How to Spend Your Summer After M1 Year

    One thing that you'll realize shortly after starting medical school, is that it is a bit like undergrad all over again. Of course, you have already started in the profession of your choice (hopefully, your dreams), but the notion that at the end of your four years you'll be putting out your residency applications definitely hits hard. And of course, just like undergrad, your grades won't be the only thing that residency applications will be looking at.

     I don't want to scare you. In medical school, the need to have your C.V. filled to the brim with activities isn't really necessary, and a lot of what you have to do depends on what specialty you are thinking about going into. If you already have your heart set on being the next Cristina Yang, you might have to start thinking about how you can get yourself involved in research. But, if you know that your specialty of choice isn't as competitive, you have a bit more laxity in what you can do. 

A couple areas that I think are worth exploring over the summer are: 1.) Leadership 2.) Shadowing and 3.) Self-care.

Leadership

     

     As a physician, you are often going to be the head of a team, so being able to show residency programs that you are able to do that is really important. For me, I have quite a bit of leadership experience from this past school year (that will come in a separate post), but for this summer I am helping coordinate the summer program I participated in last summer. I can already tell you that come residency application time, I have plenty of examples for when they start asking me the, "Tell me about a time..." questions. But, just because my leadership opportunity is within the realm of medicine, doesn't mean that yours has to be. You can always seek leadership in other areas, such as your community. The most important goal is just to prove that you can take responsibility and how you handle your responsibility. Also, that you can work on a team. The medical field is very team-oriented and residency programs will want to know that you have the ability to be a team player, so being able to prove this works in your favor.

Shadowing

     If you have the free time, this is a great time to look into the things that you are interested. Have you always wanted to be an emergency medicine doctor? Go shadow one! The unfortunate part about your 3rd and 4th year rotations is that you only get a brief glimpse of things before you make a a decision about what you'd like to practice for the rest of your life, so if you have the chance to get exposure to your field of interest early on, that's great. You'll already have an idea of what to expect, but you'll also start building connections for the future. That and like medical schools, residency programs what to see that you know what you are getting yourself into. Being a doctor isn't easy and each specialty has it's own unique challenges. So, having the opportunity to get to know what your future job would be like can give you a bit more certainty about choosing a specialty and will allow you to confidently speak about why you are choosing it come interview time.

Self-care

    

     Medical school is hard and making it through a full academic year takes a lot out of you. So, if you want to take the summer to recuperate before prepping for M2 year, that's totally okay. I know that there's always pressure to do everything that you can to make yourself a competitive candidate, but at the end of the day, you won't be able to do your job well if you're burned out. One of my favorite quotes is, "You can't pour from an empty cup." And I feel like this is so true in the medical field. If you don't take care of yourself, you won't be able to effectively take care of others, so remember to make it a priority. If residency programs ask you what you did for your summer, all you have to say is that you took the summer to focus on self-care. I would say that anyone in this field will understand that this is completely necessary. So, don't be afraid to keep this as an option.

     Regardless of what you decide to do, remember to enjoy your summer. I know the pressure to add things to your C.V. will be there, but if you are going to spend your last "summer break" being miserable, is it really worth it? So, remember to keep that in mind when you are planning out your summer following M1 year. 

- Gen<3

The End Of M1 Year

As always, I feel that I'm constantly apologizing for being absent on the blog, but hey, I'm a medical student. I'm not perfect and I'm trying to balance everything on my plate as best as I can. So despite not being the most consistent, I certainly love to check in every now and then. Like now:)

Let me just say that the first year of medical school feels like a blur. Fall semester seemed to trudge along, but then it picked up in full-force spring semester, and in the blink of an eye, I was in the midst of finals. It's actually a tad frightening because it makes me realize that before I know it, I'll be graduating and going into the world to actually take care of patients, which at this point in my training, seems crazy. But yet, somehow it'll happen. 

Looking back on M1 year, I can say it wasn't exactly what I had expected. When I imagined medical school, I envisioned being constantly miserable, overwhelmed, and possibly having regret over making this decision. I'll admit there were some trying moments, but for the most part my experience was positive. I do believe it has a lot to do with my approach to school. You see, our curriculum is pass/fail. So, at the end of the day I always told myself that as long as I passed, I was okay. I would always set my standards as high as I could, but if it didn't go as planned, I wouldn't beat myself up over it. We all have our off days and medical school isn't easy. So, if you don't get an amazing score every time, it's okay. I'm incredibly thankful to say that I passed all of my exams this past year. Sometimes I did incredibly well and some exams got the best of me. Regardless of the outcome, every exam was a step closer in my journey. Another tally I could etch onto my sheet of accomplishments. And having successfully come out on the other side of the year, I know that I have it in me to keep going. 

Now that I have the chance to look back, I'm pretty content with the year. Of course, there are some situations I wish I could've approached differently, but I think overall I did a decent job balancing what I could, especially second semester. I always tried to make time for myself, squeezed in time for my friends and family when I got the chance, and I made it a priority to keep myself healthy. I'm not going to say doing all of the above was easy, because it wasn't. There were many times that I would rather have spent with my friends at our Sunday dinners or at home enjoying time with my family. But, I know that the profession that I have chosen will come with a lot of sacrifices, yet will yield many rewards. So, I held on to that notion and kept pushing through. And somehow, it has worked out. 

Getting to the end of the year felt amazing and you better believe we celebrated accordingly. Our class rented a boat for us to cruise around Lake Michigan, and let's just say that mixing an open bar and medical students can lead to very interesting times. But spending time with my classmates and some of my closest friends celebrating the end of the struggle was a great way to close out the year and get ourselves set for our last summer break.

Looking forward, I know that M2 year is going to have it's own challenges (ahem, Step 1), but I'm excited to see what the next phase of my medical training will bring. From what the upperclassmen have told me, it'l be way more clinically focused. We will be learning all of the skills that will be put into use during our clinical rotations come M3 year and we will also be tested on how to perform a physical exam, diagnose patients, write prescriptions...you get the idea. It'll be scary because doing things for the first time can be nerve wracking, but exciting because this is exactly what I signed up for. Hopefully, by the time I finish step I will feel more like a doctor-in-training and not just a student, but I still have plenty of time before that time comes around. 

So, if you like following me on this crazy journey, stay tuned. It's about to get way more exciting.