Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

[T-Lymphocyte]

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Hello everyone, I'm currently a medical student who has been lost for a little while.

I lost interest in medicine awhile ago. Before I got into medicine, from my naive point of view, I saw it as a fantasticc yet "normal" career that allowed me to help people whilst I worked. However, the reality was quite different, medical school, at least.

The amount of sheer stress and time consuming studies that I have to deal with in a day-by-day basis is insane. I wake up every day to study and fall asleep at night studying. Sometimes I ask my peers if they're contempt with their situations, but they just say "think about the end-goal", yet when I read online about residency, I'm met with remarks on how absolutely miserable thier lives are and then when I read about attending physicians I'm slapped in the face with statistics on burnout rates, low happiness level, and suicide rates. So I continually ask myself, and lately, my peers, so where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

I'm separated by hundreds of miles from home because I chose this career. I can't even see the most important people in my life. Even when I do see them, they say I've changed.

It just seems like for every block I finish, the further away from home and myself I feel.

My girlfriend, one of the most important people in my life, I can't even carry a deep conversation anymore. Sometimes I feel that I should tell her to be free and find someone else who can make her happier, because I'm sure the world would kill for a chance to do so. It also seems like we won't be able to be physically together in a long, long time permanently because of my career.

If I could go back into the past, I would slap myself in the face and beg myself to choose a different path in life. Many of you will say that I should, in fact, do this now, but I come from a very poor family and I have a lot of debt in loans.


So now I ask you this, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

 

[M&L]

i am so sorry you are going through this... And i am sure everything going on with COVID - from perspective of not knowing what will happen next month, - is not helping.
I apologize if i missed you saying it, - but how far are you from graduation?

 

[T-Lymphocyte]

i am so sorry you are going through this... And i am sure everything going on with COVID - from perspective of not knowing what will happen next month, - is not helping.
I apologize if i missed you saying it, - but how far are you from graduation?

Three years..

 

[ciestar]

I felt the same way after M1. The constant studying and isolation drove me to my breaking point. Things got so much better for me when i started clerkships.

 

[MerYangBey]

Three years..

Your thought process is very depression like. Obviously not diagnosing you but only pointing out that you’re perhaps seeing the glass half empty. Just curious what other career do you think you’ll be happier doing?

 

[calivianya]

How much previous work experience in other fields did you have before deciding on medicine?

I only ask because many jobs are soul-sucking. I found every job I worked before med school to be soul-sucking, for various reasons. I’ve worked 84 hours a week at other jobs and 84 hours a week of work sucks, period, regardless of what you’re doing. For me, even though the studying of first and second years was really awful, it was at the same time a relief - because it got me out of my old jobs and was at least a fresh start and I was doing something to change my life.

I would have 1000% been miserable if I had done this first before having a different career. I see a lot of med students in that situation, and sometimes I wonder how much of it is medicine, and how much of it is not realizing that just having to work this hard is not fun in general, regardless of your field.

 

[M&L]

you know what helps me when i get like this? I try to sort of remind myself why i did it... i actually wrote it on the bathroom mirror, so that i can see it every time. But i DO like to work with patients, so maybe this is different...... But sometimes it is so easy to forget why you are doing all this.

 

[painfuldoc]

Contrary to popular belief, med school and residency does get better as you move up the ladder. I remember feeling the same way as you. The constant studying in preclinical is terrible for most people's mental health. Clinicals get way better. instead of studying from waking up to falling asleep, you get to do and see cool stuff. You meet new people and have new experiences in the hospital. Both good and bad but it was wayyyyy more interesting than preclinicals by a large margin. And then residency gets way better.

If I listened to all the negative talk on sdn or medical school subreddit, I would think clinicals and residency would be horrible but they're not.

Kinda like how people on fb/Instagram/Snapchat post most fun and happy stuff. The opposite is true on sdn. People post the negative aspects of med school and residency and attending life.

It actually does get better. But importantly if you really dont feel too good mentally. Definitely go get some help.

Many people see rosy colored visions of other jobs but they all have their **** problems. Anecdotally I know 2 people who dropped out of med school and they both regret it because the job they thought was better was not.

At the very least talk to a psychiatrist.

Tldr: it does get better. Don't listen to negative sdn talk. Reach out and get some mental health help.

 

[Goro]

Hello everyone, I'm currently a medical student who has been lost for a little while.

I lost interest in medicine awhile ago. Before I got into medicine, from my naive point of view, I saw it as a fantasticc yet "normal" career that allowed me to help people whilst I worked. However, the reality was quite different, medical school, at least.

