Do people over exaggerate the difficulty of medical school? Overthinking vs. action

[Giantfan]

Do people over exaggerate the difficulty of medical school?

There seems to be a tendency for people to exaggerate when they speak of difficult things. It's sort of an ego or pride thing, trying to boost the significance of it all, or it can come from just letting lose, and writing it all out in a cleansing effort. There's nothing wrong with any of this, but it can and does happen.

It's not always the writer's fault either. The reader can interpret it in too much of a serious or literal way. And with no perspective on the topic itself, except for imagination, it can really be interpreted in an inaccurate way.

I've done this before myself, when either writing about something, or interpreting something written by someone else, so that's why I am looking into this question.

I want to go to medical school, and as I do my research, it gets exhausting. There are days when I feel really confident about my plan to embark on this journey, and then there are days when "reality" hits, or I read too much negative stuff, and I start to question myself.

And then I think maybe I am just thinking too much and taking everything too seriously.

Sometimes it's good to be prepared, and sometimes it's good just to jump into something and react as you go along.

Too much reading, too much thinking, too much preparing can cause anxiety, self doubt, and even avoidance of doing the thing that you wanted to do, which can result in doing nothing at all in the end.

So sometimes it may be best to maintain your original "dreams" and inspiration from them, and just go for it. Let the chips fall where they may.

Maybe some of you can give me your thoughts on this, in a general sense, and also as it related to medical school etc.

[Markonymous]

A doctor is an engineer of the human body, end of discussion.

[DocSAMMD]

A doctor is an engineer of the human body with no room for failure.

[DrChris]

Here is my horribly unknowledgeable opinion on the matter since I do not attend MD school yet. I however am answering on the basis of skimming through many profiles and comments online. I think that medical school is quite the meritocracy in the Caribbean, especially at Ross, with students fighting to prove that they have what it takes to be a physician. When you are in the Caribbean, even more so when you are at schools besides SGU, I think the competition is pretty high, thus making it hard. I feel that in the states, if you have pulled your weight to get in, just looking at the graduation statistics, I feel they do not want to fail people. Really it is what you want to get out of it. Sure a study even like engineering is very hard, but if you get used to it, it is easy to do better, or skim by if you are one of those types. But engineering at a very high level of mastery is a rare thing to come by. So in conclusion, I think people can get to the point where they can work hard and pass their courses in medical school, but that doesn’t necessarily set them up well for the board exams. Sure I would like to play up engineering like it is a hard thing too, but I got to admit, it got really easy towards the last few semesters to get a 4 point average. There however are a lot of folks in the engineering curriculum that don’t have good test performance and study incredible amounts of hours every day. It is a tough question to answer because it is different for everybody. I would say, if you have made it this far, and get a decent GPA the first couple years, you should set yourself up in a good position.

[MerlinDoc85]

A doctor is an engineer of the human body with no room for failure.

I agree with this statement.

The difficult part of medical school is MASTERING ALOT of information in a SHORT amount of time. Otherwise, its not difficult.

Given that, no two people are the same. It depends on the individual's aptitude, attitude, caliber, determination, discipline, desire to succeed, goal after basic sciences, and fairness of the school.

The rest is all ambiguous.

Medicine is memorization. Although there are enough groupings, common trends, etc to help make the memorization process easier. Needless to say, memorization happens through repetition and ability to regurgitate. Things are very dynamic. Its not like in engineering where things flow logically and can be easily explained. Ahh, those were the days.

I envy those who have visual memories and read once and can move on. Though I'm willing to bet majority of those are at US med schools or in high end research.

@supreme123: I agree with you on the engineers vs physicians point. On the contrary, though... everything integrates at the point where you get your degree... whether its medicine or engineering. If a physician makes a mistake, a patient dies. If an Engineer makes a mistake, it can usually be rectified before serious damage happens.

[DrChris]

Who on this forum has an engineering degree as well as experience in medicine? By experience I say someone who has either gotten an acceptance to medical school, has passed multiple years in the Caribbean, or has gotten their MD. Also if you wouldn’t mind sharing your stats too that would be great. I just want to see a correlation between Caribbean success and GPA/MCAT from an engineering program. Also please share post-bac record (if any).

[wyliecat]

I am in medical school studying now for a neuro midterm. In terms of difficulty....Yes I find it harder. Its way harder than my undergrad, much harder than my master's and the volume of material is crazy. Then again I have ALWAYS been the student that has to study harder than everyone else to understand science...Which just sucks but hey nothing I can do to change that!