How do you prevent med school from sucking your soul out?

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Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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I just feel that, as time goes on, I continue to become more of a shell of who I was. I'm just very tired of being a student - I just want to start doing things and contributing. But instead it feels like I spend several hours standing around doing nothing on rotations and then I come home and spend several hours answering board style questions which are so far removed from real world medicine and are just designed to drive you insane for no reason. It just makes me feel like I am not doing anything substantial or worthy, and as someone with a previous career as a software developer it just sucks because I miss the "old me".

Honestly, I'm just starting this thread as a support group more than anything.
 
It’s been awhile but I made sure to carve out time for things I liked doing. I started a Med student chamber choir and had my job, plus did a few other music gigs around town to keep myself sane. Another thing I would do - and still do - is whenever I’m feeling that way I’ll often go sit down and talk with some patients and their families outside the time crunch of clinic and OR. Usually a weekend morning rounds or a slow pm round after a tough day. I find it helps refocus me on what it’s all for, and it’s not the endless paperwork and insurance phone calls or note writing or uworld questions no matter how much of a time suck those can be!

Someone told me early on that medicine will take every ounce of your life that you’re willing to give it. Not sure if I understood just how true that was at the time, but it’s come to be a central battle of my days. I’m still learning how to set boundaries and balance caring for suffering people in need with maintaining a professional balance that will allow me a happy 25-30 year career.

So what you’re dealing with now will continue to be a struggle for a long time. It won’t always be the suckage of Med school - that gets replaced with other stuff. But it’s the same essential struggle.

I don’t think there’s a definite answer - our profession is demanding and it’s patients who ultimately suffer when we carve out more time for ourselves. Given how big an issue burnout is, I think there’s a strong argument that happy docs will ultimately provide more and better care than a burned out one. But it’s a tough balance. Some days I win; some days medicine wins. But I keep fighting, and I find it extremely fulfilling and rewarding.

Another doc - rather famous one actually - remarked that while school and training are tough, on the other side many people will be able to find their original idealistic self. I think that’s been true for me, and now in my second year of attending I’m building a fuller and fuller life outside of work while also building a very busy practice.
 
I actually have a really good life outside of med school. I work out, hang out with friends, spend time with wife and family, etc. But just being a student really gets to me.
 
I hear ya. I’m in the same boat. I’m in a better spot now but about 1.5m ago I even had some very intrusive suicidal thoughts…

Med school sucks. It does from the beginning till I guess you match and the only thing you have to do is walk and get your diploma.

I think it’d help to have med school compartmentalized, like this is med school time and that is hobby time. I don’t have the luxury of such a thing since outside of medical school I have other obligations. I feel like I do either school stuff or stuff for others (kids etc.). No time for myself whatsoever.

Well, the end is in sight..
 
HipiMochi said:
I just feel that, as time goes on, I continue to become more of a shell of who I was. I'm just very tired of being a student - I just want to start doing things and contributing. But instead it feels like I spend several hours standing around doing nothing on rotations and then I come home and spend several hours answering board style questions which are so far removed from real world medicine and are just designed to drive you insane for no reason. It just makes me feel like I am not doing anything substantial or worthy, and as someone with a previous career as a software developer it just sucks because I miss the "old me".

Honestly, I'm just starting this thread as a support group more than anything.
Click to expand...
Be like WATER my friend.
 
Can sympathize with feeling useless on rotations - felt that way recently on peds where I was essentially a glorified shadow in scrubs. Got much better when I moved on to more hands on rotations.
 
HipiMochi said:
I actually have a really good life outside of med school. I work out, hang out with friends, spend time with wife and family, etc. But just being a student really gets to me.
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I think you just have to keep in mind that everything in training is temporary. You feel like the least useful member of the team... because you are. Obviously nobody would sign up for this if that was the endpoint, but it isn't--you're gaining the basic knowledge that will allow you to hopefully not kill anybody when you're an intern, and eventually you'll learn enough through hands-on training in residency to be a competent attending. Personally, being an attending is pretty awesome. But there is a whole lot of stuff that is required to get there that is not awesome.
 
Medical school, internship, residency and fellowship training is probably about a decade’s worth of sheer hard work in hospital/clinic plus studying for assessments/exams and balancing familial commitments.

Life gets reasonably better once you finish the training and become an Attending Physician. Until that time you have to pace yourself like a long distance run or swim, and put things into perspective. Think of it as short term pain for long term gain.

Develop perseverance and resilience. Maintain a healthy lifestyle. Eat right and exercise. Have hobbies and fun things to do outside of work. Spend time with and find solace and comfort amongst your family and friends. Treasure, protect and allocate time outside of work/study to relax. Because if you don’t, you’re probably headed for burnout and disillusionment.

Smell the roses along the way. Slow and steady wins the race.
 
