Yo Tikiman,
I am a surgical intern right now and I can answer some of your questions. First, getting into medical school is very hard, you have to do well in your classes, have significant E.C./volunteer exp, excellent L.O.R., Solid MCAT, and a great interview. Even if these factors favor you, you might still not get into your top choice medical school. I think the bottleneck is at the admission process. Also if you did get into medical school, you have to get good grades, do well on the USMLE, Good letters, probably research, and the process repeats it self when you apply to residency, esp if you apply to something very competitive.
Medical school is not hard to understand the topics, just a ton of volume. To give you an example, in college, I would study maybe 1wk before the exam and get As no problem, in medical school, I studied everday and still feel that I couldn't get through all of the material. This is esp true for 2nd year. For my undergrad, Embryology was a semester long course, when I got to anatomy in 1st yr, we started out with embryology, and covered my whole semester of undergrad work in a little over one week and was expected to know everything for the exam. On top of this class, I have 4 other classes that I needed to worry about. The amount of material covered by the Step I can not even be compared with the amount of material on the MCAT. However, I do think that the MCAT is more of a reasoning/application test and Step I is a memorization test.
My attitude in undergrad and in the 1st couple of yrs of med school was similar to yours in that I was only worrying about getting As for classes and that was my main motivator to study. But now as 3rd and 4th yr medical school has past me and I am almost done with my internship, my attitude is completely different. The things your learn in medical school and residency will ultimately help you take better care of your patients. It is not about getting As or Bs (although you need to do good to get into good residencies), but you need to learn these things so that you don't F@#$ up and hurt the patients, when you have the power to make decisions that will affect their care. I can tell you that there are definite times this year that I have personally witness or seen patients in my hospital that died because of a mistake by a resident. Imagine to yourself that you had to go into a room as the surgeon to talk with a family that you made a mistake in the operating room and now, their daughter/son/father/etc is died. I know that sometimes mistakes are not preventable, but the frequency can always be reduced from knowledge and practice.
Being a physician gives you a lot of responsibilities, it is very challenging, can be emotionally draining, but the things you learn and experience in the field of medicine can not be replicated by any other profession. It is a great profession that requires a ton of hard work and a profession that will give you many ups and downs. If you don't want to work hard, try a different career that will give you more free time. If you do get into medical school, you can try to get by just by coasting through, but this is the attitude that will get you into trouble later on in your career. And also being a doctor is not as honorable or highly regarded by people as you think. Looking at someone's anus and draining their rectal absess at 2am with the smell of fecal matter surrounding your nose, is not that honorable. When you are a resident, even with a MD behind your name, you will still be bossed around by the nurses, NPs, PAs, and your senior resident, and also the attending, sometimes the secretary. The list just goes on, you need to work well with these people, nurses can make or break you when you are the resident on service. There will be nurses that will know more than you in certain situations, and I can't even tell you how many times this year that I was saved by the nursing staff, esp. at nights when there is no one, but you and a sick patient. If you don't work well with other people, then medicine is not for you. I wish you all the best 🙂