The amount of sheer stress and time consuming studies that I have to deal with in a day-by-day basis is insane. I wake up every day to study and fall asleep at night studying. Sometimes I ask my peers if they're contempt with their situations, but they just say "think about the end-goal", yet when I read online about residency, I'm met with remarks on how absolutely miserable thier lives are and then when I read about attending physicians I'm slapped in the face with statistics on burnout rates, low happiness level, and suicide rates. So I continually ask myself, and lately, my peers, so where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

I'm separated by hundreds of miles from home because I chose this career. I can't even see the most important people in my life. Even when I do see them, they say I've changed.

It just seems like for every block I finish, the further away from home and myself I feel.

My girlfriend, one of the most important people in my life, I can't even carry a deep conversation anymore. Sometimes I feel that I should tell her to be free and find someone else who can make her happier, because I'm sure the world would kill for a chance to do so. It also seems like we won't be able to be physically together in a long, long time permanently because of my career.

If I could go back into the past, I would slap myself in the face and beg myself to choose a different path in life. Many of you will say that I should, in fact, do this now, but I come from a very poor family and I have a lot of debt in loans.


So now I ask you this, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

It''s attached to the train heading towards you!

 

[jurassicpark]

Hey,

Keep your chin up. First and foremost take care of yourself. If you're feeling trapped, hopeless, lost please seek support asap. It is very easy to let these feelings spiral out of control especially in a high-pressure environment like medicine. Your school should have resources/counselors, if not try reaching out to friends and family as well for help and guidance while you're making your decision.

That being said, is medical school hard? Yes, up to this point it is probably the hardest thing you've ever had to do, and the first year like all firsts is confusing, bewildering and sloppy. The first year is where you're still trying to find your footing, studying long and hard hours. Part of it may be the way you're studying, outside of a few circumstances if you're studying until you pass out you may want to step back and reassess what you're doing. There should always be "me" time where you can take some time in the day to take care of yourself.. i.e. exercise, cook, gf-time or most importantly Xbox time. If not, that's asking for burnout central.

Medicine is really how you make of it. If you're not finding time to do anything but study, you need to find what's going on and how you can streamline what you're studying, it's not necessary to memorize every word in the book.

But if medicine HAS completely lost its luster for you, then you need to do some deep soul-searching as to what you want before you go in and get more miserable if its truly not for you. You fought hard to get here, make sure you do what you REALLY want and not out of frustration. Please reach out to those you love and trust for this guidance and don't take it on your own.

As a retrospection since it seems like you need that light at the end of the tunnel, looking back over 10 years since medical school, I joked that all I want is a fun car and a hot babe, done. But I have more than that, every day every five minutes of what I do makes an impact on a person's life whether I realize it at the time or not, and hopefully for the better. I work with amazing colleagues who's intellect continually amaze me and I'm literally learning something new every day. My work also allows me to take kick butt trips with my wife and create amazing memories. I work hard that you cannot fathom from where you are right now, and even in this crazy COVID time, I'm making a change and making bank. What more could you want? The road is hard, curvy and bumpy, but destination is worth what you make of it and it can be awesome!

 

[Mass Effect]

I'm going to keep this brief because I don't want to give medical advice, but OP please see a therapist or a psychiatrist. Please.

 

[NontradICUdoc]

First thing is you sound burned out. You should go see your school's counselor and find a way to help you through this. The road that you have chosen is a long one. You have 4 years of medical school, and at a minimum 3 years of residency. But your learning is lifelong.

Just remember how to eat an elephant.......1 bite at a time.

 

[Medical_studies]

Maybe exercise can help, like jogging or something? It seems like the main thing is you are not studying in a way that is fun to you. I think there are probably alot of ways of studying that you can find more enjoyable than what you are currently doing if you brainstorm with other students in your class. All the best!

 

[ACSurgeon]

The light at the end of the tunnel depends on you.
Short term: getting through each class/semester/year

intermediate term: matching residency near your family in a specialty you enjoy.

long term: finding a way to make medicine work for you. This could mean free time, money (at the expense of free time),a satisfying job, etc.

 

[The Brodie]

I'll add to the voices suggesting you talk with a counselor or your doctor.

