When we think about professions that shape a person’s identity, medicine is always near the top. People often compare it to a calling, almost like priesthood, a path of service that demands sacrifice. But behind the prestige and the white coats, there’s another side we rarely talk about. From the first day of medical school, students invest extraordinary effort just to be there, long hours of study, years of preparation, and, yes, a certain amount of “healthy narcissism” to believe they can make it. We all start with an idealistic picture of what lies ahead.
And yet, somewhere along the way, reality sets in.
When I was on my second or third year of med school I enrolled in an elective coure called : “How to preserve the quality of life being a doctor”. I thought it would teach me practical skills for protecting my well-being as a future doctor. Instead, lecture after lecture described the many ways the profession could damage our health, through physical risks, emotional strain, and systemic pressures. It left me wondering: did we ever actually learn how to cope, or were we only taught how much we stood to lose? Beacuse it’s clear that medical students spend so much energy just surviving exams and coursework that they rarely stop to ask ourselves deeper questions like: What happens if we get sick or injured halfway through our studies? How will we cope with our first patient’s death? How do we preserve our mental health in a system that seems to expect us to endure without complaint?
The truth is, nobody tells them that. Not on day one, not on the fifth year, not even later. We’re told medicine is the most beautiful science, and it is, but we’re also fed a distorted picture of what it means to live this life. As students, we slowly become cynical. We learn to lower our expectations. We learn to keep our heads down. And yet, we keep going. Because at some level, we believe in what we’re doing. We pour our youth, our energy, our ideals into this path, hoping that one day it will all be worth it.
I still think medicine is extraordinary. The human body, the mind, the chance to ease suffering, no other science compares. But if we’re honest, many of us have asked ourselves: Was I crazy to choose this? Is this path an act of devotion… or a kind of slow self-destruction?
For now, I don’t have the an answer. We walk forward with our doubts, our fears, and our questions. We carry the ideals we had when we first applied, even if they’re tattered at the edges. One day, when we finally reach the end of our life we’ll look back and know if it was worth it.
Until then, we keep walking.
