MY LIFE AS A MED STUDENT

is that her femoral artery?

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:14:52 +1000

“Is that her femoral artery?”

I met my lover late one night,

Stethoscope on my chest, BP cuff on my right,

And as he held my hand, on his resident’s command,

He summoned up all his might -

“I’m a doctor-in-training”, he said,

Resting his body against my bed

“And is it too soon to make you swoon?

Because I know we’ve just met -

But you make my heart thump so hard

That cardiac arrest is on the cards,

Fast my blood flows for my soul knows

That true love has caught me off-guard.”

What was there to say but yes?

To a lack of experience he had confessed,

Yet I was fine with the nerdy pick up lines

Because for me adoration he had professed -

But he’s rare with actual compliments

Instead choosing to thank my ‘rents

For their chromosomes, their centrosomes

…I think good will was meant?

And even when he finds the right words

It sounds completely absurd

To hear “My dear, your telomeres

They have never faltered!”

All my girlfriends think I’m single

Because I never bring him out to mingle -

He works long hours, rarely showers,

And in small talk, the only lingual

Skills he has pertain to nerves of the tongue,

And if there’s pathology he has the lungs

To speak and speak for a more than a week,

As if other meddies he were among!

Surgery sets his heart on fire

More than my wanton desire,

Causing a fuss with his bloodlust

Whenever I want my body admired,

So when he’s making love to me,

I know he’s thinking of anatomy

Not what goes where, or how he fares,

But is that her femoral artery?

“Found it!” he cries instead of my name,

As if our activity is not a game

Of take-a-peek but hide-and-seek

Where physiology is the aim!

Still I know he’ll never cheat

Because he never has the time to meet

Another girl to take for a whirl,

And besides, I know I have them beat

With my ample mitochondria, cranial hypertrophy,

A million neurotransmitters and long phalanges -

Subcutaneous tissue, it’s never an issue;

So I’ll let him study our mutual biochemistry

Because he gives me atrial fibrillation,

Ventricular contractions and palpitations,

Every single date my muscles fasciculate,

Forever he’ll be my doctor, and I, his patient.

[An old poem I had lying around. It never fails to amuse me.]

why you should wear your stethoscope out in public.

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:34:00 +1000

You will look like a pretentious twit. But before you cry out, consider the model of socialisation familiar to first years and anyone cramming for final exams. Acting like a doctor is a crucial step to becoming a doctor, and House and Dr Cox are doctors who are also pretentious. Therefore, in order to become a doctor, you must wear your stethoscope out in public.
Doctors get upgraded to business class when flying. How else will the flight attendants be aware of your pending-doctor status if you don’t wear your steth?
There’s scope for, ahem, roleplaying.
Think of the pick-up lines. “Excuse me miss, but you just made my heart skip a beat. Care to hear?” “I’m offering free health checks to all attractive males… and you most certainly qualify.”
If you plan on going into surgery or psychiatry, this may be the only opportunity you get to wear your stethoscope. How many surgeons have you seen wear a stethoscope on ward rounds?
“Stand back, I’m a doctor” sounds much more impressive if you look like one. And no one will question your doctor qualifications if you’re wearing a stethoscope.
It’s a great party trick. In fact, the last two parties I’ve been to, I’ve whipped out my pretty little stethoscope and conducted full cardiovascular examinations on my friends. Not only do they get free healthcare, but it makes you seem super intelligent because you can tell them that their hearts are normal.
Eavesdropping. Forget holding glasses up to walls or casting listening charms—if your friends are having a super secret conversation next door, you can simply hold your stethoscope to the wall and listen to all the dirty gossip.
It’s great revision for clinical exams. If you’re wearing your stethoscope on a long train trip back from the country, imagine how many times you can listen to your heart and lungs. You’ll be a pro at identifying normal breath sounds by the end of it—and if you’re game, you can always practice on the other passengers. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.
Hitting someone with a stethoscope hurts. Therefore, wearing your stethoscope on those long walks between hospitals, residential colleges, and sophisticated drinking establishments means you always have a weapon on hand should you find yourself in less-than-pleasant company.

