Sogand S.
Photo provided by Sogand S.
If you’re reading this, there’s a chance you’re carrying something heavy that no one else can quite see.
Maybe you’re studying for an exam, sitting in a lecture, or walking through the hospital trying to keep up with everything while carrying something invisible that never really leaves. For me, it was sitting in those same lectures about tumors and treatments, hearing the words while already knowing how the story ends. Three years ago, I lost my dad to glioblastoma, and there is something profoundly disorienting about learning medicine while watching it fail the person who meant everything to you. One day you’re memorizing pathways, and the next you’re standing in a hospital hearing the words “stage IV brain cancer” a sentence that doesn’t just describe a disease, but divides your life into before and after.
There were moments that didn’t feel real. Like begging him to leave the hospital so he could make it to my college graduation, convincing myself it was just a migraine, something simple, something medicine could fix. And then suddenly, nothing was simple anymore. Everything became scans, surgeries, chemotherapy, statistics, and numbers that try to predict something that feels impossible to measure: how much time you have left with someone you love. I found myself chasing for answers, trying to understand every detail of the disease, as if learning enough could somehow give me control or give me more time with him.
And then there’s the part no lecture ever prepares you for and that’s the part that stays with you long after the diagnosis. Waiting for him to pull into the driveway. Listening for his voice in a quiet house that suddenly feels too big. Remembering the way he would jump on my bed just to make me laugh, squeezing my cheeks, covering me in kisses. The way he would call just to say “I love you,” no matter where he was or what he was doing. The way he showed up for everything. That’s the part medicine can’t quantify. That’s the part it can’t treat. And when it’s gone, there is no protocol for how to live without it.
Sitting in lectures after losing him felt different. Every slide, every pathway, every treatment plan carried a weight it never had before. Medicine became both more meaningful and more painful at the same time. Because you begin to realize something that no exam tests you on: sometimes, despite everything we know, despite everything we do, it still isn’t enough. And that is one of the hardest truths to carry when you are training to become someone who is supposed to help, to fix, to save.
But this, this is my why.
I don’t study just to pass exams. I don’t stay up late memorizing pathways just to get through medical school. I do it because I have sat where my patients will sit. I have been the daughter in the room, holding onto every word, searching for hope in every sentence a physician speaks. I know what it feels like to want more time, to want better answers, to want someone to look at you and not just see a diagnosis but see your whole world falling apart.
Losing my father didn’t just change me but it shaped the kind of physician I am becoming. I want to be the doctor who remembers that behind every MRI, every lab value, every treatment plan, there is someone’s entire life, someone’s family, someone’s everything. I want to be the physician who doesn’t just deliver information, but delivers it with honesty, with compassion, with presence. Because sometimes, when medicine reaches its limits, who you are matters more than what you know.
If you’re grieving, struggling, or questioning whether you’re strong enough to be here please know that I see you. And more importantly, this field needs you. Because the depth of what you feel, the weight you carry, the love you’ve experienced and lost; those are not weaknesses. They are the very things that will allow you to sit with a patient in their most vulnerable moment and truly understand. Because sometimes the hardest part of medicine isn’t the exams or the workload. It’s learning how to keep going in a field that reminds you, every single day, of what you couldn’t change. But one day, that same story, the one that hurts right now, will become the reason someone feels less alone sitting across from you.
And that matters more than anything you will ever memorize.
Sogand S., Second Year Medical Student
Q: What advice do you have for incoming medical students regarding mental wellness?
A: Give yourself permission to be human. Medical school will push you to constantly perform, compare, and keep going but your mental wellness matters just as much as your grades. You don’t have to carry everything alone, and you don’t have to be okay all the time. Build a support system early, check in with yourself often, and learn to recognize when you need rest instead of pushing harder. Most importantly, don’t lose the part of you that cares deeply because that’s not a weakness, it’s what will make you a great physician.
Q: How do you cope with the stressors of medical school?
A: I cope by reminding myself why I started. On the hardest days, I step back from the stress of exams and expectations and reconnect with my purpose, like becoming the kind of physician I once needed for my own family. I also try to give myself permission to pause, whether that’s taking a break, leaning on people I trust, or just allowing myself to feel what I’m feeling instead of pushing through it. It’s not about handling everything perfectly, it’s about staying grounded in purpose while taking care of yourself along the way.
Q: What change do you hope to see when it comes to mental health in medical trainees?
A: I hope mental health support becomes something that’s truly accessible and normalized, not just talked about. Checking in on each other, creating spaces where people feel safe to be real, and having leadership that models vulnerability would make a huge difference. At the end of the day, we’re being trained to care for others, but that should never come at the cost of not caring for ourselves. I hope we move toward a culture where being honest about struggling is not seen as weakness, but as self-awareness.
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.