Derek W.

Photo provided by Derek W.

If you’re reading this, don’t let “imposter syndrome” get in the way of your progress. 

Everyone’s story is different, but we share more experiences than we realize. Most everyone I’ve met during my time in medical school has at some point felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content we’re expected to learn. Or had a moment where they felt like they didn’t know enough. It feels like the more that you learn, the more you realize just how much you don’t know. 

I didn’t begin medical school until I was close to thirty years old. And one of the biggest reasons for that was that lingering worry that I would be in over my head. The further I got away from my undergraduate studies, the more I felt I would be underprepared in medical school. There were a thousand excuses I had in my head for why it wouldn’t work out. 

But eventually, I decided being a doctor outweighed any anxiety I felt about it. I realized that the failure of not at least trying to put your foot forward was worse than any other failure that I could face. 

There will be days when you feel like you know nothing. There will be exams that make you question whether you learned anything at all. There will be people around you who seem like they have everything figured out. Don’t let those moments convince you that you don’t belong here. You don’t have to know everything right now. 

It’s a cliché, but you have made it this far. And that shouldn’t be undervalued. As long as you keep the end goal in mind, missteps can be made. You will get things wrong. You will have setbacks. But learn from them, get out of your own head and keep moving forward. 

What advice do you give for incoming medical students regarding mental wellness? 

Do not make studying your entire life. There will be times when the material gets so dense and your schedule will be so packed that you feel like you don’t have time for anything else. Don’t fall into that trap. Take 30 minutes to an hour, go run or workout or hang out with friends. Do anything that allows you to take your mind off school for a little while.

There have been so many times that a concept won’t make sense to me, no matter how many times I go through it. And I will get increasingly frustrated. I’ll leave and go do something else for a bit – then come back with fresh eyes and a clear mind. And suddenly, that topic makes sense. Do not underestimate the power of a break. Sometimes stepping away for a little while is exactly what you need to move forward. 

How have you learned to cope better through medical school? 

Becoming comfortable with not knowing something. 

In the beginning, getting a string of practice questions wrong could immediately send me into a panic. While it can be a good motivator to study, I’ve learned not to let it overwhelm me. 

Practice questions are there to help you learn. It’s one thing to understand a concept from a slide; it’s another to apply that knowledge to a vignette. It’s completely fine if you don’t understand something right away. 

When I first started doing practice questions, if I wasn’t sure of an answer, I would spend far too much time trying to figure it out. I would go through so many mental hoops trying to justify whatever answer I chose. Then, if I got it wrong, it felt even more frustrating because I had spent all that time trying to convince myself that I was right. 

Eventually, I stopped looking at getting a practice question wrong as a death sentence. Getting something wrong doesn’t mean you’re bad at the material; it means you’ve found something you need to learn. Once I started looking at practice questions as an opportunity to identify what I didn’t know rather than a test of what I should already know, I became much more comfortable with being wrong. 

Medical school is full of things you won’t know. You can either let that fact overwhelm you, or you can use it to your advantage. I’ve learned that the latter is a much better way to cope. 

What advice would you give your younger self regarding coping and mental wellness? Embrace change. 

I look back and think about some of the things that used to weigh so heavily on my mind, and how little they come into my mind now. Some of that can be attributed to time, but I also think that going somewhere new and meeting new people can have a powerful effect. When you step away from the environments and routines that are familiar to you, you have an opportunity to learn more about yourself and see things from a different perspective.

And sometimes, that means realizing that your original goals or your vision of what you wanted your life to look like have also changed. That’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to hold onto an old version of yourself just because you once thought that was who you were supposed to become. 

I would tell my younger self not to be so afraid of change. You might find that the things you thought were so important eventually aren’t, and that the path you end up taking is better than the one you originally imagined.

Derek W., Second Year Medical Student

Several studies have revealed that medical students, physicians, and healthcare professionals experience mental health symptoms at rates significantly higher than the general population. Stethos[Cope] is a chapter of IfYoureReadingThis designed to help medical students and professionals cope with the unique stressors of medical training and change the narrative of mental health in medicine.

To read more letters and interviews from students, and to learn more about mental health in the medical community, visit the Stethos[Cope] home page.