Post #10: To New Beginnings

Here’s to life’s many twists and turns. They never seem to end, do they? 

Enter the world of a classic med student: one moment it’s all about studying for yet another standardized exam that somewhat serves to dictate the entire course of one’s future as a potential physician* (the MCAT, that is). The next moment, life becomes a difficult process of trying to choose a program that feels like the best fit, followed by packing up one’s life’s belongings and moving across the country to an entirely unfamiliar place. After that, in my case, chaos ensued. Chaos in the form of a virtual semester replete with loneliness (because let’s be real, everyone knows that undertaking a rigid academic program, while living in near isolation, in a place you can’t really call “home” since you barely have the time to leave the confines of your tiny apartment building and don’t know anyone within a 100-mile radius anyway, is a total recipe for situational depression). Of course it was just my luck that love triangles came trickling into the picture, with some highly forgettable nights and absolutely horrid decision-making in retrospect. Nevertheless, I pushed forward. My heart was still at home with my family, accessible via a 3-hour plane ride, and I battled a serious case of med school blues — I mean the whole shebang. Crying myself through lectures, taking daily nature walks wherein I would talk to my late brother about my difficulty focusing because my heart hurt which served as an indubitable distraction, saying yes to every night out in the hope that a cold beer could solve my problems, spending all of my money on flights to NY so I could feel some type of warmth, love, and support again.

I made it though, and it was quite a beautiful breakthrough. I felt alive again once I found my grounding. I found a solid friend group, I found love in a literally hopeless place (but that’s a whole other story onto itself), I found contentment despite the numerous setbacks I encountered during my first year. Here’s the thing though. Ceaselessly, unpleasantly residing beneath my newfound happiness was this irritating sense of unease with my career aspirations. My heart simply did not feel “into” the exact medical profession I was pursuing anymore. I entered school in the hope that I would save as many lives with this degree as I possibly could during my career as a physician. Yet, the process felt like it was stripping the empathy and compassion away from me, replacing my balance with a feeling of lacking control; replacing my carefree & happy-go-lucky spirit with a deep and seemingly permanent sentiment of stress, tension, and frustration. I felt like I was becoming a mere shell of the human I was once; like I had to dig deep within my heart and soul to find the compassion within that was once so easily perceptible. At the same time,  I did not want to let go. I worked so hard to get where I was. Throughout this time, the words of my best friend stuck with me: she said, “hard work and knowledge never go to waste.” I was studying for an MCAT retake when she had told me that, as I was absolutely miserable studying for yet another MCAT exam. I wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel at this point, and tried to quiet the glaring signs from my heart, even when it affected my well-being. 

Fast forward to my one-year leave of absence from med school, during which I spent my first few months sleeping. Literally. 15 hours a day, daily, for weeks and weeks. I was so exhausted. The stress weighed on me more heavily than I had ever anticipated. I dealt with back-to-back family problems at this time, but successfully began my journey towards receiving my MBA as I published research in a field that has been near and dear to my heart– breast cancer. Towards the end of my leave, I decided to refocus my attention on my return to school. Before I go any further…

Here is some advice I want to give to anyone embarking on the journey towards becoming a physician (for those who are at the MCAT studying/taking stages):

First of all, straighten your back if it isn’t straight. Med school will do enough damage to your posture to create lifelong issues if you don’t target them now. On a more serious note: make sure you are entering the medical field for the right reasons. Make sure you are willing to make sacrifices — with respect to family time, friend time, fun time, self time — in order to become a doctor. I am NOT saying there isn’t time to work on yourself and enjoy what life has to offer; what I am saying is that medical school is hard work. And to be successful, you will often have to give up some things in order to make room for others that are more important for your career. If your heart is 100% set on becoming a doctor, and you are willing and ready to put in the work, then power to you. I am cheering you on and believe in your success. But for anyone and everyone considering this field: to make it through, procrastination has to be thrown out the window and traded out for BALANCE – nothing in med school is as important as finding balance. This means finding YOU time to prioritize your mental health, finding FRIEND/FAMILY time so the studying doesn’t make you go insane, and finding time to STUDY every single day. Med school is a constant grind and your heart has to be in it, wholeheartedly.

Okay, back to my story. Let’s fast forward. Life had a way of throwing me completely off my rocker and in the past few weeks, everything changed… The once silent pleading of my heart grew too loud to ignore. A series of “unfortunate” (or maybe the most fortunate) events pushed me further in the direction of my heart. The solid ground I once stood upon was yet again stripped from beneath my feet, this time by my own doing.

Long story short, I let go of my attachment to this path. There’s something powerful in letting go that you only really understand when you have to do it. We add another layer of strength onto our souls each time we let go, and this layer goes right atop the previous layer. We make it through stronger and more resilient than we ever were before. Every time we have to let go again, we build unto ourselves. We further create and shape our unique path towards achieving our own sense of personal enlightenment. Letting go, as my case may demonstrate, is the harder way out. The easy way would have been to stay in the place I knew best, where my life had finally become comfortable and routine, studying day in and day out, taking exams, then studying again for the next one. I applaud everyone who willingly stays on this path, as medicine in of itself is nothing short of incredibly difficult. The workload was not what got to me– it was my heart. My heart never felt like it was in the right place. Whether it was the school or the profession, only my unwritten future has yet to tell.

What I have gained from this is a simultaneous need and desire to trust life. To trust the process. And most importantly, to trust my gut instinct; the silent beckoning of my soul; the tugging of my heart in one direction over another. My heart has never led me astray. Am I scared for my new beginning? I sure as hell am. But at least, for the first time in so long, this feels right.

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*from above: take this with a grain of salt, med school applicants. The MCAT is NOT the end-all-be-all for becoming a doctor!