First of all - I want to thank all of you for being so nice and commenting on this. I didn't expect so many replies. But I see a lot of you can empathize and I appreciate that so much.
I'm sorry you feel this way! I can't really relate or contribute to this conversation as I'm still applying to medical school.
But I am curious to know, what kinds of things that you were studying in medical school that disinterested you? Case studies, boring lectures, quantitative analysis stuff?
I don't want to discourage you. A lot of people seem to be really into it. But for me, I think I was probably in it for the wrong reasons from the start. During undergrad, I really didn't like science/etc. either but I stuck with it and did well, hoping there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. But now, in medical school, I find the science/topics just as dry and boring. Moreover, the pressure to study it intensely and do well is just immense. The material isn't impossibly hard. I mean, organic chemistry is hard. Physics is hard. But this? There's just a lot of stuff and tiny little details you have to remember, and if you don't have motivation driving you, it becomes tough to do it.
I always was propelled along by me thinking "its going to get better right?!". It really doesn't. It just gets different, with mounting debt and increased stress. Maybe stick out the semester and see if your mindset changes, but if you feel the same way or worse and can see yourself doing something else, do it.
Dude. I think I know exactly what you mean. I'm so sorry you're stuck because of debt...That sounds terrible. What are YOU going to do? How do you keep going? Seems like you feel a lot like I do.
You need to stop feeling guilty, first and foremost. You didn't take someone else's seat, you worked your ass off for yours and you're free to do with it as you wish. Even if your seat had gone to someone else, there's no way of knowing what he/she would have done with it so don't even let your mind go there.
What is your curriculum like? Ours is integrated, but I think I would lose my mind if I had x number of weeks of straight anatomy, and I say that as someone who loves medical school so far.
How is your support system? Have you made friends? Do they know you feel this way? To be honest, the hardest part of medical school for me so far is adjusting to the culture shock of how annoying/selfish my classmates can be. Find a few people who aren't freaking weird or stressful to be around and cling to them.
Are you actually doing well with the material? I don't say that to be condescending, but a lot of my classmates have expressed frustration over material and will frequently make statements like, "it's not that it's hard...." or "it's not that I don't understand it...." but that's exactly what it is.
My advice: figure out what it is that's actually bothering you. Pinpoint it. Is it the people, the material, the pressure, or the career path? If you decide this is just not the career for you, that's okay, but you better be damn sure that's the case before you make an irreversible decision over a rocky semester or a few annoying classmates.
Thanks very much. I will try to stop the guilty feelings. My curriculum is integrated as well, but the anatomy spans throughout the year. We need to go into lab thrice a week and dissect once a week. Every week. I do have some friends, but I have not shared these feelings with them. Mostly everyone is a little stressful to hang around but I don't blame them. They have driven personalities. I am actually doing well in the materials. We had 2 exams thus far and I did above the class average on both. The material really isn't hard (lol the brachial plexus is a little funky, but I've got that down too). BUT, the material DOES take time commitment to learn. It just feels harder and harder to commit the time to learn it all. Furthermore, I'm not liking the doctor lifestyle either. It was easier to see myself in a physician's shoes before, but the more and more I get into it, the more I'm dreading it. I can accept the stress if there is hope at the end of all the struggle, but the struggle seems pointless now.
A lot of people said some great things. But OP wrote a key statement and that was: "the only thing that's keeping me in now is familial pressure and refusal to [sic] failure". If you're in med school because your family wanted you to be, that's not fair to you nor them because you will be dragging their time and energy with you, and they won't "get it" when you stress out more and more because they forced you to go in the first place. Your family may become frustrated for and at you for doing poorly as if you're "not trying" because you lost interest or never had as much interest as you thought in the first place.
On the other hand, if by "familial pressure" you mean you wanted to go but now you don't, however, your family is saying "too late, we all jumped in this together", it's still not fair for you because no matter how much you describe med school to people, they don't understand what it's really liked unless they've gone through it. I'm saying not even family members or significant others know what it's like unless they personally went to med school, too.
As for depression, I would echo seeking a counselor right away. But if each and every day you are gritting your teeth to get through, then perhaps that field you have always wanted to go into that you mentioned may be your true path, not the med school path other forces wanted you in.
And I'm going to say this in all seriousness, but if I had the chance to go back with the knowledge I had now, I would have gone to dental or PA school or spent a few years off significantly building my resume to get into the top med school possible as that sentiment "it doesn't matter where you go for med school, but more so residency" I happen to take with a grain of salt. Med school is many times not worth the future career with all the changes occurring now as you'll end up altering the type of medicine/practice you run when healthcare looks radically different in 20 years. The physicians who seem to have the momentum to keep going and are less stressed out than others are the ones who, ironically, practice less direct, clinical patient care and substitute the other time with another business or education or research, etc. Medicine is no longer that bygone era of the doctor on the ranch, the surgeon who can do anything, the doctor who comes out of med school with only a few thousand dollars or less in debt, etc. It will only get worse in terms of cost-benefit. That's my honest belief.
Thanks, I'm glad you noticed that part. My family didn't contribute a dime to all this, but they do have expectations of me. I guess I just always had what some people described as "Attaboy Syndrome." I always did stellar work in school and I got praise for it. So, I did even more good work. I got more praise and it felt good. This pretty much continued onto college and my family and others and even myself just expected myself to go into medicine because it was the "best" thing to do. I deluded myself and others helped. I started having serious doubts in college, but the reinforcements from my friends and family (who had absolutely no idea what medical school was all about), kept me in the game. And of course, I did have significant clinical exposure and I did work in a hospital prior to entering medical school, shadowing doctors etc. I was 50/50 then, thinking this might not be for me. But at that point, I had a useless undergraduate degree and no conceivable path to move except forward. I never really used college to explore my options since my mind was set on one thing from the start - thanks to that "Attaboy Syndrome" and delusions from group hysteria.
...Sorry for the huge paragraph. But that's the honest truth. I blame myself. I should've been smarter and more open minded.
Get to your school's counseling center, STAT!
Thanks Goro. May I ask why you suggest this? I respect and appreciate all your advice, (you helped me out A LOT in the past) but I am not sure that a counselor can make me like it here any more.
