Some days I feel like medical school and residency have ruined me. I’m not the same person I was six years ago. Some of that is for the better, but a lot is for the worse. I’m not sure if it’s some intrinsic defect inside of me or a side effect of our high intensity training, but I have a hard time concentrating and doing one thing at a time. Even at leisure. A few weeks ago I had my second year meeting with my program director. It was a casual meeting that we all have, just touching base us to go over our reviews, talk about how second year is going, assess our mental health, and to talk about any potential areas for program improvement that we see. The one thing I can’t really shake about this meeting is, when asked about what my hobbies were, I was just… crickets.
I’m not really sure when this happened. I had a lot of hobbies growing up. I played baseball and soccer. I ran cross-country and track. I sketched a ton. I read like a fiend. I played video games regularly. I wrote short stories. I loved movies and had a couple of television shows that I watched regularly. The list goes on and on. But now… I basically work and sleep. The time I have outside of those two tasks, which definitely varies depending on whether I’m on the wards or on a consult service, I just spend kind of existing. I don’t actually DO anything except for waste time on the internet. I’ve tried multiple times to get back into some of my old hobbies, but I find these things no longer hold my attention. I try to watch television. I try to watch movies. I get bored and start distracting myself with other tasks while “watching. And again we come back to the hard time I have with concentration unless 50-million things are happening simultaneously.
This is so me. I was a voracious reader pre medschool now I read about a book every 2 months. I have no hobbies except the gym if you can even call it that.
The mental energy of doing anything is sapped on one hand by my strenuous schedule and by this feeling that I should be productive (audits, research etc.)
I have started travelling a lot more which has helped but I don’t want to fall into a cycle of work - travel - work.
