I REGRET MEDICAL SCHOOL | Residency Match 2022 

Thank you for watching and relating. Completely agreed. I had a couple of experiences with doctors who told me to get out before I got in. As a pre-med student with a very whimsical look about medicine, I took their advice with a grain of salt because their reasonings were centered around not enough pay, too much work, etc. All things that did not matter to me. What I did not realize at the time is how much “teaching” and “mentorship” comes from these jaded individuals while in medical school and residency.

@@lifetime_learner This video was very informative for me. I am currently undergrad, pre-med, and doing my shadowing. Almost every physician has told me to run away and pick something else. Your video helps put that advice into perspective for me...Thank you.

I’m sorry to hear that Kristin. That definitely sounds similar to my experience. I’m sure you’ve also come across the demeaning and verbal abuse from those in positions of power. I truly don’t know if I would have applied to medical school if I spent my year off in the medical world. I chose to do preschool teacher’s aid and a barista lol. Being in this setting motivated me to get back into medicine but also gave me a break from that world that sustained these last four years in school. I’m so sorry you are facing the process of applying with these heavy realities. I know covid has ruined a lot of things but I would encourage weekly if not daily things that you love. Intentional five or ten minutes of investing in something to medicine related. As difficult as it is, also being present in the entirety. I would find myself doing fun things but my heart or mind wasn’t there so I still came out exhausted and drained. Let me know if you have any questions about school or the process. I would be happy to give some insight.

Thank you for the encouragement and taking the time to watch my video! Best of luck in your endeavors.

Thanks so much! Hoping the same :) best of luck in your endeavors!

Thank you Allison for your kind words 💕

Are you based in Canada or the states?

Hi William, We have a lot similarities in experience and thought. I too enjoyed my first rotation but that quickly went down hill after being worked by an attending who was verbally and emotionally abusive (I do not use abuse lightly). The horrible treatment combined with feeling "useless" in other rotations created a very angry and bitter student. My friend and I will often say how we feel like completely different versions of ourselves. I went into school very hopeful, excited, ready to change lives & now I am leaving mistrustful, resentful, cynical, argumentative, vindictive. You will have a rotation and a break, feeling like you got a piece of yourself back but then it shatters the next rotation and you are back to square one. At the end of third year, I told myself I would quit if 4th year turned out the same way. All of this to say, I get it. I completely understand you. I have felt and asked those same questions a million times. If I had a perfect answer for how to deal with these emotions, I would bottle it & start selling it. Unfortunately, I do not have a straightforward answer but maybe you can find something in what I have found. 1. Hobbies. Hobbies. Hobbies. I understand the busy schedule. Give yourself grace on days you're too tired but you must find interests outside of medicine. On my audition rotation, I went golfing every single day after my 14 hour shifts. I had to force myself but I am glad I did. I started growing a garden in my bathroom, I bought butterflies on amazon and started a habitat, I took up horseback riding, I am training for a 10k, I worked on two business ideas (one utterly failed lol). This is not to show you how much I have done but to show you that the possibilities are limitless. You have to discipline yourself to find them and follow through. Do not spend your free time at home if you can help it. Go out and do something you've never done before and do it alone if no one else will go with you. Medicine cannot be what you go to sleep with or what you wake up to every single day. Nothing was meant to be that for someone. 2. Sometimes the only thing to be learned from a rotation is how to come out the other end knowing how to be better than who you worked under. In a perfect world, we would get taught from people who care or would have the stamina to go home and learn ourselves. This is not a perfect world, and although money adds pressure to get an education out of your time, life is much more complex. If the rotation is horrible, challenge yourself to be the kind of person you want to be in the face of adversity because this is our burden we carry the rest of our life. If you do not succeed, thats okay. Pick yourself up and try again. But force yourself to not view anything you are put through as a waste of time, that is when complacency creeps in and it is very hard to get rid of. 3. Learn to be present. In every single thing you do. A two minute conversation with the charge nurse, a smile to a patient waiting in the lobby, holding a door open, sanitizing the room after patient use. When you find yourself feeling useless and under appreciated, seek opportunity in the small and unnoticeable. When you go home, you will find they were actually the things that carried you through the day and sometimes the only thing the patient remembers after their two hour visit. When my preceptor would ignore me, walk into patient rooms without me, humiliate me in front of people, I made it my mission to be the opposite of him to every single person in that office. It was hard and most days I went home crying but I left with my integrity and the respect of everyone around me. 4. Lastly, and most importantly, God. If medicine has taught me anything, it is that we are ALL entirely useless medically at times but that does not mean we cannot be used in other ways. I have seen the most prestigious doctors still craving for a like on TikTok, an established PI still willing to fudge data to get a paper published, a well established surgeon make a huge mistake in the OR and blame a scrub tech. We are flawed. Medicine is no exception. There are costly mistakes, deaths despite medical advances, greedy pharmaceutical companies, unknown. Lots of unknown despite what good of a front some doctors like to put on. What I have learned and helped me more than anything, is accepting that this is the world we live in and although I cannot change the chaos of it, I can bring hope because I know one day, I am going to a place that is completely the opposite. There is a place of joy, no suffering, no anger, no hostility, no pride, no greed. You may not be someone who believes in God but I could not give an honest answer without sharing my most honest answer.

