Don't get me wrong, I have some AMAZING friends in my class and within the school. But outside of them, if I don't have to spend time with other students, my life is actually much happier.
This is a new finding for me. I had always enjoyed the pack mentality in the past. Working together, having someone else to feed off of, having someone to cover me if I didn't know what was going on, having someone to bitch too when things weren't going right. And it worked great in things like anatomy, where I sure as hell didn't want to be doing all that work by myself. I didn't want to be doing ANY of the work, so I needed a team. And when I first started volunteering for elective clinic sites, I never wanted to go alone. I needed someone there smarter than me who could show me the ropes so that I wasn't the dumb medical student always asking questions.
When did this realization that I really just don't enjoy being around others of my kind come in? In retrospect, it really started when I was studying for the boards the first time around. I started realizng that while I was dependent on other students being around so I didn't feel like I was suffering alone, really they made me suffer more. By constantly telling me what THEY were doing to study and how many hours they put in and how well they scored on practice tests really kinda made me want to kill myself. Self esteem dropped more and more by the day. Anxiety increased. Heart raced. And the amount of time I spent in the bathroom crying definitely increased. And then I fucking failed the boards anyway, so what good were those other students?
But I didn't really understand I didn't want to be around other medical students. I was very excited that I was doing my internal medicine rotation with other people in my class so I wouldn't be alone at Denver Health trying to survive each day without looking like a complete idiot. I even remember looking at the list and seeing I was on a team by myself but two of the students were on a team together and I was jealous that I wasn't on a team with someone else, that it was just me, fending for myself.
Now I thank God every day that He didn't put me on a team with anyone else. Why? Because medical students are evil, evil, backstabbing people. In the medical school situation that is. In general we are all very nice, well meaning people. But put us together and grade us against each other, and oooohhhh will we turn on each other. Sometimes you don't even realize that you've just been stabbed in the back. Example: another student bringing in an article FOR YOU because you guys had been talking baout it the day before. Seems friendly right? But no, it's really just a way for other student to show she is better than you. They were paying attention, they did some research, they showed that YOU didn't do the research but they did. Look at me look at me! Bitchslapped, that's what just happened.
But, I thought it was just the way of the world. The nature of the beast, so to speak, something you had to deal with. Then, I was sent to west side clinic. And at first, even with my hatred of other students, I was scared to be off on my own. I didn't want to! I needed someone! I needed a crutch. Maybe just a nice medical student? Maybe? Why must I go alone? I was terrified.
But then...oh then I realized the magical magical world of being the only medical student in a practice. It is amazing. Every day, I show up, and I don't have to worry about whether another medical student got there earlier than I did. Because God forbid I be the last medical student to show up. It'll look like I don't care. Even if I can get all my notes done in thirty minutes and pre-round on all my patients,so I dont NEED to be there at 5am, the fact that another student got there at 5am makes ME look bad! Even though I'm waymore efficient! The resident/attending won't necessarily see that. They'll see me meandering in all late and stuff while other medical students are diligently and happily there working before I am. It's a no win situation!
But at West Side, I could just show up, no worries. And then, when patients came, I just got to have them. I didn't have to fight for them with another student. They were just mine. I could spend all the time I wanted with one, and do my job, and actually learn things, instead of spending all my time worrying that the other medical students were doing better than me and were working harder than me and were sucking up more than me. I didn't have to impress people by being better than everyone else, I just had to impress them by doing my thing, which is good enough. I am a good student. I am going to be a good doctor. but I am not THE BEST, and I don't care to be THE BEST, and I don't do well in competition because I spend more time thinking about competing than I do working. So that cut the anxiety and stress of competing out, of constantly worrying that othermedical students were smarter than me.I could just be me, and do my job, and I realized that it was good enough. And I realized that it wasn't just that I was stuck with some gunners in myother rotation. I realized that it is just the way we are when we are together.
Because wednesday mornings when we get together for didactics, it's the same thing. Everyone trying to impress everyone else with their knowledge and how much they care about things. And being a medical student, I can' help being competitive even though I hate being competitive. I have to shout out the answer if I know it. So that everyone knows I know the answer. Why? Because that is what we do. and it SUCKS.
So now, I want to do all my rotations where I am the only medical student. I don't know that I can manage to do so, but if I can, I will. Because I have finally realized, I don't like other medical students...
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