Oh they do not need to encourage arrogance in med students. Unfortunately, because medicine attracts people who were top in their class, we already tend to attract people whoâve been told they are clever so many times that it has gone to their heads just a little bit. Though in my biomed class, the most arrogant people decided to run off and do dentistry instead, so let it not be said that only medicine attracts people with attitude problems. I actually think that part of the problem is that thereâs a pressure for kids who are academically capable to go into medicine. And actually, Iâd say that yes, a fair few are pressured into it, usually mostly by their families. I knew so many people in my seondary school, biomed degree and medical degree who openly admitted it.Â
I suspect that if thereâs a prevailing attidude of âyou should do medicine because you are smartâ, then perhaps that contributes to the assumption that not medicine = not smart. When in actual fact, choosing, and being right for medicine is about a lot more than just being smart.
Yes, med school is hard. Thereâs a lot of information to cover, and you need to learn a lot of subtle interpersonal skills and practical procedures alongside it. Youâre threatened with failure all the time, and you canât coast along, because youâre always being held to a pretty high standard. Iâm not going to lie, itâs a stressful 5 year experience. Yes, it expects more of you than a lot of degrees would, because youâre training for more than just a degree, youâre training for a trusted profession and they need to make sure that when you finish med school, youâre going to be a safe doctor. But itâs not the only degree which is tough; I believe last time they did the research, vets and architecture students work equally hard, or even harder. Yes, everyone in your class in med school is bright. But I promise you that if you study another degree course, youâll meet lots of other really bright people, too, doing completely different things. Some of the brightest people I know (hell almost all the brightest people I know), didnât choose to do medicine.
And like others have said, whilst some of the scarily bright people I know have told me âI donât know how you do medicineâ, Iâm equally in awe of how they can handle maths that I could never do, or engineer things, etc. Next to some of the veritable maths geniuses I know, or people who make buildings stand up, here I am giggling because hallux and pollux are such silly names for your big toe and thumb. Whilst my friends would struggle with medicine, Iâd struggle with their job, and thatâs why we all gravitate towards things we are good at.
Also, to be fair, as a med student, youâre still protected from so much of the worst of medicine. You still have so far to go, so much to experience. I donât remember ever seeing myself as the âcomplete articleâ when I was halfway through med school. You donât do long days or night shifts (apart from if your med school ask you to do a couple as an experience), you have no real responsiblity for patient care, and there are generally no consequences to you getting things wrong or not knowing something. Thatâs actually a good thing, because you need to learn to walk before you can run, and med school is hard enough as it is. I want my med students to be well looked after and supported, and they sure as hell shouldnât be going through what I do in an average shift. But, that also means that as a student itâs probably a bit early to be patting yourself on the back about sacrifices, when most of your peers are doing exactly the same thing as you (studying). The real sacrifices of medicine are still to comeâŠ
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