Friends, family, hobbies, exercise, and remembering to try to live life when you can. Medical school definitely crushed my soul, though luckily I found residency and now fellowship to be much more rewarding. Hang in there, it should get better.
 
Acceptance which leads to resilience of stress.

Accept that you will be pimped in clinic every day and occasionally some attendings won't be very nice to you.

Accept that there are no guarantees in medicine and that if you were kicked out tomorrow, you'd still be fine in life.

I never sat there and said to myself, "gee I'm really glad I was stressed about the anatomy lab practical, gee I'm glad I was really stressed about boards, gee I'm really glad I was so stressed about the OR room and being pimped".

You just do these things, and move on. The stress part never helped anyone.
 
HipiMochi said:
I just feel that, as time goes on, I continue to become more of a shell of who I was. I'm just very tired of being a student - I just want to start doing things and contributing. But instead it feels like I spend several hours standing around doing nothing on rotations and then I come home and spend several hours answering board style questions which are so far removed from real world medicine and are just designed to drive you insane for no reason. It just makes me feel like I am not doing anything substantial or worthy, and as someone with a previous career as a software developer it just sucks because I miss the "old me".

Honestly, I'm just starting this thread as a support group more than anything.
Click to expand...

Things that sustained me in medical school MS3-4

Internal:
Interesting cases
Fun patient interactions
Knowing that it was temporary
Sharing war stories/commiserating with my fellow medical students during lunch break

External:
Golden weekends and even some three day weekends (I definitely had way more of them as a medical student than as a resident)
Getting out into nature either hiking, biking, snowboarding, tubing, whatever
Those glorious post shelf exam days/weekends when you could do whatever and the world was your oyster.
Social events with my fellow medical students - movies, restaurants, parties, etc.
Sports - either on TV or in person. One time I booked a playoff hockey game in Philly (90 minutes away) on a whim during clinic when I saw the schedule was light in the afternoon and I could probably make the game at 7 pm. I was still a couple minutes late, but still had a good time despite the road loss.

TLDR: Find the good where you can and use it to sustain you.
 
HipiMochi said:
I just feel that, as time goes on, I continue to become more of a shell of who I was. I'm just very tired of being a student - I just want to start doing things and contributing. But instead it feels like I spend several hours standing around doing nothing on rotations and then I come home and spend several hours answering board style questions which are so far removed from real world medicine and are just designed to drive you insane for no reason. It just makes me feel like I am not doing anything substantial or worthy, and as someone with a previous career as a software developer it just sucks because I miss the "old me".

Honestly, I'm just starting this thread as a support group more than anything.
Click to expand...


Watch this.
 
Unless you are an elite student, (and there are more than you might think), pre clinical is the worst part. It's only like 20 months, so be good to yourself, put the time in YOU need to attain the academic success you desire, i.e., run your own race. Clinicals get much better as you finally get into the patient care part of the training. The bad news, in July, as the new 3rd yr student on surgery, you are for all intents and purposes, well...unable to be useful. Not your fault, just you are on the bottom of the ladder and you will make big improvements over that year. I have said often, that med school is not for everyone.Its hard and will test your character. Lots of smart people don't do "Hard" or don't have the best character,( quit when things get tough.) Be good to yourself, make sure you have a support network, and you will get through. Lastly, the Match Game changes rapidly. Watch for changes and play the game well come match time.
 
I undoubtedly have struggled with all those same feelings. I'm in year 3 of my 5 year ortho program, and I continually wait for when things will change significantly to give me a better work/life balance. Some days, I feel drained to the bone, and it seems like as soon as I get either work or my personal life in order, the other one flairs causing the cycle to continue. I can say that finding joy in the things that you do at work, interactions with colleagues and meaning to what you do is very important - as are all the things other have brought up in your personal life.

I felt what I would describe as being "burned out" about once per year in med school. Since getting to residency, especially in years 2 and 3, I've burned out about once every 3 months. During these times which last 1-2 weeks, I felt the joy in the things I was doing lessen, and everything was more of a grind. I asked some experience people in the field about it, and got some great advice: "when you feel like you've lost motivation, understand it is happening, and let habit take over in your job - it will pass". So far, that advice has helped me immensely. I can see when I am started to take less joy in my work, start lacking motivation for working out/doing things that usually I love, or start getting short with family/friends, and I now feel better about recognizing it right away. Just realizing that it is happening, helps letting my habit for doing my job take over, gives me the foresight to force myself to do the things that bring me joy, and I eventually get through it.

Maybe my personal story will help...maybe it won't for you. I am by no means giving medical/psychological advice, but only mean to share my struggles so maybe you gain some benefit - even if only to hear that your struggles are common. Medicine is a grind, and I look forward to being a senior resident next year, and eventually a staff - although maybe it's just my hope that it will be much better. There will undoubtedly always be more struggles in the future.

