There's a lot of people around who are prematurely jaded and negative. They think it makes them worldly and sophisticated, but the real effect is something like a 12 year old dressed like a hooker and smoking a Newport...kind of pathetic.
Or some of them might be genuinely miserable.
I really really hated the first two years of med school. Those were two of the most awful years of my life. I didn't think that my misery made me look worldly and sophisticated; my misery made me sad, tired, and lonely. I fantasized daily about quitting medical school; as MS1 progressed, I fantasized about dying. Yes, it was absolutely that bad.
I can't stand sitting in a classroom, having irrelevant information thrown at my head. And the "touchy-feely" classes took away my motivation to be a doctor. I don't retain information in the lecture format well, so I had to study harder than some of my classmates did, leaving me little free time to do much else.
So, have some compassion for the people who are jaded and negative so early on. Perhaps they do think that it makes them look sophisticated; but some of them may be genuinely disenchanted and frustrated. Don't look down on them because they lack the enthusiasm that you have; try and understand where they're coming from.
There were a lot of people like you in my med school class, who told me to "snap out of it," and "count your blessings that you're in medical school." I found their narrow-minded attitude to be "pathetic." Not everyone likes medical school, not everyone will like residency, and not everyone will like being a physician. And that's ok.
I realize that I'm new here, but I've been reading a lot of threads about how much they dislike med school, or residency or being an attending or the whole job. I'll be in the class of 2013 and I was wondering if anyone had positive experiences because if not, I need to think about alternatives. Thanks!
Well, I think we've already established that I hated MS1 and MS2.
I actually really liked MS3. It was the first time during med school that I was actually glad to be there, and glad to become a doctor. In all fairness, though, I didn't have trouble with the "arbitrary" grading system - doing what I naturally wanted to do (i.e. take care of patients) earned me good grades, almost by default.
I did not enjoy MS4 at all. I found the interview process to be unnecessarily expensive and time consuming. I also hated the pre-interview dinners, the small talk, the schmoozing....things that I'm really not good at.
The after-Match stuff was ok, but too short.
I've actually enjoyed residency for the most part....but I WILL say that the highs of residency are MUCH higher than the highs of med school, and the lows of residency are 10x worse than the lowest low of med school. The emotional rollercoaster is much more emotionally draining. Yeah, I took care of dying patients as a med student, but I didn't take their death personally like I do as a resident. As a med student, you're largely an observer, and you don't feel personal responsibility for someone's progress. As an intern, though, MY decisions affected whether or not they got healthier or got sicker. That is scarier than is possible to put in words. I've gotten pretty possessive of some of my patients, too - these are MY patients, and it can be hard to hand them off.
All in all, I like being a resident better than being a med student. But I wouldn't paint the road as being mostly positive, nor would I paint it as being all negative. If you really like taking care of patients, it will have a lot of great moments. But, it will definitely take its toll on you, one way or another.