I felt crushingly stressed/anxious and kind of hopeless for the first two years of medical school but just tried to push through it. When I finally got help it was amazing how much more I enjoyed school. Now I'm in 4th year working a 70 hour week and loving it. I don't know how difficult residency is going to be, but I feel excited about it. We all complain a lot on here so take it with a grain of salt. So far medical school has been extremely challenging, but not as soul crushing as my old job.

Maybe you'll find something that you love about it, if you do try to hold onto to it. I keep the drawings/notes I get from kids I've helped care for to look at on bad days as a reminder of why I'm here.

Good luck!

 

[sunshinefl]

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting done with preclinical and on to clerkships. I was super miserable during preclinical because studying endlessly by yourself in isolation is stressful and lonely. I’m a 4th year now, and I was 26524973 times happier than preclinical the second 3rd year started. (Although that’s tempered now by being out because of the pandemic)

 

[Hopeful101]

M2 has been MUCH worse. They say M3 is worse than M2, but COVID is giving me a break ironically. If you just finished M1 and hate it think about what you want, and leave if this isn't it. You probably won't feel better as you progress. It will just be that much more impossible to leave. All depends on your debt load though, I guess.

 

[Hopeful101]

How much previous work experience in other fields did you have before deciding on medicine?

I only ask because many jobs are soul-sucking. I found customer service draining, and nursing even more draining, for various reasons. I’ve worked 84 hours a week at other jobs and 84 hours a week of work sucks, period, regardless of what you’re doing. For me, even though the studying of first and second years was really awful, it was at the same time a relief - because it got me out of my old jobs and was at least a fresh start and I was doing something to change my life.

I would have 1000% been miserable if I had done this first before having a different career. I see a lot of med students in that situation, and sometimes I wonder how much of it is medicine, and how much of it is not realizing that just having to work this hard is not fun in general, regardless of your field.

If you're the person to work 84 hours a week without massive incentive/threat, you and OP probably don't have any common ground.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Looking back M1 was easily my most hated year of medical school. I held retraction on a 500 pound patient's leg today for 7 hours and would do it again in a heartbeat instead of doing M1 stuff.

 

[deleted854547]

Earning north of a quarter million a year.

 

[slowthai]

Looking back M1 was easily my most hated year of medical school. I held retraction on a 500 pound patient's leg today for 7 hours and would do it again in a heartbeat instead of doing M1 stuff.

Loool why did you hate M1?

 

[Neopolymath]

Personally, it will be when I can finally, after 1 more year of school and 6 more years of training, move to where my family and I actually want to live instead of being ordered to go by a stupid computer algorithm. The hardest part of school has easily been forcing my spouse to put this part of their life on hold. If I became an anesthetist, I could have been done and living in my own home in my desired location almost 2 years ago already. No regrets yet but I do feel guilty sometimes about putting my family through this part of it.

 

[readmypostsMD]

Earning north of a quarter million a year.

I feel like this isn’t guaranteed anymore esp if Medicare for all is passed

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Loool why did you hate M1?

Honestly I didn't think I did lol, but looking back it was just a huge adjustment and I had a ton of stress that year. I was also incredibly inefficient with my time. I also just like being in the hospital or clinic far more than sitting in a desk pounding flashcards. I actually enjoyed my second year and dedicated period more than M1.

 

[libertyyne]

There is no light at the end of the tunnel, just more different tunnel, have to come to terms with loving the tunnel and the journey.
last week of Dedicated during m2 was miserable tho.

 

[Scrubs101]

There is no light at the end of the tunnel, just more different tunnel, have to come to terms with loving the tunnel and the journey.
last week of Dedicated during m2 was miserable tho.

Was thinking something similar to this as I was reading. Also agreed on last part of M2 being the worst for me so far.

My analogy would be there is no tunnel, there is day and there is night, there are cloud in the day sometimes and there are stars at night.

I would recommend not always motivating yourself by thinking of the future, try to live in the present and seek out the good during the bad. There will be good days and bad days in med school, residency, and as an attending. What is better and what is worse i subjective to each of our experiences. I think I had a brief period of heightened anxiety a while back because ALL i could think about was the future, my mind would fly at a 100miles a minute thinking about the hard things to come and how many months/years/decades till it gets better for a bit.

I can absolutely recognize that future planning and thinking about that freedom to live/work where you want as an attending, do what you are actually interested in as a resident, or just getting out of the classroom and into the clinic can help cope with all the hardships youre dealing with right now. I do it all the time, but it doesnt fix anything its just a temporary distraction from your current circumstance. You cant control everything that happens in your life and signing up for medical school sets ya down a set path of incredible hardships for the foreseeable future, but there are things to be happy and excited about going on right now. They may be hard to find, and can be easy to ignore, but being mindful of them can go a long way for your happiness.

