Pressure of Medical School Expectations

Author Name: Mr. Z (Pseudonym)

Profession: Medical Student

Submitted On: September 18th, 2020

Trigger Warnings: alcoholism, depression

"MS1 here, I just started medical school recently. I've been suffering from anxiety ever since I was a kid. But it wasn't all that bad until college, when all the pre-med expectations really caused me to have multiple breakdowns throughout my college experience. The neurotic environment didn't help much either - people were always humble flexing their stats and achievements and making others feel bad. Obviously not everyone was doing this, but the people that did really made others feel insecure, especially me.

I didn't cope well with the stresses and became an alcoholic, even needing alcohol to calm myself before exams sometimes. I also self sabotaged a lot and have imposters syndrome. And now I find myself somehow in medical school, wondering how I even got here. While the alcoholism has subsided a bit (there haven't really been parties going on or bars open to drink at for the past half year being stuck at home), I never escape the self sabotaging thoughts. 

I have never considered asking for help, nor did I hear of any of my pre-med friends going to therapy (or maybe no one was willing to share). I just drank my fears away along with them at parties. I also don't think my South Asian parents would like hearing that their future doctor son is going mental. But I think that I might consider it if medical school starts to become too much. If pre-med was bad, med school will be worse for me. I realize that I might need to help myself before I can help my future patients, which is probably the responsible thing to do."

We appreciate the opportunity to share stories like these with our community, with the goal of destigmatizing the struggles faced within the medical field.