Please note, this is an entirely facetious list. Don’t wear your stethoscope outside the hospital, please.

the moments that matter.

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 11:09:38 +1000

I saw a little band named fun. on Friday night.

And between the shuffling to try and get a good vantage point (I’m really short, okay?), one thought kept popping into my head: I wish I’d paid more attention to the moments that didn’t matter.

I get caught up in med school. I do the unforgivable, I place my self-worth and self-belief in the feedback I receive until it’s late at night and I’m alone with my thoughts that tell me it’s not worth it, nothing’s worth it. My life becomes a series of achievements which I’ve failed to meet: didn’t clerk enough patients, didn’t do enough research, didn’t impress the doctors enough, didn’t know enough.

So, being the ever-composed medical student that I am, I started crying during the encore.

We fight and fight for med school. Our entire lives revolve around being a doctor. Getting the marks to pass, to get an internship, to get into specialty training, to pass our exams: when does it stop? In the grand scheme of all things med school, these moments matter. But are they more important than the moments that don’t matter, the moments that pass us by?

No.

I look back on this year so far and I see loss. I see three overdoses, two psychiatrists, a psychologist. I see disordered eating, I see hiding in tutorial rooms, too afraid to deal with people. I see a failed assignment, questions I couldn’t answer, laying in bed with my heart racing out of time, scared of waking up in the morning and going back to the hospital.

But then there are nights spent at concerts, driving around the city at three am looking for food, falling asleep on a friend’s floor. Days spent dancing with hand puppets and baking scones.

Moments which don’t matter to med school. Late-night Facebook chats won’t get you a career.

But these moments will help us survive med school.

This is fun. Photo primarily included because the lead singer is the cutest thing I’ve ever encountered.

what medicine means to me.

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:41:56 +1000

I’ve always wanted to be a doctor so I could make a difference. I felt that, by being a doctor, I would be able to make certain changes—I could reverse the trend towards psychopharmacy and perhaps encourage psychotherapy. I could open up a little clinic and work with young people who were experiencing mental illness. I could change themed school curriculum, I could promote self-care in medical students, I could create a more supportive environment. But, most of all, I wanted to be able to use my experiences to change the way we practice medicine.

For me, medicine means the opportunity to change the world.

This idea was not received well by my ethics tutor.

The system doesn’t need improving, he said. Personal experience, experience outside of med school, has no place in the practice of medicine. Doctors aren’t doctors to create change.

I disagree. It doesn’t matter what profession you’re in, whether it be nursing or teaching or government. We have the capacity to take our role and society and use it to make the world a better place. Every responsibility we take on has the potential to be used to make a difference. Our experiences, good and bad, can motivate us.

I have an eating disorder not otherwise specified, otherwise known as EDNOS. If you come across me in the street, or see me on ward rounds, you will not see this. I don’t look like I have an eating disorder, which means I am very unlikely to get help. At my medical school, we get about an hour of teaching on eating disorders across the entire degree, which focuses only on anorexia nervosa. Many of our psychiatric placements are at hospitals without eating disorder beds—we are producing doctors with little to no knowledge about this very serious class of mental illnesses.

I’m a patient who is dealing with the emotional sequelae of EDNOS. The guilt, the obsessional thoughts, the failed exams because I was too busy counting calories in and out to study. I’m also a medical student who can see our teaching is inadequate in this area. I believe I can take these two experiences and use them to try and improve teaching so that the next generation of doctors know that eating disorders are more than just the inability to eat.

This is what medicine means to me—what does medicine mean to you?

med school & mental health.

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:25:16 +1000

I’ve spent the last few weeks on psychiatry placements. It’s been crazy, confronting, and not the ideal place to be when you’re struggling with your own mental health issues.

