5 Honest Facts About Being A Med Student

[JulieXO]

1. We don't get any sleep

You are probably gonna say that no student ever gets any sleep. I can't speak for everyone, of course, but I don't know anyone besides my fellow to-be doctors that have a class on Monday at 6:30 am. As a result, we spend a lot of our time in school catching up. Here are some examples from my school:

Yup, that last one is me.

2. We have no idea what we're doing

When taking your blood, measuring your blood pressure or doing some other simple task they let the students do (in my country at least), we don't really know what we're doing. It's kind of an estimated guess, really, when looking for a vein or listening to the sound of your breathing in the stethoscope. Thankfully, the doctors who already have their degrees are always there to check on us.

3. We are all hypochondriacs

Learning about viruses, genetic disorders and diseases, you get a bit paranoid. You're feeling really calm, just casually studying a bit, and suddenly, you're convinced that you're dying of 12 diseases at the same time. It's kind of like trying to check your symptoms on WebMD, except you can't just close your laptop when you get paranoid. Also, trying to self diagnose is a thing. And it fails 100% of the time, it takes so long to get the degree for a reason.

4. We live off of coffee

This one is definitely true for more than just med students. There were days I haven't consumed anything but coffee, cigarettes and antidepressants. Not surprisingly, it gets stressful when you need to know 1500 pages by heart for a single exam. And when things get a little better, and we actually have time to eat, ramen or frozen pizza are the key ingredients to any student's food pyramid.

*yes, I know coffe and cigarrettes and instant noodles are bad for my health, and that as a future doctor I shouldn't be doing those things, I've heard a thousand times, thank you*

5. We are still just like you (kind of)

Even though we have a shit ton of stuff to read up on, we don't have time to eat and sleep, and we complain how impossible everything is, we still procrastinate like crazy. When I watch House M.D. it's basically studying right? I mean differential diagnoses and stuff.. Also, there are very few of us (at least in my circle of friends) that would dare to miss a party. I mean sure, pathological physiology is important but it's ladies night at the bar just around the corner and there's shots for $1!!

Take this myTake with a sense of humor please. I wrote this based on my experiences in my first 2 years of studying medicine, so not everything I said will apply to everyone everywhere. As always, I'm just expressing my opinion on the matter :)

[Anonymous]

Although I am not a physician, me degree is certainly in the medical field. I drank a lot of coffee, and even smoked cigars for the nicotine while in school. I was not quite that sleep-deprived as my major was not as hard as medical school. I gave up the cigars after I graduated and started working, as I guess I no longed needed the nicotine, thankfully. Of course I still drink coffee... LOL... I remember usually after a big exam, other students and I would hit up a bar downtown, as long as there wasn't another big test that week.

[justagirl5]

I have so much respect for med, engineering, etc. students. Math and science are so technical. I'm in English and I think I have a lot to do with reading and writing but I get to bypass all the memorizing and labs and all the stuff you guys have... you guys are dedicated

[TadCurious]

This was very interesting and you wrote it with a lot of humor! I do have a question though. In the U. S. people don't go to medical school until they have at least a Bachelor's Degree. So most people don't begin med school until they're 23 or later. Is it different in your country? Do people begin studying medicine right out of high school? I ask that because your profile says you're 19.

[JulieXO]

Yeah, we go to med scholl right after we graduaate highschool, but it takes 6 years. I think it's 4 in the states but I'm not sure.

[TadCurious]

Okay, thanks for that information. Yes, in the U. S. medical school is 4 years.

[karahiri]

The US has a handful of BA-MD and BS-MD programs that students can enroll in straight after high school. They typically last 6-8 years- these kids earn their MDs as early as 24 lol.

[Anonymous]

so western medicine creates sick people that can't heal themselves not to metnion others in a few words. also as an md you DONT:
- learn preventive and holistic medicine
-do not know about healing with diet. and dont believe in the transformative strength of diet.
-cant use herbs and nature for the patient's benefit.
-know only how to chop things.
-learn to see humans as mechanistic parts glued together and not as a holistic entity
-dont believe a psyche exists and dont know how to treat psychosomatic disorders.

