I’ve Never Been Closer to My Goal and I’ve Never Wanted It Less

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint”

I’ve never had any doubts regarding my desired career path. I’d grown up full of admiration for my father, watching him do it and feeling that it completely aligns with what I would want out of a job. When I went to college and all my friends were having to pick what courses they wanted to apply to study in university, it dawned on me that I’d picked medicine a long, long time ago.

It turns out that becoming a doctor isn’t easy. I’m currently in the sixth and final year of my medical study in Romania. Prior to this, I studied medicine in the Czech Republic for 2 years. That’s not even mentioning the 2 years of college and 5 years of high school which preceded all that.

I’m now 26 years old, almost a full decade after I ticked medicine on those applications and flippantly sent them off. I’m months away from starting my dream job that I’m not even sure I want anymore.

I never expected leaving the UK to study in a country completely foreign to me, away from everything and everyone I know, to be easy but I definitely underestimated it.

The problem is that I’ve always more or less gotten by without really trying my best, and that was fine earlier in life when all I had to worry about were GCSEs, but it caught up with me real quick. The sum of my assessment reports throughout high school could be articulated as “good, could be better if he wasn’t so lazy”.

I say all that to say I’ve never had to question my intellect — misplaced arrogance had led me to believe that the only real test when it came to education was motivating myself. So moving to the country that was previously only known to me from a quote from the Peep Show (see below) to pursue Medicine seemed like it’d be fine, and the hardest part would be the language barrier. Lo and behold, it turns out that doing a difficult course in one of the most difficult places to do said course, is actually really fucking difficult.

As a result, the reality check I received was so large it was paid out to me in instalments. We had very regular tests in most subjects throughout the semester, and each one that I failed was a slap in the face, another damning piece of evidence to add to the ever-growing pile of proof that I don’t belong there. It goes without saying that this inevitably ended badly, and at the end of it all I was in a very negative mental state. I returned to England with more baggage than just the suitcases in my hands.

I don’t know if it was passion, stubbornness or stupidity but even at what felt like rock bottom, the concept of giving up chasing this dream of mine didn’t even cross my mind. I applied to a few different universities in various different countries and hoped for the best. With international medical school admissions, most people go through agents who are familiar with the administrative side of things and sort everything out for you (for a price of course, they aren’t saints).

Unfortunately, the agent I was introduced to through a family friend was far further from sainthood than the average. He’d already been briefed on my situation prior to our first chat and so was immediately able to prey on my insecurities. As broken down as my self-esteem was, I took his words at face value and went to the university that he advised despite there being much better options out there (which he had convinced me I would fail in again as the standard was just as high as my last university).

I wanted to at least retain the credits for the subjects that I had completed so that the previous two years wouldn’t have been a complete waste but I was again convinced that I’d be landing myself in the exact same mess and should start over. I later found out that the agents get a commission for each year that one of their students completes, so by convincing me to start over instead of saving myself two years he got himself a nice little bonus.

That’s what landed me in the place that I’ve spent the last 6 years in. I started here having to accept and face my mental health issues for the first time in my life and it’d be safe to say that this was very much the tone of my entire stay here.

I started Medicine bright-eyed and happy that I was following in the footsteps of someone I aspired to be like, delighted that I was on the path to helping people on a daily basis just by doing my job. I’m coming to the end of that same course 20kg heavier than I started, with anxiety so intrusive that it’s infected every decision I make.

People go to university solely for the experience, and for many, it really is the best time of their lives. For me, it’s easily been the worst, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to detach the cognitive link between all of this struggle and the job that it’s been in service for.

At this point, I absolutely can’t wait to cross the finish line. Not because I’m excited for what comes next, just the opposite, I’m dreading it. I can’t wait to cross that line because I’m just so, so tired of running.