A friend was telling me about her psychiatry placement recently, and the way she spoke indicated how much it had affected her. She’s normally very giddy and very child-like, but when she talked of her patients, she was solemn and soft-spoken. She told me this story weeks and weeks after she’d met this particular patient—she hadn’t been given a chance to debrief.

That’s when it struck me. As medical students, we’re given little, if any, support. We see the best and the worst of the human experience on the wards. We see mothers give birth, but we also see parents lose children. We watch as people are given hope, but we also see them lose it. We’re allowed to read the stories of our patients’ lives, but they don’t always have a happy ending.

This isn’t to say med school is bad. But without support, it can be devastating. There is a reason why medical staff have higher rates of mental illness, of substance abuse, of suicide, compared to most of the general population. Perhaps this predisposition towards insanity is exactly what makes for a good medical student: we’re perfectionists, we’re people-pleasers, we’re somewhat masochistic with our long days and even longer nights, notes sprawled across our desks.

I believe that we need to promote wellbeing in the medical culture. I believe that, as medical students, as healthcare students in general, we need a place where it’s okay to talk about patient experiences and the emotions they inspired. We need to make it okay to cry after a long day of observing life and death within hospitals. Self-care needs to be something that is taught alongside clinical placements, not as a tokenistic gesture in the pre-clinical years.

I know that getting up tomorrow and attending to the psychiatric wards will be a battle. I know that talking to the patients will be triggering, and it will be hard to hear their stories. But if I walk out to my car on the verge of tears, and breakdown on the drive home, I know that’ll be okay. Because it’s okay to be affected by your patients. It’s okay to need to talk and to be emotional. It’s okay to take a night off studying if you find yourself needing to get away from medicine for a few hours.

Take care of yourselves out there.

how to look after your fellow med students.

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:01:57 +1000

Med school can be really tough sometimes, and it’s easy to feel completely alone. And often, we know when our colleagues are having a bad day, and perhaps we’re not comfortable asking them if they’re okay or if they want to talk.

But it’s really important to create a sense of community in med school. No one quite knows the struggle of anatomy and placement and patients as well as we do.

These are the little things colleagues have done for me when I’ve been down. These are the things I remember and honestly, these are the reasons I haven’t quit med school. Small actions make all the difference.

Shout your friend coffee. Nothing says ‘I’m here for you’ quite like a cup of caffeine. And, of course, it gives you an excuse to chat and be there for a struggling colleague.
Bad jokes. And I mean really, really bad jokes. Example: Have you heard about the movie Intussusception? It’s about a bowel within a bowel within a bowel.
Text messages and instant messaging. They don’t have to be deep and meaningful. I spent half an hour arguing with a colleague this evening. The topic? What will happen if I’m a student and he’s my intern. (Apparently, I’m working every day and I only get ten minutes for lunch. This is how we show affection.)
Respect. If you’re assigned to present a topic in a tute, actually do the work. There’s nothing more insulting than creating good notes for your colleagues, while they have no intention of reciprocating.
Birthday cake. They don’t take long to make (you can use the baking time as study time!), and a round of ‘happy birthday’ can brighten anyone’s day. And there’s sugar involved.
Acknowledge their existence. We can’t know everyone in med school really well. But if you recognise them, say hi. Ask them how they are and how they’re finding the course. A quick discussion might brighten their day.
Share resources. After you graduate, no one will care what marks you got or if you were valedictorian (except maybe your grandkids). So, if you stumble across a great website or textbook, let your colleagues know.
Smile. Smiles are universal, and contagious. Hospitals can be sad places, so cheer is always welcome. And it makes you seem friendly and approachable, and interpersonal skills are what will make you a good doctor. Not your ability to name the branches of the brachial plexus.

Your challenge: do one nice thing for a colleague tomorrow. Even if it’s just waving at the in the corridor.

Let’s change the culture of medicine. Let’s start a revolution and foster a sense of community.

it's okay to not be ready.

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:00:54 +1000

Truth: most of my friends will be graduating from med school next year.