[JulieXO]

I disagree. I don't know how to treat myself, simply because I aven't learned it yet. Using herbs and believing in spirits, as well as acupuncture and a bunch of similar things belong under alternative medicine. It's a whole differnet science. Not to mention that western medicine does use natural remedies, such as prescribing hypericum against depressin or cranberry pills against UTIs.

[Opinion Owner]

u disagree cause thats the education you received. you can't think out of the box. well you might disagree but i agree, and i see all around me that most people in the world die by MDs, and my grandmother was put in dialysis machine for her blood because of a doctor who prescribed her some powerful pills that destroyed her liver. and billions of examples like that. there is "alternative medicine" and alternative medicine , and byt he later i speak of those who truly know their shit and are not frauds trying to suck people's money.

[JulieXO]

Doctors don't kill people. While they can't save everyone, occassions where doctor actually messes up and kills someone are rare. The pills your grandmother was given might have been the only option. Also, dialysis is used for kidney failiure, not as a substitute for a liver. I'm not sure who hasn't been educted well here.

[Opinion Owner]

oh well. i couldnt remember the English word for the organ. i'm not English. well you are wrong. its doctors that kill them most of the time. with their medicines, their chemos, their shitty advice and with their death sentencing (you only have x months of life blah blah). the doctor that said to my grandma she has a year of life. died ten years ago and she is still alive. but all doctors say she is a phenomenon. at that age, and surviving 20 years in dialysis machine, is not something they saw again.

[JulieXO]

Have fun dying of cancer when you refuse chemotherapy :)

[Opinion Owner]

haha you dont even know what cancer is. you superspecialised idiot have smarts but no wisdom. you dont need chemos, many reversed it naturally. good luck being a future butcher! i pitty only for the money of your parents thrown on the college... .

[JulieXO]

Educate me then, what is cancer according to you? Feel free to pity my parents but uni is free in my country.

[Opinion Owner]

its hard to educate you. i should put you in a time machine, make you a baby again and start from the scratch. first of all the thinking process of western medicine. they see disease as an "enemy". the "war" against cancer they say. they constantly speak in terms of war and battle against diseases. disease is a gift not an enemy. it shows you there is an imbalance in you you need to fix. we are programmed to live a certain life. when we deviate from our natural programming anomalous things occur. people have a soul. as the body needs food the soul needs food. which is prayer and spiritual practice. the body needs sleep. just sleep is a science in its own. keeping the sleep cycles and sleeping at the proper time. between 9-10pm to 3-5 am. it needs good vegan food. not processed trash. it needs exercise, mainly thorugh your daily activities but extra if needed. need to know how to breathe. how to socialise. how to love. how to not have foul desires. not hold grudges. not be jealous.

[Opinion Owner]

there are SO many things that consist the proper health that a lecture should be made to just scratch the surface. when doctors dont know something: "its an autoimmune disease. its genetic, you inherited it. "etc.

[JulieXO]

Well, you still haven't told me what cancer is. Let me tell you how I see it. Cancer varies based on the type, obviously. However, most commonly, it is a result of a mistake in DNA replication, transcriptiom or translation. This can create malfunctioning cells, such as the overproduced lymphocytes in leukemia, or it can cause the cell to replicate abnormally, rersulting in the growth of tumors. Targeted radiation destroys the undesired cells, similarly to chemotherapy. Disease is certainly not a gift. It is cause by bacteria, viruses and parasites that shouldn't be in your body, but have gotten there by mistake.

[JulieXO]

Genetic disorders and autoimmune disease are a real thing, I'm not sure what your point is.

