The 13 Important Life Lessons I Learned From Studying Medicine

Finding self development in the midst of my struggle and stress

I will never forget my first day in Medical School. I was crammed into a lecture hall, surrounded by strangers, and feeling that potent mixture of butterflies and nervousness that is reserved for special moments like these.

As I sat there that day, feeling slightly claustrophobic and definitely sweaty, I had no idea what the next 6 years would hold. If anyone had told me then how this journey would impact me as a human being, would alter the course of my life, and the toll it would ultimately take on my mental health, I would never have believed them.

To me, studying medicine was a journey that extended far beyond the lectures, textbooks and exams.

It was, without a doubt, the single most transformative experience of my life. Today I would like to share some of the profound lessons I learned from this experience.

Lesson 1: We all have equal abilities, but different timelines

I wasn’t blessed with the same intellectual abilities of everyone else around me.

I was never in denial about this fact. I had to work incredibly hard to even get considered for this opportunity.

Everyone else around my understood the concepts that were taught to us at an inhumane speed. For me, it took a bit longer. This scared me initially, and pushed me to work even harder, at a pace I would never be able to maintain. What a few failed attempts and below-average test scores taught me, is something so valuable, that I use it to self-motivate to this day.

We all have the same abilities, it just takes some of us a bit longer than it does others. You can do whatever everyone else around you can, it might just take you a bit longer.

So be patient with yourself. Don’t give up on things so easily. If we all had to ride the “talents and natural abilities” wave all day, we will never discover what we are truly capable of. Persist and allow yourself the time it takes to learn new skills.

Lesson 2: We all get the same 24-hour day, every day

I don’t ‘buy’ busy.

This is a personal life philosophy. Busy is an amazing word these days. It gets you off the hook, it makes you seem important, and it gives you a convenient excuses to use against your own better judgement.

‘Busy’ doesn’t count as a valid excuse in my books anymore. If I could work a 12-hour day at a full time job, and run a fitness business on the side, all while studying part time to get academic marks good enough to get me accepted into Med-school, you can squeeze in a 30 minute gym session.

Even after I got accepted into medical school, I had to work in the hospitals during the day to complete my practical hours, while still studying and attempting to pass my exams. I started a side hustle during this time because the tuition fees were unaffordable.

You see how many things we can juggle?

During my ‘busy time’ I learned that we all have 24 hours in our day. No one has more. But some people manage their time better. Remember this every time the b-word slips out your mouth.

Lesson 3: We take ourselves too seriously

I spent 5 years of this journey working myself to, what can only be described as, a pulp. I became highly strung, and I was finding it hard to relate this new character with the once-carefree hiker and surfer.

My foot was on the gas pedal, flooring it for 5 years. In my final year, after finally reaching my personal breaking point, I took my foot off the gas. It was a drastic change from watching every bend in the road while frantically keeping an eye on every gauge, to suddenly slowing to a near-idle and enjoying the scenery.

Want to know what happened? Nothing. Sure, my academic accomplishments were few and far between. But other than that, nothing happened. I still had the same amount of work to do. I was still writing exams, and working crazy hours in understaffed hospitals. Nothing else changed.

I still got my degree. I still got my work done. But now I also got to enjoy my life a little bit, and my shoulders weren’t touching the tips of my ears anymore.

I started running again. Hell, I even experimented with laughing and smiling again!

Here is what you can learn from this: Work will still be there tomorrow. Your boss will still be breathing down your neck. Your deadlines will still loom. The only thing that you can truly change is your mindset about it.

There are no rewards at the end of life. And, like it or not, most of us are replaceable at work. Work is an aspect of your life. It’s just one of the many aspects of your life.

If you want to be happy, forget the idea that you will get there after your promotion.

True happiness really does happen in the present. Learn to be in the moment. Capture your memories (hint: not with your phone). These are the actual chapters of your book.

Lesson 4: Competition can bring out the worst in us

Ever noticed how fast puppies eat when you add more puppies to the mix?

When we compete, it often brings out the worst in us. Competition is, in my opinion, more beneficial in the short term, and does not hold a candle to its long-term counterpart: camaraderie.