I won’t be. Despite having (almost) four years of university under my belt, the very notion of being a doctor terrifies me.

Instead of doing my final year, I’ll be doing a research year. With a bit of luck, I’ll be doing something in paediatric psychiatry, looking at somatisation disorders.

Deep down, I know I’m not ready to graduate. I’m not ready to take on the big bad world, and that’s okay. I turn twenty-two this year, but I feel as if I’m only beginning to come into my prime—I’ve only had my driver’s licence for three months. I’m only beginning to get proper treatment for what has been an eight-year battle with depression and anxiety and possibly borderline personality disorder. I’m only starting to work out who I am and what I want and I know that I’m still a couple of years away from being comfortable enough to say I’m a doctor.

Being a doctor is hard work. Long hours, overtime, and your work never leaves you. I come home from placement and think endlessly about the cases I’ve seen, if there was anything we missed, how I need to improve. And then there’s being an adult as well—budgets. Cleaning. Laundry. Remembering to send birthday cards. Plus there’ll be studying for places in specialty training schools and constantly keeping up with the new developments in medicine.

I’m not ready for that. I spent most of my high-school and early university years avoiding people and relationships, finding myself unsteady on my feet. I don’t want to be like that as a doctor. I don’t want to be an adult without ever experiencing what it’s like to be a young person. I want to have late nights and do silly things and achieve my non-medical dreams. I want to have a life before I settle down to be a doctor.

It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with this. Part of me believes it’s trivial to put my medical career on hold so I can write novels and ethics proposals. But on the other hand, I don’t want to be dead before thirty. I want to be well enough to survive medicine. Yes, I’m afraid, but at the same time, I’m proud of myself.

I’m more than medicine, and I hope you are too.

palliative care.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:02:07 +1000

Last week, I spent a few hours in a palliative care unit.

As medical students, we’re fixated on the living. What drug can cure that symptom. How surgery can remove the cancer. Where we can find a bed so that the patient with diabetes can have her complications managed.

Rationally, we know that everyone dies. We dissect cadavers in our anatomy classes. We read about fatal diseases in our textbooks and see pictures of brain tumours and mangled hearts cut open.

But still, we believe we can save everyone.

The last patient we saw was a little old lady, pictures of her family on a pinboard next to her bed, fresh flowers on her bedside table. A blanket was drawn to her chin, and she smiled at everyone in the room, desperate for some recognition of her existence. I don’t know how much she knew about her prognosis; I doubt she knew what the doctors thought yet.

To me, she looked well. To me, she didn’t look like a woman predicted to die within a fortnight.

I couldn’t look many of these patients in the eye as I walked through the wards, all I could say was a muttered thank you as I left one patient to attend to the next. I didn’t know what to say. I’m lucky. I haven’t experienced much death in my life. I’m yet to see a patient die or a patient code. I know these to be inevitabilities, but I still look at each patient with hope.

Perhaps the hope to live isn’t universal. Perhaps, for those for whom death is imminent, the hope to live is replaced by the hope to die peacefully, in a way that is the least confronting and the least horrifying for their loved ones. Perhaps they want to stay as calm as possible, as coherent as possible, and without the pain that has plagued them for their entire illness.

Perhaps medicine isn’t about operations and pharmaceuticals. Maybe it’s just about helping patients and their bodies survive, and die, in peace.

how to save lives as a medical student.

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:01:57 +1000

As medical students, we don’t get many opportunities to jump in and defib patients, or call code blues, or perform CPR. And honestly, we probably don’t want to. But we all want to help people. So here’s a handy guide on how to make a difference in med school.