Easier said than done but thats my take.

 

[deleted804295]

You need to fit in an hour of personal time every day and master time management. I get like this when I don't spend enough time doing the things I love.

 

[DameJulie]

M2 has been MUCH worse. They say M3 is worse than M2, but COVID is giving me a break ironically. If you just finished M1 and hate it think about what you want, and leave if this isn't it. You probably won't feel better as you progress. It will just be that much more impossible to leave. All depends on your debt load though, I guess.

Can you elaborate how M2 is much worse, besides board exams? Preparing myself for M2, and trying to anticipate the storm before it comes.

 

[Hopeful101]

Can you elaborate how M2 is much worse, besides board exams? Preparing myself for M2, and trying to anticipate the storm before it comes.

Lol sure. Tests are harder. Much more lecture notes are covered and faster. Material is harder. You have to juggle boards during winter quarter and onward. More Clinical experiences are required. Literally they just turn up the fire. And now my first IM rotation is going to be at a FMG sweatshop with 12 hour days and no weekend. Just. Effing. Perfect.

 

[HPF]

yet when I read online about residency, I'm met with remarks on how absolutely miserable thier lives are and then when I read about attending physicians I'm slapped in the face with statistics on burnout rates, low happiness level, and suicide rates.

I recently finished internal medicine residency. And I am now a fellow (in Heme/onc, join us one day T-lymphocyte?). Let me be another person to tell you, it gets better.

I loved my residency experience. Truly. And as a brand new fellow, I feel similarly about fellowship so far. Looking back, it was medical school that was the worst part of my training, despite what the majority of SDN says. It’s hard to remember when you come here searching for advice that statistically, the people doing the posting are the ones also searching for advice and the ones most willing to talk about their bad experiences, while those who are happy and content are more likely to be off SDN doing other things with their lives.

You are doing the hardest part of your training right now (IMHO). Constant mind games, competition, stress about tests, finances... at my medical school they even evaluated you on what you wore. It was the single most infantalizing, emotionally and mentally tiring experience of my life. But it gets better. I love being a doctor, and the light for me started to become very apparent about 6 months into intern year.

Let me tell you how me and most of my fellow residents (including my friends who went to other programs) felt about our experiences after all was said and done. I should also mention that I was at a program hit hard by COVID. So for 4 months our schedules were completely disrupted, I was working in the ICU as a senior resident 7 days on 7 days off, had electives canceled, vacations canceled, etc. But I’ll still tell you, I wouldn’t have traded even those 4 months of insanity for more med school. I was never prouder to be a doctor and an internist. And so proud to be a part of my residency program.

Intern year is admittedly hard in the beginning because you know so little. But everyone at your program knows that and expects that. And for probably the first time in your life, you’re going to have a crew of people by your side who are struggling to all do the same job as you and just learn medicine/surgery and so on and not hurt anyone. You’re not competitors, you’re in it together. You’re going to become friends. So first plus of life after med school is: you’ll be working day in day out with your people.

Another thing to look forward to after medical school is residency is a job. You go in, take care of patients as well as you can, learn, come home, set a goal for yourself to read 15-20 min a day about something you saw or need to do tomorrow, and that’s it. You do that, and you did your job and you did it well. And you get paid for it now too, so you feel a little less of the existential dread of watching your net worth drifting hundreds of thousands into the negative like you did in med school. The time you have off after you do your job is yours. There’s no more reading endlessly and sitting in class endlessly. Everything you do has a purpose. And that purpose is taking care of your patients better. And that is way more rewarding than when your sole goal in life is to study for weeks straight so that your class rank can be higher.

Last, the constant stress of playing the game and worrying if people like you and will give you good evaluations is lessened. In med school you worry about what your advisors think, what your professors think, what your attendings, and intern and senior residents think about everything you do. Did your hands shake too much in the OR? Was your presentation too long? Are you in enough activities for your advisor for be happy? Will you get AOA? No one cares. After med school, your evaluations will be about how well you are doing at taking care of patients. And no one is out to get you, fire you, or separate the cream from the milk. You’re their workforce, their trainee. You ARE the cream and now your evaluators and mentors just want to help you to make it through your program.