I was surrounded by type-A personalities and high achievers. They constantly compared their marks and tried to outsmart each other.

Towards the end of our first year, we wrote an exam that half of the class failed (a regular occurrence in medical school). The worst part? The other half got distinctions. The test was almost identical to a past paper that some people managed to get their hands on.

When the one half complained about the test (you can guess which half), it turned out that those who got the past papers were supposed to share it with the rest of the class.

Nothing divided our group and broke up friendships as fast as this test did. Here is the sad reality about competition that I did not realize before this day: beating someone in the race means leaving them in the dust.

Competition comes at a cost. Whenever there is a winner, there is inevitably a loser.

And while this can be done in good spirits on the sports field, it certainly doesn’t help you build the long term camaraderie required to excel in life’s challenges later on.

Lesson 5: Bouncing back from rejection & criticism is a lot easier than we think

This might come as a surprise to you, but real life doesn’t compare to Grey’s Anatomy.

If you ever watched this show, you will remember how juniors run after seniors and how they compete to give the correct answer first at a patient’s bedside. This couldn’t be further from reality.

Let me try to paint the real picture for you. We all stand bedside, heads down, hoping the questions won’t be directed at you. Because, very often, no matter how many answer you get right, you will inevitably encounter a question you can’t find an answer to in your overworked brain.

And that’s when it happens…

You are told how inadequate you are, in front of your peers and the patients who will be entrusting their lives into your incapable hands within an hour.

This can be very toxic. And it makes you want to not show your face in public again. As much as I hated this, I found a silver lining in this: I no longer had a fear of rejection.

So if you fear rejection, expose yourself to it often. You will learn very quickly that repeated exposure to anything you perceive as unpleasant, can numb the sting.

It really does make you quite resilient to similar onslaughts in future.

Lesson 6: Your biggest dream can become your worst nightmare

Studying medicine was my biggest dream.

You might not guess this when you read about my story, but it really was. And I pursued this dream with everything I had to offer. I worked harder than I had ever worked. And I sacrificed everything I had built up and accumulated to be able to study full time.

Nothing was more important to me, to the point that I couldn’t imagine the worth of my life if I was unable to get accepted into medical school. But, with enough time passed and trauma experienced, my biggest dream became my worst nightmare.

The pursuit that once made me jump out of bed and sacrifice everything for its realisation, became the very thing that caused my mental health to deteriorate.

Sometimes the dreams we chase end up chasing us…in the form of nightmares.

Don’t feel trapped. Don’t feel like you have wasted your life. Don’t be worried if everyone else will understand if you change your mind. In fact, they likely wont. You will be disappointing someone along the journey called life. Don’t let the person you disappoint be yourself. That’s the only condition.

It is brave to admit this metamorphosis of your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It is a deep disappointment that most other people will be unwilling to face. If you do, you are brave.

Lessons 7: We all need a teammate we can tag-in when when things get rough

I am a loner.

I don’t need a lot of people around me. I recharge when I am alone and I like my own company. This served me until things got really hard.

In the second week of my practical years, something happened that threatened my personal safety. It was a moment that scared the living daylight out of me. I won’t go into the details of this, because I feel like I’ll be cheating on my book with its own story.

But what I can tell you is this: from the moment it happened, until I was a few blocks away from home, I was never alone. The people in my group, who were also tired and just wanted to get home, helped me think when I was in shock.

They tagged themselves in and picked up the pieces when my ability to do so failed.

How this moment might have impacted me otherwise, I will never know. And I am grateful for that.

Lesson 8: Says who?

Walking off a prescribed path is frowned upon.

We have heard “question everything” so many times that it might have lost some of its impact by now. But you really should question everything.

The blueprint to success is outdated. We now have many other options available to us. Life doesn’t have to suck. Forget all the “should’s” of society and embrace the deepest desires of your heart.

This one was such a profound lesson, that it completely changed the course of my life. There is a certain societal expectation on people with my qualifications. Your life will look a certain way. You need certain things to make you happy. You should stay in one career all your life if you want a good resume.