William, it seems like you've already laid out exactly what you need to do in order to start feeling better. Set a sleep schedule and routine, stick to it. Set a workout schedule and stick to it. Restart a former hobby, with a schedule, instead of drinking. Seeing a theme here? Setting a routine is extremely important when encountering a difficult path, it helps to help us focused when we need to focus and relax when we should relax. It's all about a choice, so choose to start feeling better and do the things that help you feel that way but, don't lose sight of your professional goal. Go see a therapist, be brave enough to ask for help, medical training isn't supposed to be easy. From a tough love view, get over yourself. Why is it that so many med students think they are better or more important than they are? I know they don't teach humility in med school but, so many need to seek out this kind of counseling. "I'm just standing around not learning anything and generally being useless." Go, seek out a skill to be taught. Are you a proficient needle wizard? Able to find a vein/draw blood instantly? "... this shit is below you... the expectations ... are so low and you're sufficiently smart that nothing you do today will affect your grade." What about being a doctor is a grade? It's about learning the necessary foundational skills to be a great provider of care. You are a student, go learn seek out the learning. Listen if tough love doesn't work for you, ok. But if you are starting to spiral into depression, and it seems you are, GO TALK TO A PROFESSIONAL. Take charge of your own feelings. Ask for help, it's really not that hard.

There's a video on here by a guy from the account "knife skills" where he talks about not dropping out of medical school. Don't drop out. Find ways to find joy in your day. If you feel crappy, do something nice for someone outside of medicine. Make your friend dinner, write your parents a lovely card, tell your friends you love them. Get back in touch with your humanity. That's what you're missing. You're missing that connection. Take a moment when you walking somewhere, stop, look up and feel the sun on your face and remember how lucky you are. Doing this even once a day will change your entire mood. It will remind you WHY you are putting yourself through all the suffering. You're human and you're allowed to feel however you feel, just don't stay in sadness too long or it will swallow you whole.

Same as me, but I am after 4th year and dropped out, to study bussines and I had 2 years left in medicine, because in Slovakia we have 6 years of medicine. I am more happy and feel much better.

@@bianka4590 I want to do that so bad but unfortunately I’m in my last year it’s too late now

I am in the ER right now actually so I can definitely relate. Were you scribing? It’s the epitome of what I do not like about medicine. I’m sorry if that was your first exposure to the medical field. A break is definitely a good idea. I took time after undergrad and was a barista. No research, no shadowing, nothing. And I had a blast. It definitely helped get me through these four years & if loan payments didn’t start this year I would’ve done it again.

@@lifetime_learner I worked as a tech and EMT. It was a small critical access hospital so we had to carry a lot of responsibility. ER is tough :/ I am taking the next few months to make music :)

Just because people around you work unethical does not mean you have to do the same, every good doctor has an idealistic side to them, stick to it, no matter what, if you enjoy what you are doing, then the rest will follow. I always remind myself that it feels good to be good at something.

Frankly modern medicine is quite primitive so I wouldn't feel comfortable being a doctor. Most of the human body is a blackbox and alot of modern medications are crude and ineffective.

Thank you for watching Rachel :) Have you been able to figure out a good study/life balance yet? Things that help keep you sane during the week? Maybe I wasn’t listening but I feel like all I ever heard was how hard school was going to be because of the studying/work load. I wish someone would have told me how emotionally difficult it is with all of the comparisons and insecurities. Truly is a steep learning curve in these four years but from what I’ve heard, necessary for the learning curve in residency. I made a video a little while back talking about why I chose pediatrics :) which actually had a lot to do with the working environment of this specialty. If you would be willing to give me your last name I can try to find you on Facebook & message you my school name.

Thank you for watching 😊

Thank you, appreciate that a lot. I definitely have my days where integrity is tested and I fall short. My hope is to never let myself be okay with things that are not right. I see a lot of being who grow numb to their actions in this profession and it is sad to watch. Hope your journey gives you fulfillment.

Thank you for watching 💕

Thank you :)

Sure no problem! Could you give your full name and profile picture description?

