In short, the average medical school in America is hard. Very, very hard. And it may be the hardest thing most people have done so far in their lives. Most medical students may say that the sheer volume of workload is what kills most students, but I think it is the combination of juggling the immense workload and balancing it with life. I think that is what will break most people’s sanity at some point during medical school. Here are a couple of reasons why medical school is hard.
The Immense Workload
If you think your undergraduate institution was difficult, then medical school is about to blow it out of the waters. The amount of information that is thrown at medical students in a very short amount of time pretty much forces you to study most of the day and every day. If I were to give an analogy, it would be like taking my year-long Biology 101 course from undergrad in one month. A year-long course in one month in medical school. Sounds about right.
“It’ll be like drinking from a fire hose”
– The Dean of my medical school
I remember my first day of orientation in medical school. Everyone was all perky and excited to start our medical journey. Then the dean stepped up on the podium and said these exact words. At first, I thought it was just an exaggeration to scare the students to study and do well. But let me tell you – it is definitely not an exaggeration to say that the amount of information you have to learn in medical school will be like drinking from a fire hose. And it will not stop – especially for the first two years of medical school.
Can You Handle Stress?
Stress is probably the number one factor that drives me nuts in medical school, and most medical students tend to be high stress all the time. This is due to several factors but the reason tends to be that most medical students have type-A personalities. Which means, we have high expectations of ourselves and tend to stress out when we are not living up to our own expectations of being perfect students.
This graph shows how my stress level is like in a week of medical school:
Monday afternoons are officially my favorite time of the week because exams are usually done in the morning and I have the rest of the day to relax. Do some chores. And get my life back together somehow.
Thursday is usually when I’ll start feeling the pressure of the upcoming exam on Monday, realizing how much material that accumulated and how much more that’s coming at me. Yikes.
I don’t think there was once where I felt 100% confident coming out of an exam.
Keeping Up With Relationships
Most people move out of state in order to go to medical school. Which means we are away from friends and family for about four years. Some people may say that it’s good because there will be fewer distractions and we could focus on studying. But that’s not always the case, as we get lonely, stressed, and discouraged pretty often.
You will lose friends. You will miss your family. It will be hard maintaining a long-distance relationship. But these are just the sacrifices we have to make in order to become a doctor.
If you want to know what kind of people you will be dealing with in medical school, here’s a fun and snarky post I wrote about regarding the 17 Types of People in Medical School. But most of the people you meet in medical school will be smart and incredible.
Time Management
Medical school is the time you learn to be disciplined in time management. And that is because you simply do not have enough time. You will never feel like you have enough time in medical school with all the material thrown at you.
“I wish I just had ONE more day to study…”
-Rachel, Americano Please
This is how I feel before every exam. Even if I have thoroughly studied everything for this exam, there is always the potential to forget a concept that you studied earlier.
The fear of forgetting what you learned. You just have to study every day. And that is why time management is a skill that is so important.
Persevering Again and Again
Every medical student experiences this. Being sick of studying. Getting lower back pain from sitting all day, studying. Reviewing boring topics that you already know but might forget. Reviewing boring topics that you don’t know. The grind of studying day after day does get boring and dull, but you have to continue on.
We are committed to lifelong learning and studying. And medical school is just the beginning. We have to constantly remind ourselves that the hard work we put forth now will save lives in a few years.
Still Got To Live Like a Human
And beyond studying for medical school, we still have to live our lives like normal people. Paying our bills and cook some healthy meals. Perhaps squeezing in some exercise. Perhaps going out and get some sun from time to time. And finding a casual hobby to have sprinkles of happiness in our long years of study.
Here’s a snapshot of a typical day as a medical student.
If you want to see what I do in a day in absolute detail, here’s the post to my Day in a Life of a Medical Student.
So in short, medical school is hard because of the immense amount of workload constantly thrown at medical students for all four years. No matter how smart you are, you can’t escape the hard work in medical school. Even though medical school is hard, being able to save lives at the end of our study and training will make the hard work all worth it. So honestly, it’s not too bad.