[Opinion Owner]

such narrow mindness. modern education is mental handicap. cancer is more like a spiritual symptom and a sign of our deviation than anything. chemo is not needed to overcome it. and bacteria would exist in you anyway, just your weakened immune system due to wrong living can't handle them. even friendly bacteria can become hazardrous in you with perverting the natural ways. as for mutations in your genome, these can be altered back to normal with proper living. and its scientifically proven. epigenetics prove that our decisions make our lifes. and we can really transform our body and soul. as for autoimmune diseases its just a name for things doctors dont know. that was my point. i have a leaky gut, or ibs, or a tooth filling infection, or an unfulfilled desire, or whatnot, it manifests as psoriasis in my skin the doctor goes "autoimune disorder! you must have it for life. you can only treat the symptoms!" bs. i can totally heal from it and i did.

[Opinion Owner]

*deviation as a society and species in general. polluting the earth, living unatural sterile lifes disconnected from nature, eating garbage, watching garbage, thinking garbage, creating -countless tons of- garbage, and in general being indiscreet and lost.

[Opinion Owner]

and if you were logical your next question would be "what about little kids and babies health problems? whats that? deviation from their natural living?". well good question... myself. lol. well ever heard of the "the sins of the parents trouble the kids"? parents choices can be inherited for generations after them. one more reason why we should be careful and responsible with how we live. also there are environmental influences that affect minors. i knew a mother whose girl was born with gigantism. its was later found that she tried to abort the baby as a fetus but it survived, and the result was the gigantism mutation. another one was born with down syndrome, it was proven many were born in the area with d/s this decade because of the increased use of herbicides and pesticides by the local farmers. another had asperger's it proved it was a vaccine the pregnant mother had. and countles examples like that.

[Opinion Owner]

as for you living on junk food, alcohol, coffee and antidepresants thats 99% on you. the system might indeed be indiscreet and perverted, but you are the architect of most of your misery. i know endless med students that took the degree with NONE of these things. if you had a good daily program, time management, and knew how to live in general, you would be able to go through your studies almost effortlessly. even studying is a science on its own. and school is certainly NOT preparing critically thinking and sharp individuals with broad and effective minds, to make it to the college world afterwards.

[Opinion Owner]

some "fast food advice" without many radical changes. try to get some sleep. write your schedule down on paper. read some chapters each day so that they dont seem too much to you in the final eaxms. take some high quality fish oil for omega fatty acids. and take a memory enhancing supplement like epresat www.zachospharmacy.gr/.../...er-4004148047268.html but in the longterm deeper changes are needed.

[JulieXO]

Look, we just have different opinions in this. I believe in modern medicine, you don't. Whatever, we are never gonna agree.

[Opinion Owner]

cutiepie dont get me wrong. iad mire what you do and believe in it. i dont try to belittle your studies. its just that for the most part, it is a piece of a bigger puzzle and not the whole puzzle. and i believe you can benefit from my comments. you are aware yourself you are not living a healthy life. doctor heal yourselfs of you wanna heal others as a mentor used to say.

[Levin]

Interesting perspective, tallies with my own, but personally, I'm not sure there's much benefit to be had here by being scathing. People generally aren't going to change their mind until they come to a point that they need to.

The problem is, Western society benefits people who continue to think in the Western way. The techno-specialist highly analytical jobs, requiring a certain kind of hyper-thinking (or non-thinking), command the greatest salaries and esteem. In a certain respect it requires no thinking, at least for oneself, but on the other, it does require a certain type of intelligence and grit which I respect. There is no reason for the average person in medical school, with seemingly the whole world at their feet, to change their mind.

Unfortunately, usually by the time something horrific has manifested on the physical level, into tangible disease, about 500 so called intangible (but glaringly obvious) warnings were missed.

