Reflection On The First Year of Medical School

Reflection On The First Year of Medical School

By: Sabila Siddiqui

As the white coat was hoisted over my shoulder and the oath was recited, I knew I had taken a step towards a journey I had envisioned. My relatives had already started referring to me as a doctor, sending in their x-rays and prescriptions — to decondense and decomplicate.

I got a jist of the responsibility and possibly be expected to be a know-it-all by wearing a white coat entailed. But I merely was a first-year who was learning the names and recognition of human anatomy, basic physiology, and histology. I didn’t feel like I had learned anything useful over the first year — none of the learning that I could apply clinically anyways. It was more like I was eating lots of bland rice, digesting heaps of information all at once struggling to recall.

But now that I am in a whirlwind of -oologies — with pathology, pharmacology, and parasitology the variety of lectures has gravitated me to being interested back into medicine and learn the importance of those bland rice to strengthen my basics.

Reflecting on the journey of the first year, one of the highlighting changes was possibly the denotation of time — there is no doubt that medicine takes huge bites out of your time and energy, but it also impels you to be selective with it. Propelling you to manage time better, as the lack of it increase its value as you reshuffle and line your priorities, accommodating your interests in between your fixed responsibilities.

Medicine at least in the pre-clinical is all about retaining and recalling the mammoth amount of information. It is when you realize that hard work isn’t enough, or at least not enough to save you from the negative-exhausted-complaining-raccoon you’re off to become. But rather it needs to be a combination of the two – smart & hard. A part of which is focusing in lectures, so it takes less effort to understand concepts when you return home and revise.

Whilst books root you onto a chair for longer periods than usual, your responsibilities await for you on the sidelines because whilst it seems it’s all about academics, which for the majority it is giving its curriculum, there is more to it such as your personal growth and self-care.

Thus you experiment with spaced repetitions, mnemonics, creating flowcharts, actively recalling, visualizing, storytelling events, relating and linking to the oddest of things just to remember and find your effective-less-time-consuming of a study method.

Lastly, your support system. With your time and energy devoted to larger tasks, you need support, whether it is to keep your sanity intact or delegating responsibilities. One of the best ways I learned was through group studies; having it explained in the simplest of ways, teaching it, or even questioning once another embedded it better in my mind. Not only such sessions grounding, and less isolating –you come across better ways of associating concepts – mind you with the right people.

Whilst some days are taxing and monotonous, it’s important to not neglect happiness and rejuvenation to destress whether it is by indulging in your passions from time to time or merely catching up with a friend because the journey of medicine has just begun.

You’ve got 5 years to cultivate habits and build the spinal role of discipline, growth mindset, and focus to shape you into a well-rounded doctor. Welcome to the journey of earning yourself the initials Dr. and making the entire journey a blooming one!

Sabila a desert-raised islander with her roots in Pakistan. She currently holds the position of Presidency in the Student Council of her University and values the importance of outreach in medical care. She has journeyed to the wondrous world of writing; letting her words take the forms of poetry, short stories and articles. She believes in the importance of empathy, social justice, advocacy of mental health care and the need for puns and memes to enlighten one’s spirit. When she’s not glued to a screen or a textbook, she can be found volunteering, illustrating, clicking the world and indulging in an entertaining book while sipping on green tea and possibly imagining herself surrounded by cats.

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