Show me the positive! What do you love about being a med student or a resident?

[Birdy]

1 hour ago, Edict said:

- Let's be honest, people do often give you the benefit of the doubt or treat you better if you are in medicine

 

“I would like to rent this house.”

”What’s your income?”

”Uh, none. But I’m a medical student.”

”When can you move in?”

- how we rented our current house. 

[Med Life Crisis]

On 1/20/2018 at 8:29 AM, goleafsgochris said:

-having a direction--this is true as soon as you get into med school.  Life feels like there is more of a career direction than pre med school

 

False. Before med, I was in PT school. I knew I would be doing rehabilitation techniques.

Now that I'm in med, I have NO IDEA what the future holds. Am I going to be in the operating room? In a private clinic? In a lab/dark room? Am I going to be cutting? Pumping drugs? Doing physical exams? Doing CBT? Who knows.... The future is not in my control, it's in the hands of CARMS.

Hell, I don't even know if I'll end up a doctor. Seems like going unmatched is pretty frequent.

[rmorelan]

2 hours ago, Birdy said:

“I would like to rent this house.”

”What’s your income?”

”Uh, none. But I’m a medical student.”

”When can you move in?”

- how we rented our current house. 

ha that is true on so many levels

[rmorelan]

29 minutes ago, Med Life Crisis said:

False. Before med, I was in PT school. I knew I would be doing rehabilitation techniques.

Now that I'm in med, I have NO IDEA what the future holds. Am I going to be in the operating room? In a private clinic? In a lab/dark room? Am I going to be cutting? Pumping drugs? Doing physical exams? Doing CBT? Who knows.... The future is not in my control, it's in the hands of CARMS.

Hell, I don't even know if I'll end up a doctor. Seems like going unmatched is pretty frequent.

hey isn't this supposed to be a positive thread

There is uncertainty and you cannot belittle or ignore that (going unmatched sucks). Still in the spirit of the thread let's be clear - most people get their choice of specialty in medicine indicating considerable control. By most I mean over 90%. Granted that is partially because most people don't want these extremely competitive fields with high failure rate but still. 

 

[indefatigable]

.

[Organomegaly]

Things I love

1) Accumulating a vast fund of knowledge -- Not many fields will offer the opportunity to learn so much practical material. From the basic sciences of pharmacology and physiology to their application to clinical medicine, one of my favourite parts of being a medical student is assimilating theory in a way that positively impacts patients. I love when theawareness of a mechanism of disease clearly guides the therapeutic options for a patient, and this in part specifically inspired me to pursue internal medicine. The "book to bedside" , quite simply, can be amazing. Reflecting back on the first day of medical school and now in my final days of clerkship, the amount of learning has been phenomenal.

2) You experience what it is like to be human and suffer -- Throughout medical school, I have been exposed to tragedy. There is no other way to put it. I once saw a patient in clinic who appeared to be in stable condition. We recommended routine follow-up for her condition. Two days later she presented to the emergency department all vital signs absent. A catastrophic complication of her illness had occurred and we would have never predicted it. I have seen families grapple with taking their loved ones off life support. I have seen young patients clinging for dear life in the ICU. Patients respect you and look to you for guidance. In the process, you learn so much about what it is like to be human and vulnerable. Many find this aspect of medicine to be draining. It can be. I think the beauty of it is that you can be there with people on some of the most important journeys of their life.

3) You experience the joy of a cure -- It is a well-kept secret from pre-meds that medicine offers little in the way of cure. We can stabilize and manage chronic illnesses, and do this daily. Yet, occasionally in medicine there comes an opportunity where can offer something more definitive. A C-section for a fetus with non-reassuring heart rate, and the joy of a mother's face when the baby is out of the womb and on the mother's chest. It is a surreal type of joy. When you use the right medication to help a couple who has been struggling to get pregnant have a baby. Selecting the correct medications to control the pain of an acute myocardial infarction and prevent catastrophic cardiac complications. When you pick the right anti-psychotic and the psychosis of a loved one dissipates. Even though these are simple treatment scenarios, the results are tangible and in a way that feels magical. I look back at them in the context of the patients I have met in my training and can't help but smile that the patient got so much better.

4) You meet so many people -- Be it patients, families, colleagues, allied health or whomever it may be. Medicine is a highly social field. Some of my favourite experiences have been with other students and the great fun we've had outside of the classroom. I made at least a dozen new friends on the CaRMS tour for my discipline, and medicine will bring you to a lot of new places you have never been before be it on the elective tour, the interview tour or for your residency/job placements. It has been a hidden gem of medical school that I got to accumulate all of these new experiences.

[MDLaval]

On 19/1/2018 at 10:33 PM, Calopee said:

Let's hear some positive.

What do you love about being a med student or a resident?

For me, what I love the most about all of this is being able to do what I love and what I've always wanted to do for as far as I can remember.