Last week a reader commented on one of my articles, asking:
If you could go back to the few months before starting medical school, with what you know now, would you still do it?
While considering the question, I found myself back in the turmoil of that mid-twenties time, where I was drowning in ambivalence and confusion, strung out across a war zone of individuation.
I mentioned the question to my wife as she prepared dinner. She disabused any notion of ambivalence, testifying, “C’mon babe, really? You wouldn’t do it again.”
Indeed, I would not go to medical school again, knowing what I know now.
Why? Investing seven to nine years of your life (medical school plus residency) during identity forming years of early adulthood is a big ask. Years of living in a fractured state and wanting something different, is not something I would willfully repeat, because I didn’t really want it. It can be a fulfilling and meaningful job for anyone that wants it.
Thus, I would not advise my 25-year-old self to invest the remainder of his twenties and the beginning of his thirties in something not desired. It caused depressions. It caused resentment. It changed relationships with family and friends. I lost interest in passions. I lost who I was.
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That’s the ugly truth I now know (which gifted me the following understandings):
It is only my responsibility to build the life I want. No one else can, should, or will do it for me.
Increased certainty does not equal happiness. When I went to med school, I chose it because of how uncertain a career outside medicine seemed. Choosing certainty often means choosing fear, which closes the magical spout of spontaneity. I really missed that open-ended state of being, which I now occupy again.
Things don’t always work out. I played nice, followed the rules, and lost myself, while watching it happen to others too. The darkest moment of medical school was third year, when you’d begin working with resident physicians and witness their unhappiness, asking yourself, Is that my future? Well, I became that resident. More generally speaking, as an adult when you look around, unhappy yourself, you see a lot of people in your same position, leaving one to wonder, how many people are genuinely happy? If I stayed in medicine, hoping things would work out, it required I ignore the evidence before (and in) me.
All that said (and because of it), would I change a thing about my path? Nope, I’m grateful to be here, trying to figure it out one refurbished piece of furniture at a time. I’ve dealt with myself enough to understand medicine’s lessons would’ve come about regardless. Medicine was just a player in my game of individuation. The game was scheduled regardless of who played.
I’m indebted to medicine, because if not for medicine I may not own what I know now and perhaps it would have taken even longer to arrive… here.
(Photo Caption: Me somewhere in the months before medical school, not knowing what I do now)
“It is only my responsibility to build the life I want. No one else can, should, or will do it for me.”
So true! And so obvious in retrospect, but it takes surprisingly long to learn. Arriving at the point where you really grok this knowledge without feeling abandoned is an important milestone in human development.
That without feeling abandoned part really resonates. You can hear the advice a thousand times, then there comes a day when you just feel what it means. Hard to talk about honestly. Thanks for sharing your experience 🙂