No joke.
So having completed 1.5 years of med school, I think I've found the answer: no, there's not one class. Every aspect of it turns you into this whole different person. Yeah, some doctors may seem indifferent, unsympathetic, impatient and even downright rude....but there really are valid reasons for this one-sided facet of personality that patients often see.
Studies have shown that around the third year, med students pretty much lose a lot of their empathy:
Anyway, in my own words, here's a list - albeit brief - of some reasons why doctors are the way they are.
"The study authors suggested that reasons for the decline include a lack of role models, the volume of materials to learn, time pressures, and patient and environmental factors, such as overly demanding patients and restrictions on caregivers' autonomy."
1. For four years in undergrad, all you do is study. And study. And more studying...and test-taking, and interviewing, and stressing.
2. For two years in med school all you do is study. And study. And more studying...and test-taking, and interviewing, and stressing.
3. On Mondays you wish it was the weekend, and on weekends you wish it was Monday. Because on weekends you study 12 hours a day.
4. You're never prepared for the exam. There's really no way to learn all the material; that's the point.
5. You hand in your exam that takes you 6 hours, and they give you the notes for the next exam. Sleep Friday, start studying Saturday.
6. 3-inch thick stack of notes for 5 weeks.
7. It's pretty much like solitary confinement in prison. It will make ANYONE go crazy.
8. If you're studying you want to be doing something else. If you do something else you feel guilty for not studying.
9. You have a ridiculous amount of debt. When I graduate I'll owe around $300,000 at 8% interest. That means I'll be paying about twice that much back in the long run.
10. You think doctors make good money? For 8 years after I graduate I'll be making less than $40,000/yr for 80+ hour work weeks.
11. Your non-med school friends desert you because you can't spend time with them (ok, all but one, Jen!). Your med school friends can't hang out, because you're always studying.
12.You have to know ridiculous details. Like a translocation of chromosomes 8 and 14 cause Burkitt's lymphoma. Or that many cystic fibrosis patients have a mutation on chromosome 7 at amino acid #508. And there are a freaking crapload of leukemias and a crapload of anemias.
13. Caffeine in the morning, ambien at night, alcohol on the weekends. Don't ask me for a liver.
14. You can't learn good patient care in the classroom, but real patients won't let you touch them because you're a student.
15. New life motto: "P for pass" and/or "P=MD." The pass/fail system is my best friend.
16. AML, PPV, ALL, AVPU, CAGE, MCV, MSO4, PPI, HCT, BMP, HIT, TTP, ITP...there are thousands and thousands of abbreviations. Mnemonics don't work. Except maybe the cranial nerve one, but I only remember the first half of it anyway.
17. Your diet SUCKS. Last week I baked cupcakes. They were breakfast, lunch, and dinner 2 days in a row.
18. You spend your entire first year with your face in a cadaver. If I don't die of liver failure or a heart attack I will die of cancer from the formaldehyde poisoning.
19. Most of lecture is spent exchanging "that's what she said" exclamations. Or naps.
20. Ok that's all I can think of right now, but only 19 in a list triggers some OCD anxiety.
Disclaimer: due to the prevalence of jerks in the general population, it is safe to assume that some doctors were just born jerks...but this applies to the rest of us.
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