Everyone is Exhausted
We've been in school for just two months now, but the signs of fatigue are starting to show. In any of our nine classes each week, I can look around and see some students dozing off, their heads bobbing up and down rhythmically like a drinking bird. Some students stare blankly at the lecturer with little sign of comprehension, bleary eyes transfixed at some infinite point in the distance. Some students even just capitulate and leave class early to catch a nap before a three-hour dissection later that afternoon. I have been guilty of all of these at some point.
The problem is not that we lack interest in what is being taught, that the lecturer is monotonous, or that our water supplies have been poisoned with opiates. Instead, there simply isn't enough time in the day. When we finish the day at 6PM, having been in class since 8:30AM, the last thing we want to do is hit the books. So with dinner, a TV show, and some dilly-dallying, suddenly it's 8PM. There's the day's material to review, the next day's dissection to prepare for, problem sets to complete, cases to research. Now it's 1AM and time to sleep, but I rarely feel like I have had enough time to enjoy for myself.
A few older medical students warned me that there is simply too much medical knowledge coming in the first year to be able to learn everything. Instead, I would have to be selective and choose what I was most interested in. I was incredulous, as this had never happened before, even with some demanding schedules at Harvard as an undergrad. But it is slowly becoming more apparent.
I should stop whining about this since this is just the very beginning, and clinical rotations and residency should be far worse. But what a toll medical school can have on our daily lives, and how much stronger we will be (maybe in worse health) after we leave.
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October 25th, 2009 - 20:23
Wow, that sounds intense..
October 29th, 2009 - 23:44
I can’t say I blame you guys… that 8-6:30 schedule is insane. Counterproductive as well, I would think.
October 31st, 2009 - 20:08
Don’t worry man, it gets better next semester! Keep your head down and work through it.
November 1st, 2009 - 23:45
Silver lining: ibankers and traders work from 7am to 9/10pm – at the very least – and they don’t even learn worthwhile knowledge!
But this post does make me wonder, is all that general knowledge necessary for a medical student? Would it be better if medical students entered med school with a specialty, the way colleges generally work?
November 6th, 2009 - 21:31
Anne: Haha, I guess that’s true. You raise an interesting point on specialization. Much of what we learn is directly relevant in many disease processes and treatment considerations – the immune system, cardiac function, respiration, neurological function, and many others. You can imagine how a subset of these are simultaneously relevant for treating cancer, inflammation, infection, etc.
This doesn’t mean that we’ll use everything we’ve learned in the future. But I can think of some reasons it’s useful despite this:
-you can learn more about what other doctors do to ease communication and make consults more productive.
-much of medicine involves the same fundamental process – starting from a basic set of facts, elucidating the underlying problem, and deciding what to do. The more you practice this skill generally, the better it will be in all situations.
Most importantly, that rare condition you saw in 2nd year medical school might just present in your clinic one day. This might be melodramatic, but those hours in lecture would be redeemed if just one life can be saved.