Donate blood. One blood donation saves three lives. (In Australia, we’re not paid to donate, but I understand this is different in some countries. Regardless, giving blood makes a difference, and not enough people do it.)
Become an organ donor. You don’t even have to donate your whole body—you can select to donate certain parts if you need to keep your body intact for religious or cultural beliefs.
Volunteer. Okay, so maybe volunteering won’t save lives (unless you volunteer as a first aider), but it will definitely make the world a happier, shinier place.
Keep yourself well. As a medical student, the most important life you can save is your own. Engage with your peers. Take a walk outside. Try not to drink too much coffee (I know it’s hard, and that caffeine is liquid gold. But have you ever had eight cups of coffee before a clinical exam? Because you shouldn’t. If your heart rate is 130 bpm and you’re trying to interview a patient, you know you’re going to have problems). Have fun occasionally. Watch Grey’s Anatomy without feeling the need to comment on the fact that Izzie wears her stethoscope backwards or bemoaning the fact that surgeons are rarely as hot as McSteamy.
Help the nurses on clinical placement. Sure, the doctors prescribe drugs and write management plans. But in hospitals, the only reason anything ever gets done is because we have amazing nurses. Ask if you can follow a nurse around for a shift. Not only will you get a work-out, but you’ll appreciate the sheer amount of work they do. And most nurses have brilliant communication skills—you’ll learn a lot. And even little things, like settling a baby while a nurse is tending to another patient or offering to find the doctors and get them to chart drugs for a patient can make a huge difference.
Speak up. Do you think the registrar has missed something? Ask them if it they think it’s important. I was in ED the other night, and a girl was seizing and had a rash over her eye, and my reg hadn’t commented on it, so I asked if it was of significance. It wasn’t, but the reg explained to me what she was actually looking for.
Talk to patients. Again, maybe you won’t directly save a life. But have you ever been in hospital? It’s a lonely place. Not all patients get flowers and family visiting them. Not all patients have friends to drop by and say hi. Approach them. Ask if you can clerk them. Ask them how they are. Go and say goodbye when they’re discharged. Smile at them. It might make a world of difference to someone.
Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Not everything your supervisors say will be right. Always double-check drug dosages.
Learn because you enjoy what you’re doing. If you learn because you have to, or because you have to be a doctor, not because you want to, you’re doing yourself and your patients a great disservice. Not everything in medicine will be enjoyable. But my colleague gave me some great advice yesterday: “I used to take copious notes during every lecture, but I wouldn’t learn anything. The next semester, I brought a coffee to every lecture, sat back, and let myself enjoy what was happening. Sure, it was more work and I had to make my own notes later, but I learnt things better.” Engage with your learning. Approach everything with an open mind and fascination.
Dream. Imagine what you could do and how you might change the world. It may be naive, but this is the greatest strength of being a student—we haven’t yet been jaded by the system. We can still find ourselves inspired by medicine—and from this, innovation is born.

dating mcdreamy.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:01:53 +1000

Anonymous asked: Tips on how to deal with the good looking and incredibly charming (hell, we’ll call him McDreamy!) registrar? Kind of gets in the way of productive learning (not that I mind)! Can’t help but race ahead and conclude that registrars are most likely at the stage where they’re looking for a relationship. So, following on from that last question, what are your thoughts on med students dating young doctors? I’m guessing that now that you’re in your clinical years you may have a few tips or anecdotes.

Dear anonymous,

I won’t lie, I giggled reading this. But the unfortunate news is, the majority of the registrars I’ve met are in stable relationships. Yes, that’s right. Grey’s Anatomy lied to us all.

Shonda Rhimes has a lot of explaining to do.

However, to take your question a little more seriously, I do know of a couple of medical students that dated their registrars—in fact, I know a medical student engaged to one of the registrars. Unfortunately, as far as I’m aware, he didn’t pop the question during ward rounds—they knew each other in a realm away from the hospital (they were family friends).

As for me, most of the registrars I’ve met have been either female (and as a straight girl, I can appreciate their looks but don’t want to date them) or inspired fear in me. There’s nothing quite like a team of ortho registrars who know everything but refuse to acknowledge your existence to turn you off doctors for life.

