Medical School

What are some truths about medical school?

1. Medical school changes your life.
2. Medical school is the most difficult most frustrating most complicated most fun experience for almost everyone finishes it.
3. Medical school is all encompassing. I would wake up at 5:30 in the morning and study until class started at eight. I would study throughout class until labs in the afternoon. After labs are over I would go home and study. After having dinner with my wife, I would study until I went to bed. I would estimate I studied an average of 12 hours a day for my first two years of medical school.
4. Medical school is an emotional experience. You start off medical school with a death. You are immediately introduced to a cadaver and you spend 2 to 3 hours a day for the next nine months with this cadaver. You have the awe inspiring knowledge that a person donated their body so you could learn . It is your responsibility to learn everything you possibly can from them and their sacrifice. At the end of my anatomy class we actually had a memorial service for the people who donated their bodies to a medical school. We wrote letters to their families and let them know how much it meant for us to be able to learn from them and I found it it to be a deeply emotional experience.
5. Medical school is (can be) fun. As much as we studied we learned how to make studying fun. We studied in groups we studied with friends we quizzed each other. We took turns diagramming pathways. When you’re in your third and fourth year of medical school every day is new. I knew specialty new location a new hospital it’s very exciting.

Edit: I found medical school fun. Some people don’t. It was a culmination of years of work and study and I enjoyed the heck out of it. It is very hard and very frustrating at times but overcoming adversity is fun. Becoming the best you can be is fun. Now I enjoy triathlons. They are long and grueling. However they are fun for me. Is suffering in the heat fun? Well overcoming the heat and meeting your goal is fun. So it all comes down to your attitude and outlook.

-Jonathan Geach, MD