local airport that has tandem jump. It doesn't have to be exactly that but anything with high yield shakabuku potential will do. Bungee jumping. Stuff like that.

Then go talk to that girl that you traded looks with and then never did anything about it because you were so focused on the precious.

 

[vernhart]

So you've been successful but now you regret that you didn't "hook up with girls" like a total d-bag? You can do that tomorrow if you want. Any loser can find a girl with low self confidence and have a meaningless encounter. You have clearly held yourself to a higher standard, which is something you should be proud of. You should keep up whatever it is you have been doing. You can be a total jerk who parties, uses drugs, and hooks up with random people at any point in life. Not just anybody can walk into med school and become a doctor. Stop letting your buddies make you feel like you've missed out on a great part of life. You haven't. Those experiences are meaningless and will be easily forgotten unless they happened to get a criminal record or herpes out of it.

You call yourself a loser, but you are not a loser. You did college RIGHT. A loser is the guy I knew who went to college, did cocaine and banged random people every night, failed out, worked at red lobster for years until getting fired, and now is in and out of rehab in his 30s. When you are in your 30s you will be making $500k/year and vacationing in Tahiti with your family. You are not a loser. Keep working hard.

Hooking up makes you a d-bag? Partying makes you a druggie/jerk? I hope you aren't this judgmental with your patients...

 

[Terror Billy]

So you've been successful but now you regret that you didn't "hook up with girls" like a total d-bag? You can do that tomorrow if you want. Any loser can find a girl with low self confidence and have a meaningless encounter. You have clearly held yourself to a higher standard, which is something you should be proud of. You should keep up whatever it is you have been doing. You can be a total jerk who parties, uses drugs, and hooks up with random people at any point in life. Not just anybody can walk into med school and become a doctor. Stop letting your buddies make you feel like you've missed out on a great part of life. You haven't. Those experiences are meaningless and will be easily forgotten unless they happened to get a criminal record or herpes out of it.

You call yourself a loser, but you are not a loser. You did college RIGHT. A loser is the guy I knew who went to college, did cocaine and banged random people every night, failed out, worked at red lobster for years until getting fired, and now is in and out of rehab in his 30s. When you are in your 30s you will be making $500k/year and vacationing in Tahiti with your family. You are not a loser. Keep working hard.

Bro you sound like the biggest BETA on this website. I know plenty of people who lived by varying degrees of the "work hard, play hard" cliche, but I can tell you the experiences I shared with my closest friends are ones I'll treasure for a lifetime. Not 100% sure you can fathom this, but you can have sexual relations with women without alcohol or drugs...and you can consume alcohol in college without ending up in rehab...who knew!!

OP I'm gonna give it to you straight, you missed out on some undergrad fun, but you got into med school which is all that matters at this point. Do NOT treat med school as some way to make up for lost experiences in undergrad, it's going to be an even more painful grind by a country mile, but do find hobbies as others have suggested and try to perhaps establish some type of friend group when you get to school.

 

[Detective SnowBucket]

Dude I'm totally in the same boat and now that I've taken the MCAT and applied, I've become sort of a 'yes man', like last night I went out for the first time since last fall because that evening a friend was like 'let's go to a pre-game' and we ended up going out. It's like a 'just do it' mentality

 

[atomi]

Bro you sound like the biggest BETA on this website. I know plenty of people who lived by varying degrees of the "work hard, play hard" cliche, but I can tell you the experiences I shared with my closest friends are ones I'll treasure for a lifetime. Not 100% sure you can fathom this, but you can have sexual relations with women without alcohol or drugs...and you can consume alcohol in college without ending up in rehab...who knew!!

OP I'm gonna give it to you straight, you missed out on some undergrad fun, but you got into med school which is all that matters at this point. Do NOT treat med school as some way to make up for lost experiences in undergrad, it's going to be an even more painful grind by a country mile, but do find hobbies as others have suggested and try to perhaps establish some type of friend group when you get to school.

LOL at using terms like "beta." The only people who talk like that are total douchebags. Thanks for self-identifying. BTW I was trying to motivate the op, "bro."

 

[atomi]

Hooking up makes you a d-bag? Partying makes you a druggie/jerk? I hope you aren't this judgmental with your patients...

No, but I tend to discourage self-destructive behavior and overindulgence in addictive activities including diet, alcohol/drug use, and compulsive sexual activity with random people.

 

[dsg92]

Had similar feelings going into med school. It will eventually get better. Dress clean, eat ok, try to stay in shape. You made it bro, you're going to be a f*cking doctor. Life will work out. Don't get fat again (like me).

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Do you even lift?

 

[Terror Billy]

LOL at using terms like "beta." The only people who talk like that are total douchebags. Thanks for self-identifying. BTW I was trying to motivate the op, "bro."