[Levin]

It's shocking that we as society can be so blind as to what is happening within our own bodies. We are hopelessly brainwashed by the current paradigm. Disease manifests in compromised and weakened bodies... There's a reason why certain people get everything, and other people get nothing. People may scoff at this notion, but it is no fun at all if you're the one who is getting everything, and you know you're sick and weak, and basically you're on your own. The doctor has no idea how to stop the body from degenerating further, in any ways that aren't superficial (that way seems to be, at least to a significant degree: heeding the insights from the etheric body through meditation). I mean, they are good at some things such as trauma, to present a balanced picture :)

I just wanted to acknowledge your answer because it's unusual for people to make such statements. But it would be cool if you were not anon (I'm sure you have your reasons) :)

[Opinion Owner]

@Levin exactly. and western education exists only to make useful gears for the machine. they want us to be stupid enough to eat their political, material (products) and economical shit and tv propaganda up, and smart enough to work their jobs. i wouldn't pay even a penny for a modern university. not to mention the 50k dollar fees a year some American colleges have.
and yes unfortunately you are right. we are so low level that we need a trong slap from life to wake up. most wake up after grave illnesses. which manifested far from out of the blue as you noted.

[Opinion Owner]

@Levin well my ideas and opinions are completely unconventional but i'm prepared for the war and loneliness this stance will face. but its not complete loneliness cause you find a few awakened people that share similar ideals. but we are still very few. my goal before i die, is to make us a little more. and them in turn to awaken others. thats what i do in my citizen everyday life.

[Levin]

Same, but for the moment, I'm biding my time. I have a lot to learn, and I'm still sick myself (though a lot less sick). I've cured some 30 or so symptoms!

Of course, I could have taken the easy option. I've done this at immense personal cost. I could have gotten a straight forward career. That involves slow soul death and walking in others' shoes, in any case. So it's not worth it to me. Maybe it, it probably, will backfire, but so be it, haha.

[Opinion Owner]

@Levin an example of a lecture that TED deleted afterwards. food for thought.
www.youtube.com/watch
https://www.rexresearch.com/ebner/ebner.htm
steemit.com/.../electrostatics-spontaneous-evolution-and-reversing-gmos-ebner-effect

also another interesting one i found today. on dinosaurs. more food for thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niDCq3TbvOo

as well as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0z306SiqCM

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usz28nAYdT0

its good to doubt what we are told to take as granted... .

[Levin]

Thank you. I'll gradually work through them. So many things to read (and watch), so little time :)

[Opinion Owner]

@Levin you are welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hra650C6UyU

[MrOwens]

Before I Finished my MD and specialty. I had no life. It was sleep, study, books and clinical, and hands on. It was tough and yes I can really relate to "I don't know what I am doing!" Hang in there!

[bubbletrouble]

True. I have a friend still in med school and she's addicted to Starbucks. I wanted to be one myself but didn't think I was smart enough and plus its 10 fuckin years.

Good luck!

[karahiri]

Should also mention the inability to eat chicken after months of dissection lol.

[JulieXO]

this hasn't happened to me personally :D

[beachflamingo]

As a premed student, I already live like this. One more year and I can officially call myself a medical student.

[RainbowFanGirl]

I plan on going into nursing so this is rather helpful? :P

[Redstang88]

Not in medicine, but I can totally relate to the schedule. Working +75 hrs/wk while still dealing with the family business. Gone through plenty of days on coffee and beer.

[blutwolfe]

lol sleep

MORTALSSS

all I do is study for my major (biochem) and work all the time, I feel rested if I get like 5 hours of sleep

[normalice]

we have a lot of med students here at my university. A lot of this seems spot on..

[SovereignessofVamps]

I've heard how horrible the scheduling can be. Wow.

[capturemyheartnow]

It's a noble profession. Hard work as a student now will give you the thrill of saving lives later.

[bedroomdweller]

As a microbiology student I sympathize with all of this. Good take.

[kinggeorge007]

My sister is a medical student. So yes I know most of them are true.

[Anonymous]

Are you able to start medical school right at the start of your university career?

[10dsw]

Not in the US or Canada no.

[JulieXO]

In my country, yes.

[Waffles731]

A family friend is going to be a doctor, not sure what point he is at yet

[Sdoralguy]

Wait until you get into your clinical years... lol

[Dred1614returns]

I'm enjoying my last few months of freedom.

[goldfinch23]

Nice MyTake 😉

[bruce3]

cool post