Hello, thank you for watching! Yes, I do think being burned out and having an overall mistrust of the system has created this attitude. I spent six months after medical school just trying to heal and distance myself. Unfortunately, residency brought back a lot of the same emotions. So now it has gone beyond need a break. Now I need to get too the root of the problem. I am going to post a video that speaks more on this.

Thank you for watching 😊 i would be happy to make a video on that!

Hi Sophia 💕 thank you for watching & the support! If you feel comfortable enough to give me your email, I’d be happy to share. The selection process is really important. From my personal experience, picking a school with good clinical rotations aka being associated with a good residency program or hospital is important. I did not know this at the time. Because my school does not have this, a bulk of my training during third year was outpatient clinics. The hospital rotations I did were from small community hospitals. Now that being said, if you’re accepted in the US, then you get to apply to away rotations your 4th year and basically get a chance to go to any big hospital you want. So you’re definitely not in a bad spot if you don’t get accepted to a medical school with a big hospital. Just some things to consider. The medical curriculum is not a big deal because everyone across the country uses the same resources (not lectures) to pass board exams. Hopefully that was helpful! A lot of information that you don’t necessarily need but maybe will be good down the road :)

@@lifetime_learner Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I really do value this- it means a lot :') I don't mind sharing my email with you but is there like a "dms" on here where I could privately message you my email? Thanks again!!

I have not been able to find DM’s on here but I could try to find you on Facebook? Is your name common?

Ah I found ya! Check your fb messenger

@@ihp0s Another thing people look out for in schools is a Pass/Fail curriculum instead of a graded curriculum so it's less stressful and they can focus on step scores more over class scores.

Yes I would be happy too! It helps if your profile picture matches Facebook for me to find you. Is that the case?

Thank you for watching Nick! Always nice to see kind comments. I’m sure you’re feeling very similar emotions! Very stressful time but also some of the most exciting. Congratulations on your acceptance, that’s a huge accomplishment!! As cliche as it sounds, the best interviews I had, was when I went in with the goal to just have a good conversation & not say the perfect thing. Since you’ve already Interviewed, you put in the preparation now enjoy it. This helps take the pressure off & gets rid of the jitters. I always prayed before. So whatever you do, meditation, exercise, reading, etc. try to do that right before. Deep breath, this is the exciting stuff, now just show them who you are :)

Hi Samuel, congrats on making it this far! The MCAT is humongous feat and whatever you end up deciding to do, you can still walk away knowing you completed one of the hardest exams in the country. That being said, I am including my comment from another response & maybe you can find something valuable in what I said.

If I had a perfect answer for how to deal with these emotions, I would bottle it & start selling it. Unfortunately, I do not have a straightforward answer but maybe these things you will find helpful. 1. Hobbies. Hobbies. Hobbies. I understand the busy schedule. Give yourself grace on days you're too tired but you must find interests outside of medicine. On my audition rotation, I went golfing every single day after my 14 hour shifts. I had to force myself but I am glad I did. I started growing a garden in my bathroom, I bought butterflies on amazon and started a habitat, I took up horseback riding, I am training for a 10k, I worked on two business ideas (one utterly failed lol). This is not to show you how much I have done but to show you that the possibilities are limitless. You have to discipline yourself to find them and follow through. Do not spend your free time at home if you can help it. Go out and do something you've never done before and do it alone if no one else will go with you. Medicine cannot be what you go to sleep with or what you wake up to every single day. Nothing was meant to be that for someone. 2. Sometimes the only thing to be learned from a rotation is how to come out the other end knowing how to be better than who you worked under. In a perfect world, we would get taught from people who care or would have the stamina to go home and learn ourselves. This is not a perfect world, and although money adds pressure to get an education out of your time, life is much more complex. If the rotation is horrible, challenge yourself to be the kind of person you want to be in the face of adversity because this is our burden we carry the rest of our life. If you do not succeed, thats okay. Pick yourself up and try again. But force yourself to not view anything you are put through as a waste of time, that is when complacency creeps in and it is very hard to get rid of. 3. Learn to be present. In every single thing you do. A two minute conversation with the charge nurse, a smile to a patient waiting in the lobby, holding a door open, sanitizing the room after patient use. When you find yourself feeling useless and under appreciated, seek opportunity in the small and unnoticeable. When you go home, you will find they were actually the things that carried you through the day and sometimes the only thing the patient remembers after their two hour visit. When my preceptor would ignore me, walk into patient rooms without me, humiliate me in front of people, I made it my mission to be the opposite of him to every single person in that office. It was hard and most days I went home crying but I left with my integrity and the respect of everyone around me. 4. Lastly, and most importantly, God. If medicine has taught me anything, it is that we are ALL entirely useless medically at times but that does not mean we cannot be used in other ways. I have seen the most prestigious doctors still craving for a like on TikTok, an established PI still willing to fudge data to get a paper published, a well established surgeon make a huge mistake in the OR and blame a scrub tech. We are flawed. Medicine is no exception. There are costly mistakes, deaths despite medical advances, greedy pharmaceutical companies, unknown. Lots of unknown despite what good of a front some doctors like to put on. What I have learned and helped me more than anything, is accepting that this is the world we live in and although I cannot change the chaos of it, I can bring hope because I know one day, I am going to a place that is completely the opposite. There is a place of joy, no suffering, no anger, no hostility, no pride, no greed. You may not be someone who believes in God but I could not give an honest answer without sharing my most honest answer.

