Have you noticed that a lot of us medical students hardly talk about our hardships? I mean, of course, everyone knows medical school is a tremendous amount of work and dedication. But the nitty gritty of it all never seems to get brought to light. Truthfully, the environment around science studies, and especially medicine, is actually extremely toxic. We spend so much effort learning what’s best for our patients, while doing the exact opposite for ourselves. There are copious amounts of research stating the benefits of sleep, healthy diets, and exercise. Better yet, there are even more studies showing the detriments of lack of sleep and obesity. We’re fully expected to know how each of these detrimental effects wreak havoc on our patient’s body. We’re supposed to advise against them and steer our patients towards the right path of health. But with all the good medicine does, there’s a dark, hidden side that not many speak of, and that’s the toxic culture of medical students and medical practitioners glorifying the very things we condemn in our patients.
We glorify not sleeping and not eating because it allows us to achieve more study hours. In fact, if I had a 5-point increase in all my grades every time a professor told me not to eat or sleep until I’m done studying, I wouldn’t need to ever worry about getting an A in a class again. Among students we compete over how little sleep we got. Who stayed up studying the longest? Who was the last one in the library? We know that to solidify memory, we need to sleep. We learn about these things. So, why then do we insist on glorifying our own torture?
We either don’t eat, or we eat fast food because it’s convenient, let’s face it. We tell people to watch their cholesterol and eat a balanced diet – no, organic diet – no, even better organic, raw food diet. But let’s count the amount of times I have eaten out in the past 7 days ALONE – 5. A whopping FIVE times out of SEVEN days. The thing is, that is completely normal at my school. You go to any restaurant at any time and I guarantee I will see AT LEAST one other student from my school there. We don’t have time to cook; or at the very least we would rather say that so we can allude people into thinking we study WAY more than we really do.
All for the sake of saving lives one day. It has a purpose, don’t get me wrong. Of course, we can all agree we’d rather have a doctor that studied hard rather than one that “took it easy” and hardly studied.
But here’s the thing; our mental health takes such a hit. We’re depressed, we’re anxious, we’re codependent, we’re lonely, we’re in pain. I include myself in all this of course. But because we don’t discuss this, many of us feel alone. We like to pretend that we are impervious to the stress of medical school and we’re doing well and if you’re not doing well then, YOU’RE the weird one. So please, allow me to be among the first to FINALLY admit to any other medical professional reading this, that I AM STRUGGLING. You are not alone. I don’t always have the will power or determination to study; in fact, it grows increasingly sparse as my stress increases. I don’t study 24/7 and I take mental health days off. I don’t pull all-nighters, and I don’t always have the energy to cook healthful, nutritious food. So please, if this is the first time you’ve heard of this, or thought you were alone, I hope now you can take some solace in the fact that I am not a perfect reading, studying, emotionless, robotic machine and you probably aren’t either (because they don’t exist, but if you are, your secret is safe with me don’t worry). Just do your best: balance your food, balance your studies, balance your sleep, balance your social life, and most importantly fall in love with medicine again and fall in love with the process of learning again – not just studying to pass the next exam. Please, take care of your mental/physical health like you’d one day want to tell your patients to take care of theirs.
-Always,
Andreea