This being said, I’m all for, uh, appreciating the beauty of the human race. If this registrar provides some healthy gossip for you and a few of your close colleagues, and makes ward rounds more enjoyable, I don’t think it’s wrong. Some of my most memorable conversations with my friends in med school have been discussing good looking doctors. Of course, be careful who you talk to—telling your entire cohort that you want to be friendly with McDreamy may not go down too well.

And if McDreamy shows some interest in you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t go for it. Maybe wait until you’re off his ward service before you go out, though—you don’t want your colleagues to accuse you of nepotism or of having ulterior motives. Many doctors marry doctors, after all, so maybe this is fate?

Also, I have assumed McDreamy to be male for the sake of consistency. My apologies if I have the gender wrong—this advice applies to all genders.

Good luck!

study habits of medical students.

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:01:57 +1000

Anonymous asked: hi… i’m a firstie and all this studying is getting a little bit over my head, i don’t know whether i should study anat, or physio or bio-chem, how many hours would be enough or whether i would understand certain topics if i don’t know the topics related to it. i am soooo confused. what’s an ideal time table n good habits for medical students to follow?

Hi anonymous!

The first year of med school is always the scariest. There’s so much to learn and it’s completely different to anything else and it all feels out of context. Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula for studying medicine. (I wish there was. My life would be so much easier if I could learn via diffusion.)

My tips:

Aim to do a little bit of studying each day, even if it’s just revising notes from the afternoon’s lectures or reading some anatomy. Little things add up, and you’ll be surprised how much you learn.
Flashcards are great for rote learning. I swore by flashcards when I was learning sociology and key symptoms, and you can pull them out at any time. I was clearly the coolest kid in surgery last year, whipping out my flashcards between cases.
Use colours. Bright colours can make even the most boring of notes more exciting. (I currently take a subject regarding administration in health care. I can only make myself study it because I’m allowed to use pretty colours for the titles.)
Diagrams and pictures! Anything that is conducive to being in a flow-chart or diagram should be. It forces you to think about the information, and makes a great revision tool come exam time.
If you are going to highlight, write notes in the margins to summarise, otherwise you’re going to have to read the text again.
Have a to-do list and set deadlines (realistic deadlines, of course). Nothing gives you a greater sense of achievement than crossing something off your to-do list.
Give yourself a break occasionally. Go watch Scrubs. It technically counts as studying, right?
Talk about what you learn. Teach your goldfish anatomy. Interpret blood films for your computer screen. Get your friends to test you and have debates over the ethical issues of medicine.

Those would be my tips for studying medicine—also, these are the things I wish someone had told me in first year. I almost failed my first mid-semester exam in med school because I had no idea what to study or how to do it, so I really hope these help you!

med student depression, part deux.

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:21:00 +1000

See the previous post here.

Anonymous asked you: hi, it’s me again. maybe i don’t have depression. maybe i’m just.. deficient in coping with things. i’m not happy with how i’m handling problems- i’m a pro at running away and freaking out later. is a simple thing such as random tears, negative thoughts and inability to handle daily stresses a warning sign big enough for a visit to the doc? i keep thinking and worrying about flunking, about dropping medschool….

Dear anonymous (and to anyone else experiencing a similar situation),

The short answer is yes, you are completely justified in seeking help. I need both hands and both feet to count the number of times I’ve seen doctors and counsellors and psychologists because I wanted to drop out of med school, because I felt like I wasn’t coping, and damn it, everyone around me was doing so well.

Let’s be honest—med school is hard. I remember sitting in a lecture in second year, watching all the other students around me, and they were in perfect control of med school. They sat through lectures without falling asleep and without panicking about exams in two months and without being afraid of being judged, they took notes studiously and went home to their friends and family and lovers and siblings and maintained healthy relationships and seemingly flawless grades. It felt like I was the only one in a hall of hundreds of students that didn’t know how to make it through med school.

I spent an entire semester avoiding lectures and other students and hiding in the library because I thought I was crazy.

