<p>So, I've been pretty confident for like two years now (I just finished my freshman year of undergrad) that I'm gonna continue onto med school. I want to be a doctor. But now I'm starting to wonder if I'm heading down the right road. I value my family, friends, and health very very much. Spending time with my family is unbelievably important to me right now and I think it always will be, but less so when my sisters and cousins move out for college (I'm commuting to school). I work out about an hour each weekday, eat extraordinarily healthy, and get near 8 hours every night. These things are so important to me; the thought of giving them up stresses me out already. I understand that medical school and medicine in general entail sacrifice upon sacrifice upon sacrifice and now I'm starting to doubt my ability to cope with them...</p>
<p>I’m going into my junior year…I’m actually really similar in terms of the fam, etc. I like to generally be on a good sleep schedule (although I’m up late right now…) and my family is so super important to me and I go home relatively often.</p>
<p>I’ve honestly never had the fear that things will be so overwhelming that I won’t be able to sleep, see the fam, relax for a bit, etc., in med school. Granted, I’m not a med student yet (but will be, hopefully!), but i don’t think it’s going to be so insane that I’ll be unhappy and sacrificing things. if you manage your time well, I don’t think there will be that much to concern yourself with…although I know where you’re coming from entirely.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to be doom and gloom, but you will have to make sacrifices in medical school. Sleep will be the first to go, you will miss family events, you will have to bypass the fun things your friends are doing, you likely won’t be able to exercise for an hour every time you go to the gym.</p>
<p>What you’ll likely find is that during the first two years, you’ll lose whole weeks because you’re so busy studying - spending 7-10 hours in the library or coffee shop on top of the 4-5 hours of lecture you have each day (even the day before the exam) isn’t really conducive to seeing loved ones - so you’ll have to decide between sleep, exercise and them. </p>
<p>During the 3rd year, you literally surrender control of your schedule over to your school. The majority of schools I know people at have very strict attendance requirements and you are expected to be where they want you, when they want you there. You will miss barbeques and impromptu parties because of having to be on call. You will be unable to definitively RSVP to weddings or other events because they fall a week into your next rotation and you won’t know your schedule until the Monday you start the rotation.
You won’t be able to stay out late with friends on a Friday night because you’ll have to be at the hospital the next morning at 7am in order to round on your patients. It goes without saying that 3rd year=chronic sleep deprivation. For example, I start my two weeks of Labor and Delivery in 10 days. While on that service, I’m expected to be at the hospital by 5am. I am scheduled to take overnight call every third night while on the service (Monday, Thursday, Sunday and then Wednesday night). </p>
<p>If you are currently living at home, simply by moving away to go to med school, you’ll likely find yourself suffering through some home sickness, like many a college freshmen. </p>
<p>Eating right, can be a struggle at times - free lunches are diet killer - but probably the easiest one to maintain as there are usually always options. Fruits/vegetables and portion control will be your main weapons. As far as working out, most of my classmates usually find time to workout most days. For me personally, during most of my rotations (psych and family med excluded) I’ve had to find shorter workouts to go through. I’ve also had to become a lot more flexible with my workout schedule - it gets done when I can fit it in - some days it’s at 2pm, others I don’t get in until 7:30pm, some days not at all.</p>
<p>If thinking about all this makes you stressed…then I have to wonder how you’re going to handle it when you have to live it. Once it becomes time to be a resident, you can choose fields in which you have more time, better hours and so on, but there will still be times when as a resident you’ll be extremely busy…whether that’s neurosurg busy or physiatry busy will depend on what you do…</p>
<p>I’m very very glad to hear that I’m not the only one with these priorities. I do know how to manage my time and I do eat healthy, exercise, study, see family and friends. But this is undergrad. Med school will be different, or so I’ve been led to believe. I don’t think it will be unbearable, but theres a great chance it will be harder to fit it all in – which Bigredmed was so kind to truthfully tell us (thanks, I do appreciate it). Its good to hear the reality of the situation as grim as it may be.</p>