Says who?!

Screw your resume and start living in a way that ensures you can tell good stories. Your resume expires after you retire. The stories you tell on a porch will be all you have left in the end.

Live your life in a way that writes life changing, inspiring, or hilarious stories.

Lesson 9: Pivoting doesn’t make you indecisive, it makes you resourceful

There is only truly predicatable thing in life: things will change.

Change is an inevitable part of life. When things changed for me, I had to decide between the life I had envisioned myself living as a doctor, and the unknown. I decided to change course, and in doing so I had to realize that I wasn’t being indecisive, I was being resourceful.

I took the very thing that got me to that point, and pivoted it until it became the most wonderful story of my life.

My place of suffering became my greatest adventure. Pivot until it works for you. Use everything your life taught you up to that point. And if you are still not happy? Pivot again.

Lesson 10: Our health really is our wealth

I’m sure you have heard them say that a healthy man wants a million things, and an unhealthy man wants just one thing.

During my practical years, I witnessed firsthand how many complaints people had when they sat down on the other end of the desk in our small consultation rooms. Everyone has a thousand complaints, which often starts with the weather. But the minute I broke the bad news, all those complaints fell away and dropped to the floor in the defeaning silence. And suddenly, nothing else mattered.

I captured the pain of each of these moments to remind myself how important our health really is. How many of the 24 hours we are given each day, do we spend on this pursuit versus all the other less important ones?

Lesson 11: Even cowboys are allowed to cry

Doctors don’t get to cry.

We have everything that most people can only dream of, right? What do we even have to complain about? It seems, almost…ungrateful.

As doctors, we see some deeply disturbing things on a daily basis. A senior doctor once told us that hospitals shouldn’t have tiled floors, because now we never get to sweep things under the carpet.

This sounded poetic. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.

We are not afforded the luxury of dealing with the trauma in the moment it happens. Live to fight another day. Live to save another life. You can’t afford to let it all sink in, because once it takes a hold of you, it might drag you into an abyss you might never emerge from.

So we sweep under the carpet. We push down the emotions. Until the day it all starts spilling over.

During my time in medical school I learned that experiencing emotions isn’t a sign of weakness. And that the things we don’t deal with, will come back later to demand our attention in a scary way.

Admit your emotions. Feel your losses and disappointments. It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you real.

Lesson 12: Sometimes quitting is finishing

Never quit. No matter what, finish strong. This is what we are all taught growing up.

But my journey taught me something different.

Sometimes the end of the race is when you decide it’s the end. Rather end it early than spend your life in misery because you don’t want to be a “quitter”.

Don’t quit everything. That’s not what im saying. Persevere a little bit longer than you think you can, always. But at some point, quitting is self-care.

Quitting is choosing that you value something else more. And sometimes, just sometimes, quitting is closing the door to the past that allows the opening of the door to the future.

Lesson 13: Let your “purpose” align with your definition of the purpose of life

Have you considered that your life’s purpose might change?

All the ideas of “your purpose” that you are chasing right now, might in fact just be the puzzle pieces to your greater purpose. Accumulate your pieces, so you can complete your puzzle.

But don’t get too attached to your idea of what the picture looks like too soon.

We never know when we are chasing “purpose” and when we are chasing “pieces”. When I thought I was. pursuing my purpose, I was in fact collecting the pieces to my greater purpose.

The only way to ensure your time on earth is well-spent and in line with your ultimate purpose, is to definite what you think the purpose of life is. If, by your own definition, the purpose of life is sharing it with loved ones, picking a career that requires a 100 hour work weeks, is a stupid idea.

Figure out what quality of life looks like to you. Do more of the things you value. Your purpose will reveal itself to you when you have managed to collect enough pieces to see the bigger picture.

Conclusion:

Our biggest lessons are at the places of our greatest struggles

In a nutshell, our greatest struggles hold within them the potential for our greatest personal growth. The hardest journey of my life, served up the biggest lessons.

And no matter how hard the road, I will forever be grateful for the lessons. They made me who I am today. And that, my friends, was the worthwhile journey.