Student Begins Med School. What Happens Next Will Shock You!

Medical school is hard. I heard a lot of people say that when I was applying, and even when I expressed I wanted to be a doctor from the time I was three.

I was never really bothered by people saying this though. People said that BIO 198 would be hard, but I didn’t have to study. So when people said medical school was hard, I just assumed it was hard for some people, easy for others.

The actor Matt Damon said recently that his favorite piece of advice was, “Don’t become an actor. It’s a really difficult field.”

There are a lot of naysayers when it comes to dreaming big. Whatever. I ignored them. Matt Damon got motivation from them.

A lot of people who read this blog are considering going to medical school, are probably applying here and maybe will get in. So here’s what I wish I had read on the student blog when I was applying. A little insight from my tiny perspective:

Some days medical school is easy.

Some days it’s harder than I ever imagined school could be.

I’m not just learning what phosphofructokinase 2 is; I’m learning how to study in a group and how to talk to difficult patients and how to ask the right questions and how to motivate people to exercise more and stop smoking.

If I were just memorizing science, medical school wouldn’t be too bad (don’t get me wrong, learning metabolism in one week is a lot).

But I’m learning how to be a physician, which is more than just changing my intellectual brain; it’s changing me.

I’m grateful to be going to a school where the professors care about who I’m becoming. I’m glad I go to a school where my classmates care about that too.

I anticipate the day I can look back and be proud of what I’ve accomplished because I’m working pretty hard.

Megan Angermayer is an M1 from Kansas. She doesn’t have a lot of interesting facts about herself, but her husband has endless patience for flashcards, her dad is a peach farmer, her mom is an awesome accountant, her best friend is an opera singer, and her brother is an aspiring sword blacksmith. So far no one has been impaled.