Hi everyone,
After reading through some recent posts, I’d like to introduce myself and ask a few questions.
I attended a good university on the E. coast as a premed-public health student. After studying my head off, getting tutors, and doing poorly in my early premed classes, I pretty much gave up, yet kept my status as a premed student. I stuck with it and took all the classes, got a B-/C average, while resenting myself through the process (for doing poorly and for not caring enough about med school - for if I did, I reasoned, I would have done better). I also resented being around fellow premeds - always feeling constant pressure, talking about being stressed out, about grades, about the MCAT, med schools, admissions, etc. I volunteered at the teaching hospital alongside academic physicians and fellow premeds, but ended up feeling very inadequate there (that I did not belong there) and left.
Now that I have graduated, I’ve thought a lot about med school, becoming a physician, and why I felt so inadequate in that environment. You see the main reason I went to that school was because of its excellent premed program and at that time I knew my goal was to go on to med school and beyond. My parents too are encouraging me to continue on. However, I don’t know if my attitudes (and resentment for the premed atmosphere) have changed. I don’t know how to find this out. While I feel that if I end up not even trying, I may seriously regret it.
Does this make any sense? To those of you who are currently in med school or in post-med school training and practice, did you ever wrestle with any of these attitudes? Please tell me, how did you deal with them?