There’s something no one ever tells us about med school, and it’s this: we’re all struggling. I was having coffee with a colleague the other day, and he started to explain to me his struggles with depression, his excessive alcohol intake at the start of med school—and this is someone I’d always looked up to. Someone who, in my opinion, checked all the boxes: intelligent, kind, funny, surrounded by family and friends. And yet, he was someone struggling through med school as well. Very few med students wear their hearts on their sleeves—that’s why I keep this blog somewhat anonymous, because I’m still learning to let myself be vulnerable.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that you’re not alone, and med school has the ability to make us our own worst enemies. But, at the same time, it doesn’t have to be the end of you. You don’t have to try and cope with these thoughts and feelings and fears alone. You, and every other medical student, every other health care student, every other person in general, are entitled to help and to have what’s going on validated. I can’t diagnose you with depression over the internet (or without a qualification of some sort), but whether you meet the criteria or not is irrelevant. You are allowed to seek help. You are allowed to talk to a professional and you are allowed to let them help you.

Please don’t struggle alone. Med school has no right to make you feel this way.

Take care of yourself and I hope you seek some help—talk to your family doctor or to your university health department.

My Life As A Med Student.

med school and relationships.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:01:52 +1000

Anonymous asked:

I know this is rather subjective & depends on the peoples’ tolerance, flexibility etc… but can you give me insight on how impossible is it for one to maintain a relationship while in med school?

Ooooh, what an interesting question. I’m not sure if I’m even qualified to answer this—I’m yet to embark on a romantic relationship in med school, mainly for lack of interest. Relationships aren’t a high priority for me. However, I do know many med students in relationships and the main thing I’ve learnt is that you have to make time for one another. Yes, as a med student, you are working and studying ridiculously long hours. But you will have to give up time for your partner at some point. Even if it’s coffee for an hour or going out for dinner or even a text message during your study break just to say hi.

So, I really don’t think it’s impossible. I know a lot of med students date and marry other med students, but I know a lot who don’t. And, at the end of the day, relationships are tough, whether you’re a medical student or a history major.

But if you’re looking for a bit of a laugh, here’s a Fox News article on how to date a medical student. How to date a medical student

med student depression.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:05:00 +1000

Anonymous asked:

i’d like to ask, how would you advice a fellow medschool student to approach medstudent depression? i don’t know where else to ask. no one around me cared enough, parents are not reachable, and when i went to the psych dept, the head consultant had me take blood tests and declared my issues as a ‘transient’ thing. doesn’t change the fact that i’m struggling to cope, even if it feels like a complete journey to hell anyway.

Hi anonymous! Firstly, my apologies for not answering this sooner, and I do hope that things are better for you now. I don’t think there is a perfect way to approach med student depression—I have depression, and I’m still finding the means to navigate med school with it. However, let me share with you things I do to make it work (as much as possible).

Find a good doctor. I’m not sure where you live (health care systems are very different overseas), but the best thing I’ve done is found myself a general practitioner who understands mental health. Not only have they already made it through med school, but they provide someone you can talk to, and will understand it if you need to take days off. I’ve taken a few “mental health” days this year, and it’s provided me with a chance to look after myself and give myself a break from medicine. A good doctor will also be able to give you the right diagnosis—I went through about five doctors until I found my current one, and many of the others had no training in mental health and didn’t care about how I was feeling.
Understand that feeling like crap is NOT a sign of weakness. For some reason, medical students understand that depression is a serotonin/noradrenaline deficiency, yet insist on berating themselves for not being able to control how they feel. It’s not your fault. If you need to take a night off studying, or take a bath, or go and see a movie, do it. We’re not superheroes. We’re students, and we do our best, and that’s all we can ever ask of ourselves.
Reach out. Depression makes us feel alone. True story: I overdose a month ago. (A story I’ll share another day.) For me, that was the turning point—I told my friends. My parents still aren’t aware, but having some support and friends willing to listen to me has made a huge difference. You don’t need to tell them everything if you’re not comfortable, but even being able to admit “I’m not having a great day, do you want to get coffee?” to a friend can give you some sort of release.
Know that med school isn’t everything. I know we all want to get top marks and be amazing and know all the things. But at the end of the day, when you graduate, you’ll forget staying up all night to study and going to lectures to sleep. You’ll remember the coffees and skipped lectures and patients you spoke to for hours, not about diseases, but about their grandchildren. Honestly, med school sucks. It’s ridiculous hours for not a whole lot of gain. But it will give you some amazing experiences you won’t get anywhere else. Remember to value that part of med school.
Take a break. Go see that movie. Go out for lunch. Spend some time alone doing what you love that isn’t related to medicine. And don’t feel guilty for doing it.
Be healthy. Go for a walk, eat well, listen to some music.

