I've gotta get back to studying, but before I forget:
First of all, I love medical school and I love being a medical student. I'm also very happy with my school, and I've made a few good friends already.
Despite having a reputation for being a mostly younger crowd, I am not the oldest student here. (I might, however, be in the top 10, but I'm not too sure.) Also flying against common knowledge, my class is not full of miserable gunners. We're a good, fun bunch, and I'm proud of being a part of it all.
As far as the work goes....well, everything you've heard about the work is true. Medical school is VERY HARD, but not for the reasons I expected before I started. Thus far, there hasn't been anything really difficult on the syllabus. Embryology, even the esoteric signalling information, is pretty straightforward. Gross anatomy is very straightforward. Neither subject can be compared to something like thermodynamics or theoretical physics. There are no weird formulae, no derivations, no lengthy calculations. It's all straight-up information.
The problem is not in the intricacy of the material but the VOLUME of the material. My goodness, we're literally drinking from fire hoses over here. We started school about four weeks ago; as of today, there are four embryo lectures left, after which we will take our final (and only) exam. Five weeks is not a lot of time to present embryology, especially not with concurrent lectures on the superficial back, thorax, abdomen, and pelvis. There is far too much material from too many "recommended" sources to read it all, and the pace is too quick to fall behind. My study habits are working, but I've had to tweak a few things to make my time more effective; even so, I'm pulling some late nights as a result of being a husband and a father in addition to being a student. The hardest part is making sure I've actually learned the material, as opposed to memorized it. The exams (including Step I) will not reward rote memorization as much as it will reward actual synthesis and application of the material.
I'm also a bit surprised at how much I'm enjoying the non-science portions of the curriculum. The medical interviewing class and healthcare class seemed, at first, to be big temporal black holes in my crowded study schedule. They still take up time I'd rather spend studying, but I've learned a great deal about the humanity of medicine and the importance of being a complete physician. As part of one of those classes, I went to an AA meeting tonight and left profoundly affected by the people I saw and met there. We're adding an ethics class to the schedule tomorrow, which will probably stress me out even further but also give me something worthwhile in return.
I haven't really had time to take a high-level view of everything, but I think someone would truly have to be crazy to take on something like med school without really wanting it. The workload is immense, the stress level is high, and there are just so many other ways to spend one's time. At the same time, I love what I'm doing and I'm so happy to be where I am. I expect there to be plenty of low points -- in fact, I've been there once already -- but I can't imagine living without the highs.
I wish I had the time to really expand on this, but I should stop now. I have a blog entry just dying to be published, but it's nowhere near done because i just haven't had the time for it. For now, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with what I've written. I feel overwhelmed and exhausted just like everyone else, and I think that's part of becoming a physician. I also feel empowered, grateful, and simply awestruck by the journey on which we've embarked.
