Hi
I'm just curious how things are while on Med school. How hard is it? How did you choose your medical specialty and why?
Did you still ever encounter math? ( hehe) how many sleepless nights did you get? If I want to become a surgeon will I need more years of studying? How do you study? How do you get over some anxiety to study a corpse if any?
Fast forward..how does it feel like to be a surgeon?
Is it exhausting sometimes to do it everyday, like do you ever lose passion for it ? Do you ever get anxious before a surgery? Experience difficulty on some procedures? Do surgeons ever make mistakes while operating? How does it feel like to help others?
Do you get immune emotionally from sadness and deaths that occur?
Lastly, how do I prepare myself for medschool? And..any book suggestions I can read? Thank you so much!!
Medical school is hard and even intense at times, but if you're academically inclined you'll probably enjoy it. You'll have a better sense of your study habits and academic abilities once you're an undergrad.
There are different things that factor into your decision on a specialty, and your ideas may change both as a med student and even later: interest in particular areas; typical patient encounters; variety (or focus); lifestyle; job prospects; academic goals; and personal/family issues. I started out thinking I was going to study internal medicine, fell in love with anesthesia, switched to family medicine after a horrific few rotations as an intern, stumbled onto public health as a secondary interest once I was in practice, and now work as a coroner.
You will encounter math in medical school, but it's nothing much beyond early undergrad-level, mainly statistics. Even in fields that have more math content as part of the training (radiation oncology, public health), math isn't all that central to clinical practice.
The drive to become a surgeon is something you either have or you don't. Surgery residencies are not for the faint of heart. You're in hospital upwards of 120 hours a week, but you
want to be there. Anxiety will hit you in the operating room when you don't expect it. I found it kind of boring as a med student, if only because my first operation was four hours of standing around holding a retractor while the surgeon tediously broke up the patient's scar tissue. My wife scrubbed in on some incredible procedures as a med student, though, and it was only our relationship that kept her from being a surgeon. My favorite story of stress in medicine was scrubbing in as an intern as a patient was bleeding into his abdominal cavity. They cut him open and blood was EVERYWHERE, spraying like scenes in the
Kingsmen movie...I was laughing under my mask, almost certainly a stress reaction.
Do surgeons lose their passion? Not for surgery, at least not any surgeon I've ever known. They definitely lose passion for the stuff they have to put up with in order to practice their skills: red tape, hospital politics, long hours away from family, etc.
Every doctor makes mistakes. It's what you learn from them that matters.
How you feel helping others depends very much on what you've done and for whom. You'll have patients you develop a lasting connection with, and you treasure every visit with them. You'll have patients who will never know or be unable to appreciate your hard work - psychiatry patients, the developmentally disabled - and you need to find your own sense of satisfaction. And rarely, there will be people you will bend over backwards for, doing everything in your power and then some, that will scream in your face and curse you. But most of the time it's gratifying.
If you're a caring, conscientious doctor, you never get "immune" to sadness and death. But sadness is subjective, and will depend very much on your connection with the patient and what part you play in their care. Cancer specialists and family doctors have very long relationships with their patients, many of whom might suffer or die at a tragically young age. Heart specialists, on the other hand, will tend to be consultants more often, and their patients will be older with pre-existing health problems...these doctors are accustomed to seeing many more patients die on a routine basis. Some of us even develop a morbid sense of humor around death as a coping strategy, but it's not encouraged
How to prepare for medical school? Build good study habits. Volunteer. Talk to doctors about their lives and their jobs. Learn to love learning. Find things you enjoy as hobbies and interests that don't entail spending hours online. And keep an open mind about everything.
Yes, there are books out there, and I'm happy to give you a recommendation or two in a personal message. But work on becoming a good person, and discovering what you like in life,
before worrying too much about a life in medicine.
Best of luck!