@@lifetime_learner Thank you for your honest answer :) sometimes I feel like I can't go back now since I've worked so hard to get into medical school, but in reality, deep down, I know that it would be ok in the long term.

I have thought about this a lot. My dream is to work for a volunteer organization specifically with orphanages, adoption medicine, foster care, etc. I have always known I did not want to get into private practice or work for an academic institution.

Thank you 😊

it can be really scary! but just remember, everyone has had a beginning. every doctor has had to learn and re-learn to get where they are. you don't need to let anyone stop you from being a better healthcare professional. if they won't answer, brush it off, and try someone else. its their loss for not being a good teacher, in a teaching profession

Sadly, yes. I think most people have a transition point in their career/life where their expectations have to meet reality. The higher the expectations, the harsher the reality, etc. shape the response you have afterwards.

@@lifetime_learner I think reality can be as realistic as it can get, but there is still hope.

Thank you for watching 😊 I hope everything goes well with the Match for you. So many years of training & now finally get to put it all to practice 😁 I can send you a message on Facebook my school name. What does your profile picture look like?

@@lifetime_learner I hope everything goes well for you as well. I try not to worry about how close it gets but it definitely is hard not to!

I have medicaid and the quality has been very poor. It’s been hard to find a decent physician who is thorough with good bedside manner. I had PPO blue cross for a short period and it was amazing. I have worked with doctors who take a lot of Medicaid but they schedule so many patients each day. This enables them to bring up the cost but with 60+ patients each day which then the quality is poor.

It shows a lot of maturity that you are questioning it. Never let someone tell you, you aren’t passionate about something because you question it. You can definitely have a family and a balanced life depending on the specialty you want to do. However, there’s a lot of sacrifices you’ll have to make to get there. If your spouse and yourself are both doing busy, time intensive professions, family life probably will be on hold until residency or after. Pre-med, med school, residency all require increasing amount of time and energy (approximately 11 years). Your environment matters. Do you have family around to help you watch kids or to help your spouse when your gone a lot? Are you in a financial situation where you have to take out all loans? Can you both handle having to make moves after each transition from med school to residency to permanent job? A lot of things to think about but if you want to do pre-med then do it. Worst case you’ll end up with a Bachelor of Science Degree which you can do so many things with beside medical school.

@@lifetime_learner just seems lile "how am i supposed to know??" Ofc 18yo ambitious AP student says "hell yea i can" but idk how much gas ill have left in the tank by 28 and i dont want to screw myself over. Neither of my parents are particularly ambitious people and i have no siblings to look at either

You definitely don’t need to have it all figured out. I was a very average high school student. Low SAT’s and one AP class. No one in my family is a doctor or does a prestigious profession. Pretty much was on my own at 18 after I moved out. What sustained me was being self motivated & passionate about medicine but also having a balance. I think too many students kill themselves in this profession. You don’t have to be straight A’s or a million extracurriculars but you do need the passion. If you are doubting it already then maybe it’s not for you & that’s totally okay. Pursue something you love. Something that makes you excited to wake up & motivated to get through the hard times. Maybe do community college and take different classes to figure it out. I wouldn’t spend money on a four year education unless you have a general idea what you enjoy doing. That doesn’t mean know what career you’ll have in ten years but it does mean what gives you excitement.

Dufuq?

I won't ask your age but we have quite a few older people in my class [40s/50s]. Most PhD/MD candidates are quite a bit older because it is very competitive so they have quite a few years of life experience behind they more starting.

I went to college with a woman who started at 49 and loves it!! She is 5 years in so far

There is somewhere between 3-4 20 minute interviews :)

The worst sometimes. Never would have believed that going into medical school!

@@lifetime_learner yea I complained and many others in my class did too. I met someone who graduated from my program 5 years before and she had the same complaints as me. So I really think it’s a culture.

Hi Kellan, I reported the issues both to my school and on a state level. Apologies for snob-like behavior.

@@lifetime_learner glad you reported that. Good for you.