M1 Reflections: Part 2

Here’s the second post of the M1 Reflections series (and here’s Part 1 in case you missed it). Again, thanks to M1 Caitlin Li for compiling these.

We made it! We, the Class of 2019, the first full class of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, have completed our first year of medical school. In celebration of our achievement and progress, I have asked some of my fellow classmates to share their reflections on this past year.

Insight and Advice

Michael Alexander shared this quotation from Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone,

“I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this… but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound.”

Tiffanie Aiken shared a few tips: to “ground” yourself during an anxiety attack by focusing on the sensual details of your immediate surroundings, to take care of yourself first because “you can’t pour from an empty cup,” and to accept the existence of occasional days without motivation because they happen to everyone and they don’t last forever.

Caitlin Li

I was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina and attended Vanderbilt University for my undergraduate studies. I was heavily involved in Vanderbilt’s fencing club and musical volunteering at the Vanderbilt hospital before graduating in 2015 with a degree in biomedical engineering. I want to become a physician to help people pursue happiness in health and am honored and excited to study medicine at USC School of Medicine Greenville.