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Hi Smart people of SDN,
I'm an M2 about to start my first rotation next week. I'm super frustrated with medical school so far -- nothing has panned out how I wanted it to.
I spent the first year of school just trying to keep my head on and mostly failed; I had some of the worst mental health of my life, and was just barely passing. Spent the summer between M1 and M2 fixing that (got diagnosed, medicated), and everything went much better during M2 fall, and I passed step 1 without issue. But I feel like I really lost time to get anything productive done outside of school, especially research-wise.
I've gotten involved with some research that hasn't ended up being that productive (middle author on a project that is moving at a snail's pace), and every other lead I've had has led to a dead end. Sometimes the dead end hasn't appeared until months into onboarding, so I feel like I've wasted so much time with so few results, and it feels like no PIs want to take me on anymore since I start rotations so soon.
I have 9 publications from working post-grad (all middle author) and 4 poster presentations that were only internal to the department I was working in at the time. I have a ton of community/volunteer work and leadership under my belt, but they never feel as important as research. I'm interested in academic Internal Med or OBGYN (past research is relevant-ish), and I'm REALLY, REALLY focused on landing residency in a bigger city, because not being in a city for med school definitely caused some of the bad mental health for sure. Mostly focused on Chicago/NY/Boston, where I also have family.
I have no idea what to do from here, or if I should even keep trying to land a new project. I feel like I have no guidance on what it even takes to get where I want to go. My head is in the sand!
Do I just focus on doing well in rotations going forward? Or should I try to find a PI who will give me a project I can work on relatively independently, so I can work on it outside of rotations? How do I even do that when they keep telling me I don't have time to work with them anymore? Will I ever make it out of this town ?!
Sincerely,
An M2 Scared of the Suburbs
P.S., Considering a year off between M3-M4, mostly to get out of here for a bit... either for a research fellowship or an MPH. But also feels like overkill for what I'm interested in, and expensive.
I'm an M2 about to start my first rotation next week. I'm super frustrated with medical school so far -- nothing has panned out how I wanted it to.
I spent the first year of school just trying to keep my head on and mostly failed; I had some of the worst mental health of my life, and was just barely passing. Spent the summer between M1 and M2 fixing that (got diagnosed, medicated), and everything went much better during M2 fall, and I passed step 1 without issue. But I feel like I really lost time to get anything productive done outside of school, especially research-wise.
I've gotten involved with some research that hasn't ended up being that productive (middle author on a project that is moving at a snail's pace), and every other lead I've had has led to a dead end. Sometimes the dead end hasn't appeared until months into onboarding, so I feel like I've wasted so much time with so few results, and it feels like no PIs want to take me on anymore since I start rotations so soon.
I have 9 publications from working post-grad (all middle author) and 4 poster presentations that were only internal to the department I was working in at the time. I have a ton of community/volunteer work and leadership under my belt, but they never feel as important as research. I'm interested in academic Internal Med or OBGYN (past research is relevant-ish), and I'm REALLY, REALLY focused on landing residency in a bigger city, because not being in a city for med school definitely caused some of the bad mental health for sure. Mostly focused on Chicago/NY/Boston, where I also have family.
I have no idea what to do from here, or if I should even keep trying to land a new project. I feel like I have no guidance on what it even takes to get where I want to go. My head is in the sand!
Do I just focus on doing well in rotations going forward? Or should I try to find a PI who will give me a project I can work on relatively independently, so I can work on it outside of rotations? How do I even do that when they keep telling me I don't have time to work with them anymore? Will I ever make it out of this town ?!
Sincerely,
An M2 Scared of the Suburbs
P.S., Considering a year off between M3-M4, mostly to get out of here for a bit... either for a research fellowship or an MPH. But also feels like overkill for what I'm interested in, and expensive.
