The whole idea of going to medical school in the first place was a fairly radical idea when I first came up with it. In the early 70's girls went to nursing schools to be nurses and boys went to medical school to be doctors. That was the way it was. Girls did not like science, boys did. All the resistance I got from the people around me made me even more determined to pursue a career in a scientific field. And it would NOT be a "female oriented" field at that. Nursing was out. In my years, I have grown to realize how skilled and talented nurses really are, but at that time they were undervalued andlargely held back in their ability to achieve by the system and the sexism in said system.
Entering college to study chemistry probably raised more eyebrows than medical school did as this was the 80's and there was still the relative prohibition on women entering scientific fields. By the time I entered medical school in the ninety's, 40% of our entering class was women and that trend was being seen nationwide. Not to say that I did not experience some attendings and instructors who obviously favored my male counterparts. There were some, but for the most part, I did not see the resistance that I would have expected.
Entering medical school was one of the most nerve wracking things I have ever done. Certainly I was excited, but the was far more intimidating than college. Unlike undergraduate school where I made every effort to avoid attending orientation activities, preferring to socialize and party, I went to every one here. I had no idea what to expect but from having roommates who were medical students, I knew it could be Hell. We were told numerous times during orientation that medical school is a life changing event. I scoffed at the idea, believing that once we were adults, our personalities were fundamentally set in stone and while maybe we would be modified, nothing could fully change us.
I was wrong.
I was still shy when I entered medical school, but not as shy as I was as a child. I was still moody, emotionally labile but certainly more mature than I had been at the age of seventeen when I entered college. By then I had sought out help for my moods and was on a much more even keel and more prepared to take on a challenge like this.
Medical school has a lot of ways of breaking one's spirit and hardening one's stomach. Weak stomachs just do not fly well in medicine, even in psychiatry. Gross anatomy is the most obvious example. In pretty much every medical school that I have ever heard of, the very first day starts with a gross anatomy lecture for one hour, then the class is sent up to gross anatomy lab to begin their first cadaver dissections. Three hours later, an instructor comes in and says something to the effect of "Time's up! Take an hour for lunch and be back in the lecture hall for biochemistry lecture." Formaldehyde and meat do not make for a very appetizing combination. Formaldehyde and anything for that matter do not mix well but meat, especially attached to bones is pretty nauseating. Like chicken. I did not eat meat for weeks. I still do not particularly like chicken legs and that was 18 years ago.
I did not enter medical school with the intentions of being a psychiatrist. I had actually wanted to be a trauma surgeon, something with is pretty much the antithesis of a psychiatrist. I was told of the long hours, grueling call schedules and emotionally abusive training techniques used in surgery residencies, but I was sure that I had what it takes. I knew that to have any hope to get into a surgery residency, one would have to be at or near the top of one's class. I was doing fairly well early on although the long hours of studying was getting to me. I am not good at rote memorization and the early classes like gross anatomy were basically that. I did my best to keep up but near the end of my first semester received the word that a close friend from college who had been quite ill from cancer had taken a turn for the worse. I had been able to spend only a few minutes with him in the hospital, 200 miles away from home while attending a friend's wedding. As usual, the pressures of medical school were always there and I had to rush home to resume my studies.
It was only a few days later that one of my roommates left me a post it note on my door stating that my friend had passed away. It was just a few days shy of his 31st birthday. Another trip back to my old college haunt with a quick exit back home ensued leaving my friends from college disappointed but there was too much at stake to sacrifice any more study time than I already had. As expected, my grades plummeted along with any hopes of being a trauma surgeon.
I had been a lucky person to have never had to deal with a lot of death in my life up until then. Only two great-grandmothers who I did not know well when I was quite young and a couple of hamsters. Losing a friend so young was devastating to me. It gave me nightmares. I carried all my books and spent the next few nights at my mother's, making the much longer drive to class for her comfort. My late friend had always pushed me to go into hematology-oncology to help people like him. Seeing my friend who was once a healthy army reserve corpsman who still went on active duty in the summer reduced to skin and bones with no energy and his eyes sinking in his head made me all the more determines that I was not going to go into heme-onc. I could not watch my patients leave the world like this.
I never failed a class in medical school and despite this setback pulled through intact. My emotions were shot, I went through countless antidepressants and when I went to the end of semester parties, I went overboard. But I eventually pulled myself together. With time I came to the realization that I had been changed after that experience, though. I was stronger, I knew how to keep my composure when I was internally a wreck, but I also learned that medicine was sometimes rather cruel to the providers.
Save for that outlying event, the first two years of medical school for the most part were a blur. We would go to class, go the lab, study, repeat. Then we would take an exam and repeat the process. It was exhausting, very damaging on our relationships with our friends and families outside of medical school but so constant that one did not really notice time passing.
During that time, I did start to realize that I did not want to be a surgeon. Not only were my grades not high enough to pull it off, but I started to realize that I really did not want to become a lifelong slave to my job. I love my work, but I have a family and a life that I love also, and I want to live it. I knew that the seven or more years spent in medical school and residency were a sacrifice in my life that I would make for my future, but once completed, I really did not relish the idea of working 80 hour weeks for the rest of my life. Even if that did mean not ever owning a Ferrari like the ones that show up on the doctor's lot at work. My little Audi makes me quite happy and is a lot more than many people will ever have. I am thankful for it and the many other things I have in life. Sure, I earn significantly less, but I work a 40 hour work week, and I am home to have dinner with my family every night.
So I was still on track to be a physician, just a different kind, and I was still out to catch that dream.
To be continued...
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