“Life doesn't get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.”
 
I think the worst part for me is just feeling useless as an MS3. What makes it worse is that attendings and residents are expecting me to be so worthless that even when I have something to contribute, they ignore it or just partially listen. I had that happen with an attending last week but, luckily, the nurse told her the same thing 2 hours later and she looked at me and said “wait is that what you were saying earlier?”. When I said “yes” she just nodded and moved on. Which is fine, I’m not expecting a pat on the back or a “good job champ”. I’m just hoping that crap like this will stop when I’m a resident.
 
Exercise, cook new foods... meditate! Use free time (although limited) to grow yourself. Find joy in small things - hot coffee in the morning, going grocery shopping. Obviously, it's easier said... but you got this!!
 
HipiMochi said:
I think the worst part for me is just feeling useless as an MS3. What makes it worse is that attendings and residents are expecting me to be so worthless that even when I have something to contribute, they ignore it or just partially listen. I had that happen with an attending last week but, luckily, the nurse told her the same thing 2 hours later and she looked at me and said “wait is that what you were saying earlier?”. When I said “yes” she just nodded and moved on. Which is fine, I’m not expecting a pat on the back or a “good job champ”. I’m just hoping that crap like this will stop when I’m a resident.
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It does to an extent. I think the hardest aspect of M3 is that you really don’t have any meaningful experience yet, but you have an incredible foundation and usually a keen intellect. Add to that how you change rotations often so even when you do gain a bit of footing, you get shuffled off to a new service in a couple weeks and now you’re lost again. Even on the same service you may get changes in faculty and now you have to prove yourself all over again.

You still don’t know much as a resident, but you do get the benefit of longer rotations, same field, and same faculty so people actually get to know you and you can build a good reputation.

About the time you really have a good handle on everything, they kick your tail out and slap a board cert in your hand and say good luck!

Just keep learning every day. You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you. For the shortest residencies it’s still 4.5 years from now before you’re done. And lemme tell you, you learn a TON in your first years as an attending too. My mentors tell me it takes about 5 years to really find your stride as an attending. So really you’ve got a solid decade left to go before you’re settled.

Enjoy the good parts of being a student too: no dealing with insurance companies, no admins on your back, minimal note writing, no coding queries, no patient phone calls, no pager, etc. You actually have the time to learn and think. If you want to go spend an hour talking with a complex patient, you can do it. Want to spend half an hour reading papers on an unusual condition? No problem! Almost all of your time is protected, and that ends way too soon. The price of that protection is not being useful, but don’t overlook the perks too.
 
operaman said:
It does to an extent. I think the hardest aspect of M3 is that you really don’t have any meaningful experience yet, but you have an incredible foundation and usually a keen intellect. Add to that how you change rotations often so even when you do gain a bit of footing, you get shuffled off to a new service in a couple weeks and now you’re lost again. Even on the same service you may get changes in faculty and now you have to prove yourself all over again.

You still don’t know much as a resident, but you do get the benefit of longer rotations, same field, and same faculty so people actually get to know you and you can build a good reputation.

About the time you really have a good handle on everything, they kick your tail out and slap a board cert in your hand and say good luck!

Just keep learning every day. You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you. For the shortest residencies it’s still 4.5 years from now before you’re done. And lemme tell you, you learn a TON in your first years as an attending too. My mentors tell me it takes about 5 years to really find your stride as an attending. So really you’ve got a solid decade left to go before you’re settled.

Enjoy the good parts of being a student too: no dealing with insurance companies, no admins on your back, minimal note writing, no coding queries, no patient phone calls, no pager, etc. You actually have the time to learn and think. If you want to go spend an hour talking with a complex patient, you can do it. Want to spend half an hour reading papers on an unusual condition? No problem! Almost all of your time is protected, and that ends way too soon. The price of that protection is not being useful, but don’t overlook the perks too.
Click to expand...

Thank you - I really needed this. I think I’m gonna be more proactive in spending time on things that I have time to do (perfecting physical exams, learning anatomy, etc).
 
Journal. Very easy to start, no money needed. Just paper and a pen. A glass of wine (not medical advice). And just let it all out on the paper. The best part is that it is between you and the paper. No one else. from there do what you want with the paper. Continue to journal in a book or burn the paper and with it, the stressors you wrote down.
 
Great advice from many up above. I don't know if there's a way to truly prevent it completely. The advice above is great though for at least maintaining some semblance of yourself through this process. But the immense amount of time, stress, sleepless nights, it has an impact on you that many outside of medicine just can't comprehend. I felt the same way though, missed family gatherings because I had to stay home studying, missed time with the wife and kids because I was on call overnight and on weekends. I'm post training now and active duty so my hours are much better but I'm still waiting on things to improve even more lol (different complaints in milmed than when I was in med school/residency). It looks like upon separation I'll have a job where I can be much more flexible with my hours and make quite a bit more money so that should help. Pretty much med school + residency is going to suck to some extent no matter what you do. You just gotta figure out things that help you survive to keep persevering like exercising, spending time away from medicine with friends, hobbies, video games, things that you find fun and enjoyable outside of medicine. I think most everyone feels the way you're feeling at some point through this journey so you're definitely not alone in this.
 
