I got accepted! Med school here I come!

I still remember the day I received the news that I’ve been accepted into the course back in 2015. I was out with friends at that time. A message came in on my phone headlined “A-Level Results:”, so I quickly darted back home to check whether or not I was ‘worthy’ of the course.

The requirements were duly met. My mum was next to me at that time and it seemed as though we were competing on who could produce most tears. It was at that point where I ran up to my room and found a drawing that I made at the mere age of two:

Rewind a year before when I had sat for the A-Levels for the first time. My grandfather passed away on the same day I found that I did not get the grades for the course. This marked the start of my mental deterioration. Anger, grief, loneliness, guilt; you name it. I had given up. All those years of wishing to fulfil my lifelong dream of being a doctor tarnished by one single event. It was only until one day when my grandmother was cleaning out his office drawers and found the above drawing that I made a promise to myself; that no matter what, I will not give up.

And so it all begins…

You begin your first year as a medical student; all excited and what not. All lecturers begin to repeat the same sentence almost as if in ritual, “The hardest step was getting into medicine. Now it’s only uphill from here”. And it’s funny. You believe them. The first two years goes by and you’re having the time of your life – making new friends, enjoying student activism, feeling the independent pleasures that a University student feels.

However, the start of clinical years came with a price. Four years went by since my grandfather’s passing and I never came to terms with this mental decline. It was only until midway through the first semester did I finally begin to realise and accept what was really happening to me.

The first of many.

We were in a medical seminar in a class of around 20 fellow medical students. The tutor had told us all to close our eyes and be one with our spiritual selves. Halfway through the session, I broke down. The room remained in silence. After four years of feeling alone, I came out about my mental struggles for the first time. Some people came to me and hugged me. Others said it was a very brave thing to do. Some even thanked me for doing what they could not. It then came to my realisation that I was not alone.

I had once read a quote by the late Robin Williams which said,

“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone to feel like that.”

This quote stuck with me for some time. No matter how terrible I felt on the inside, I’d always tried my best to make sure that I looked different on the outside – always trying to look happy, being caring and helpful, trying to make others laugh. Oftentimes, the reception wasn’t always that welcoming. Unfortunately, this course boasts quite a number of judgemental people, telling me that I was fake and (excuse my French) an asshole. Unfortunately, assumptions were made on the wrong reasons and some couldn’t comprehend that I was trying to ensure they wouldn’t have to endure the same personal battle I’m living.

Come second semester of third year. This was at the time the lowest of the low of my life. I didn’t speak to anyone, I lost all motivation to do anything, I began smoking (and thankfully stopped after three weeks). I studied at University surrounded by hundreds of students, however I felt alone. I remember driving home every day questioning whether or not I should just keep driving into the wall in front of me and end it all there and then. No one would care if I’m gone. But there was always something which managed to get me to turn the wheel at the last moment and avoid eternal damnation.

Let the final year commence.

As I write this, I am less than two months into my final months as a medical student. It is at this point where I go back to that famous first year quote and realise how wrong they all were.

Three clinical years of shadowing consultants in whom the majority have absolutely no interest in teaching you and judge you equally for keeping your mouth shut or opening it. You are thrown into surgery rooms where you often are given less importance than the bloody dustbin. You are made to sit for exams which test you on your capability of holding all-nighters of studying only for all your knowledge to be erased the minute you exit the examination room. You’re then expected to repeat the whole routine and study what you’ve barely managed to scrape through over the past four years and cram it all into the exams just four months into the final year.

And for what? To boast to your friends and family that you’ve ranked first in class? Who bloody cares? The patients definitely don’t care. I highly doubt that the dying patients who you’re responsible for really care how many A’s you got in your exams. All that matter is that you are there to treat them. At the end of the day, that student who gets an A will be doing the exact same job as that person who gets a D.

At the end, what have I achieved out of all this? Anxiety, depression (both of which have been diagnosed by a psychiatrist), stress, low self-esteem, lack of motivation, shall I carry on? The reward of being a doctor is great. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you’ve made a difference in someone else’s life. However, the steps that a person must go through to achieve this is dreadful.

If you or anyone you know is suffering from a mental illness, please seek help. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Visit this page for assistance: https://www.richmond.org.mt.

I think it’s only appropriate to finish off with a powerful quote from an equally powerful film (and I am sure the majority of you will get the reference),

“The worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.“