While residency is not a cakewalk, it’s work in a way that I think makes you feel much more fulfilled than what you are going through right now. Med school is not what real medicine is like. I wish med students like you had more interaction early on with residents and attendings who could tell you this more often. Because many of us out here in the real world are happy (even me who’s still in training). And right now, you’re mainly interacting with other students who are similarly burned out and stressed and that’s just such a toxic stew of an environment for everyone’s mental health.

My advice to you would be to know that what you are going through is temporary. And to reflect on why you wanted to go into medicine in the first place. If it was because you wanted to make a difference at work every day, you love science, love working with people, wanted career security, wanted a good income for your family (yes, even possible in primary care and I say this as someone with lots of debt who seriously considered primary care but just liked my fellowship field more), then don’t give up. Get off SDN or at least ban yourself from reading the downer posts, set some time aside each week for you to do something you enjoy, including regularly spending time with your girlfriend and nonmedicine friends/family, and set limits on your study hours. And like some others mentioned, certainly consider seeing a therapist, or at least trying something like a meditation app or yoga or running. (I recommend the headspace app). And know that there are plenty of specialties with more “normal” lifestyles (no call, regular defined hours) out there that might be of interest to you.

Feel free to PM me if you ever want to talk.

 

[dienekes88]

Hello everyone, I'm currently a medical student who has been lost for a little while.

I lost interest in medicine awhile ago. Before I got into medicine, from my naive point of view, I saw it as a fantasticc yet "normal" career that allowed me to help people whilst I worked. However, the reality was quite different, medical school, at least.

The amount of sheer stress and time consuming studies that I have to deal with in a day-by-day basis is insane. I wake up every day to study and fall asleep at night studying. Sometimes I ask my peers if they're contempt with their situations, but they just say "think about the end-goal", yet when I read online about residency, I'm met with remarks on how absolutely miserable thier lives are and then when I read about attending physicians I'm slapped in the face with statistics on burnout rates, low happiness level, and suicide rates. So I continually ask myself, and lately, my peers, so where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

I'm separated by hundreds of miles from home because I chose this career. I can't even see the most important people in my life. Even when I do see them, they say I've changed.

It just seems like for every block I finish, the further away from home and myself I feel.

My girlfriend, one of the most important people in my life, I can't even carry a deep conversation anymore. Sometimes I feel that I should tell her to be free and find someone else who can make her happier, because I'm sure the world would kill for a chance to do so. It also seems like we won't be able to be physically together in a long, long time permanently because of my career.

If I could go back into the past, I would slap myself in the face and beg myself to choose a different path in life. Many of you will say that I should, in fact, do this now, but I come from a very poor family and I have a lot of debt in loans.


So now I ask you this, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

Take it easy. Pass the courses. Go exercise a bit. Put down the books and talk to your partner. Set up a date night. Nothing is worth consuming your entire life.

Medical school is like a job. Get to work. Focus. But when it's quitting time, put the books down and focus on yourself and your loved ones. When you're in school, you have very little responsibility and can just turn your cell phone off and not take calls from the ward, the ICU, or the faculty. Cherish that.

 

[hallowmann]

I'm going to go out there and say that residency sucks. But it sucks in a completely different way than med school sucked. Med school sucked because you were basically useless, cut off from others, and tired. You had no purpose, memorized mountains of information that effectively made me unable to carry a conversation with a 12 yo cousin, let alone a sibling or college friend, after dedicated study, and the constant pressure not to fail or mess up when given exceedingly little to go on during each block of 3rd year was terrible. Despite this, second half of 4th year was easily one of the best times of my life.

Residency sucks because you are sleep deprived, work long hours, and actually have real responsibility that doesn't just affect you, it affects other people that are putting their faith in you to do right by them in something that is admittedly difficult and imprecise. I love the work I do day in and day out, but its a lot of work. Its much easier to put in that work given how much I enjoy it and enjoy talking to and working with patients. Another good thing about residency is that it gets better and less stressful the further you go in it. To some degree its knowing more and to another its recognizing that you won't know it all, so be confident that you'll be able to figure out what you need to know when you need it.

That said, whether its med school or residency, you need to be doing self-reflection and change aspects of your life to keep yourself healthy. Whether that's taking a step back and simply not trying so hard on the "academic" stuff or whether its taking advantage of that 1 day off a week to do something fun with your family, letting the chores of life that accumulated wait another week.

So to answer your question, the only light at the end of the tunnel of life is death, but in medicine things do get better and like everyone else you learn to enjoy the breeze, the view, the speed of the train, the other passengers, and in medicine upgrading to first class after 11+ yrs.