Anyone who incessantly uses the term “douchebag” to describe people that partake in activities they deem unacceptable because they’re judgmental pricks are definitely betas, you’ve been squealing all over this thread my dude

 

[atomi]

definitely betas

LOL

 

[chizledfrmstone]

Lets stay on topic and keep things professional.

 

[doctorstrangerthingz]

There are so many people like you, including myself, who were focused about their school work and had their goal as their priority over anything else. With that said, I do think that I too could’ve freed up sometime to enjoy myself more, especially once you realize that all it really takes is good time management. I’ll be starting med school in the fall too, so I can’t comment on that part. Partying and hooking up is overrated and I hardly came across anyone during undergrad that truly enjoyed that lifestyle or was able to sustain it while still becoming successful after college is over. Congratulations on your acceptance man! There’s nothing wrong with you, just put in extra effort to free up sometime to enjoy yourself and to be social.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[QueenJames]

Plan on having foursomes all the time...

with Sketchy, Pathoma, and FA.

LOL

It gets worse homie.

Better get your fix before school starts. Hop on the tinder train or bumble bonanza because once school begins... it will suck.

 

[GoCubsGo20]

Plan on having threesomes all the time...

with Sketchy, Pathoma, and FA.

LOL

It gets worse homie.

Better get your fix before school starts. Hop on the tinder train or bumble bonanza because once school begins... it will suck.

Kinky stuff eh?

 

[QueenJames]

Kinky stuff eh?

Has me hot and bothered just thinking about it.

 

[trobinsonmd]

Since you're starting at a new school, no one will know who you (or anyone else) are... the first few weeks are critical because this is when you establish yourself and start forming social groups. Dress well, clean up nicely, and be confident... you got into med school, it is a huge accomplishment, so you should be proud of yourself and carry yourself in such a manner that is reflective of your newly minted status as a medical student.

The first week, people are shy and want someone else to make the first move, that's basically your opportunity... just say hi to people and smile, you will be surprised how far this will take you socially... I'm from SoCal and went to school in NYC and was very out of my zone bc the culture here is so different and most of the people at my school are from the Northeast... I just did my own thing and was confident and nice to everyone and I was extremely satisfied socially... main takeaway -- be confident, it radiates and people can feel it

 

[DokterMom]

You gotta find your balance point -- Too much grind and the stress and self-loathing you seem to feel now will be nothing compared to the stress and amplified self-loathing you will feel in 18 months.

But practice good mental hygiene and you can survive and thrive. Good mental hygiene is stuff like getting enough sleep, getting sufficient daylight and exercise, limiting the negativity, stupidity and drama you allow into your life, and importantly, budgeting time for fun, however it is you define that. Meaningless hookups aren't really restorative, but friendships and intimacy very much are. Find yourself a nice group of friends - starting the day you get to your new location. As @trobinsonmd says, make the first step and exude all the confidence you can muster -- not false bravado, but friendly humility. All your peers will be in similar situations. They'll need to study hard also, and won't judge you for needing to grind away. Just be sure to make some time to nurture some real friendships as it will help you academically and professionally as well.

Also, the advice to relax now? -- Gold. Take it! And to get yourself some decent clothes and a nice haircut? Absolutely. It'll help your confidence. And the suggestion that you lookup mental health services when you get to school? Not a bad idea. You may not need it, but good to know where they are.

 

[flapjack3d]

The past 4 years of undergrad, i've been a total loser. Much of it is my doing. I never went to parties, clubs any sort of social events because "too busy tryna get to med school fam".

Got accepted to med school last month and I was probably the least happiest person about it in my family and friend group. I almost felt nothing as i read the acceptance email.

Because of not enjoying myself in undergrad, I had a brutal fourth year even though i made it through as far as marks go to the point where i started blaming the pursuit of medical school for taking my youth away from me.

While all my friends made memories, hooked up with girls and had fun, i have nothing to show for my "best 4 years of life" than a med school acceptance- which a part of me is sure proud about and hopefully I'll be happy about it eventually.

My question is for you guys to give me some advice on how i can change myself and actually enjoy my time for the next 3 months of summer and in medical school so I don't end up wasting and regretting that also. I know people say it's much busier than undergrad but what can I do for fun and how do i make time for it?

What's done is done, but I hope there's still time left for me to enjoy all those things. Any advice is appreciated.

Can relate. Haven't read other replies, but you need to put in work for whatever is important to you. If making friends, going out, developing relationships is important to you then you will need to schedule it in and make it deliberate. Ther will always be the temptation to have the same behavior in med school as you did in undergrad beyond that, it's really not hard once you find a couple people you click with.