Bored Snorlax said:


Watch this.
Click to expand...

While that scene is ok...geez... one of the worst shows ever. I am biased but I "love" how they portray anesthesiologists as mindless mignons sitting motionless waiting to do whatever the surgeons tell them to do. I get it, it's a TV show but I still feel like it's doing a huge disservice.

On the other hand, I was trying to come up with a plot for a TV show about anesthesia and boy am I having a hard time lolz
 
Esmolol said:
While that scene is ok...geez... one of the worst shows ever. I am biased but I "love" how they portray anesthesiologists as mindless mignons sitting motionless waiting to do whatever the surgeons tell them to do. I get it, it's a TV show but I still feel like it's doing a huge disservice.

On the other hand, I was trying to come up with a plot for a TV show about anesthesia and boy am I having a hard time lolz
Click to expand...
Geez, there is lots of material. Have the anesthesiologist be former special forces. You can have flashbacks from them in the ME, helping soldiers and locals. The current time period working in a big Level 1 center, saving lives, providing pain relief to drug addicts, turning off the vent in a brain dead Mom who has been kept alive in the ICU for weeks so the baby could be mature enough to live, standing up to arrogant wrong headed surgeons and proven right,... boy I could go on.
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Geez, there is lots of material. Have the anesthesiologist be former special forces. You can have flashbacks from them in the ME, helping soldiers and locals. The current time period working in a big Level 1 center, saving lives, providing pain relief to drug addicts, turning off the vent in a brain dead Mom who has been kept alive in the ICU for weeks so the baby could be mature enough to live, standing up to arrogant wrong headed surgeons and proven right,... boy I could go on.
Click to expand...
OK. I came up with these - these are no-brainers. It... might work.

standing up to arrogant wrong headed surgeons and proven right
Click to expand...
I sense a two-part episode on that one! 🤣
 
Esmolol said:
While that scene is ok...geez... one of the worst shows ever. I am biased but I "love" how they portray anesthesiologists as mindless mignons sitting motionless waiting to do whatever the surgeons tell them to do. I get it, it's a TV show but I still feel like it's doing a huge disservice.

On the other hand, I was trying to come up with a plot for a TV show about anesthesia and boy am I having a hard time lolz
Click to expand...
First time I saw that scene it motivated me to study hard lol, but I agree the show is a bit unrealistic.
 
Bored Snorlax said:
First time I saw that scene it motivated me to study hard lol, but I agree the show is a bit unrealistic.
Click to expand...
That scene is like an essential oil of thousands of personal statements 🤣 the essence of them...
 
You have to make time for balance in your life. Exercise, socializing, hobbies, whatever. You make time to eat, sleep, go to class, study etc. already. You just have to prioritize your balancing activities as well. I exercised 6/7 days a week for 60 minutes. Without fail. People would be going out on a Friday night, and I’d say I’ll have to meet you later because I have to go to the gym. If I had an exam and an extra hour of studying would make a difference, that was my skip day. When you incorporate these balance activities into your schedule like eating and sleeping you’ll find the balance you seek.
 
So besides the calling and the money, is there any other benefit to this life over the regular 9-5 job out of college?
 
MateoGM416 said:
So besides the calling and the money, is there any other benefit to this life over the regular 9-5 job out of college?
Click to expand...
Well at it’s core you have to actually enjoy the work. I don’t think you need to love it - it’s still a job after all - but you should probably at least enjoy some aspects of it. If you do, then that’s a huge boost and makes it more tolerable than other 9-5s out there.

Personally I find that my days fly by most of the time and while I’m definitely working and thinking hard, it goes quickly. I’m never sitting around watching the clock wondering when the day will finally end. Of course sometimes the opposite happens and it’s insane and I look up and I’m leaving at 10pm. But those instances are thankfully quite rare, and medicine doesn’t have the monopoly on a few late nights.

Beyond that, job security is another perk. Seeing a lot of high paid tech workers getting the axe lately. They’ve had a good run, but it seems the tides are turning. The growth of these AI chat bots will probably eliminate many entry level and even some upper level jobs across all industries.

Similar things can happen in medicine of course and we’ve seen/are seeing some job markets implode, but overall it seems like a fairly secure place to be. There’s still a need for human-to-human interaction and procedural interventions that AI won’t be able to match for awhile.

So for me it’s enjoyable and interesting work, job security, great pay, and sense of calling and filling a need.
 
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