In light of this pandemic and all graduations being cancelled and converted to virtual ceremonies, just wanted to share/vent some thoughts I've been having. Hopefully this strikes a chord with some people.
I'm personally super bummed that I won't be able to experience graduation. Obviously, I'm not sitting here wanting graduation to still happen with 1000+ people in the middle of a global pandemic. It's the right and only decision to cancel everything. I more so mean that I'm bummed that we won't get this experience. We all earned professional degrees, which I think we sometimes forget about during the day to day grind. I'm sure we all worked our butts off these last 4 years to accomplish everything that we did. We all took different paths to medical school with different trials and tribulations along the way. And med school itself was a roller coaster ride for 4 years; I'm sure we had those days where we loved what we were doing but also those days where we wanted to throw something against the wall in anger because we were tired of studying or sleep deprived or stressed beyond belief for Step 1 or something similar.
I know some people (especially on SDN) aren't the sentimental type and that's okay, but it just sucks that we can't don the cap and gown, hear our name being called, walk across that stage celebrate our accomplishments and hard work with family/friends. Maybe some people don't care about that stuff but as someone who lost a parent at a young age and had a difficult time throughout the journey, it's meaningful to me. I'm sure even the most anti-social or non-sentimental people would still have appreciated graduation in their own small way if things were normal.
Again, a graduation ceremony in the grand scheme of things is not the most important thing when thousands of people are losing their lives. But just wanted to remind fellow M4s to not lose sight of your accomplishments and hopefully you're able to find a way to celebrate with your loved ones soon.
I'm personally super bummed that I won't be able to experience graduation. Obviously, I'm not sitting here wanting graduation to still happen with 1000+ people in the middle of a global pandemic. It's the right and only decision to cancel everything. I more so mean that I'm bummed that we won't get this experience. We all earned professional degrees, which I think we sometimes forget about during the day to day grind. I'm sure we all worked our butts off these last 4 years to accomplish everything that we did. We all took different paths to medical school with different trials and tribulations along the way. And med school itself was a roller coaster ride for 4 years; I'm sure we had those days where we loved what we were doing but also those days where we wanted to throw something against the wall in anger because we were tired of studying or sleep deprived or stressed beyond belief for Step 1 or something similar.
I know some people (especially on SDN) aren't the sentimental type and that's okay, but it just sucks that we can't don the cap and gown, hear our name being called, walk across that stage celebrate our accomplishments and hard work with family/friends. Maybe some people don't care about that stuff but as someone who lost a parent at a young age and had a difficult time throughout the journey, it's meaningful to me. I'm sure even the most anti-social or non-sentimental people would still have appreciated graduation in their own small way if things were normal.
Again, a graduation ceremony in the grand scheme of things is not the most important thing when thousands of people are losing their lives. But just wanted to remind fellow M4s to not lose sight of your accomplishments and hopefully you're able to find a way to celebrate with your loved ones soon.
Congratulations and good luck with your intern year, doc!