I hope this helps, anonymous. I know this won’t make the depression go away, but it might help alleviate it. Also, there are heaps of internet and phone based hotlines you can consult if you feel you can’t talk to friends. I do encourage you to keep seeking help (maybe through another doctor/psychologist), and keep fighting.

why i'll keep studying medicine.

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:02:31 +1000

I want to write and read and stare out windows and document the world around me.

I want to run away to book towns and hear the world speak and infuse ideas and inspiration into my soul.

I want to do a million things that won’t make me a better doctor, but will make me a better person.

I can write essays. I can write patient notes and ring pathology and talk to doctors.

But the best thing about paediatrics? Blowing bubbles at little kids. Talking to parents and distracting them from their seizing child and the uncertainty. Watching parents cry as their child takes their first breath, watching a baby open it’s eyes for the first time. Cuddles with a struggling infant as the smile and giggle in their sleep. Teasing the doctors and sharing tales of life outside medicine, of movies watched and books read.

That is why I don’t run away and give this all up.

absence.

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:15:51 +1000

Hey everyone,

I’m sorry for disappearing for the last few months. Unfortunately, medicine and I have had a bit of a rough patch, but never fear, I am back and I have stories of little kids and bubble blowing and what I have learnt from six-year-olds!

Love, mylifeasamedstudent

The second in a two part series entitled why they never should...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:26:06 +1000

The second in a two part series entitled why they never should have let me pass pre-clinical years. This is also why I’m a medical student and not an artist.

Occasionally, my mind can’t take being serious and writing...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:31:05 +1000

Occasionally, my mind can’t take being serious and writing copious amounts of text, so instead I leave you with the first in a two part series of why they should never have let me pass pre-clinical years.

(Yes, this is what I tried to pass off as studying. Yes, I did almost fail that exam.)

an open letter to med school.

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:16:05 +1000

Dear med school,

There are a lot of things I’ve sacrificed for you. I’ve given up sleep in favour of seven-thirty ward rounds and the excitement of having fifteen doctors ignore me every morning. I’ve said goodbye to normal relationships, finally acknowledging that not only do these need time, but most intelligent people recoil at tales of surgery gone wrong and how you scored your first PR exam. I’ve learnt to eat irregularly and infrequently, scheduling surgary snacks between studies and surgeons. I’ve discovered that caffeine is a food group and that one can survive for days on nothing but black coffee.

But I’ve also watched myself and my colleagues fall into your trap and be consumed by you. Sucked into your vortex so strongly that help seeking becomes an impossibility. Found my reason to wake up and take notes on ward rounds slipping from me, a descent matched only by my grades. I’ve been alone at night, numb and exhausted. Meetings with the faculty in failed attempts to make everything okay.

Dear med school, remember this: I will not give up. I will become a doctor, and I will become a good doctor. I will change this world, despite the obstacles you challenge me with. I will grow up and grow strong and dedicate my life to make sure that no one has to feel this low.

Once upon a time, med school was thought to sort the weak from the strong—I don’t believe this for a minute. Med school isn’t designed to set us up for failure, and nor should it. Call me naive for thinking I can change the system, but I will never stop believing.

Love, me.

Photo

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:35:06 +1000