Vital Signs of Doubt
There were nights during my first year of medical school when I seriously wondered what it would be like to walk away. Not in a dramatic sense. Just…leave. Step off the treadmill and do something simpler. Something with regular hours. Something where my evenings and weekends weren’t consumed by lectures, prereadings, and the constant feeling that I was behind. I’d think about the version of me who could’ve gone back to retail, who liked fashion and once worked at Aritzia, who could’ve networked and maybe worked her way up in that world. Or the part of me that might’ve gone into teaching. Who maybe could’ve been happy there. Or at least free.
I had those conversations with people in my life more than once. “What if I left?” I’d ask. Not always seriously, but not as a joke either. Just trying to imagine a different life, one with breathing room. Medical school is marketed as this clean, upward path. But the first year felt messy. Disorienting. The volume of content, the mental exhaustion, the emotional isolation, it was nothing like the dream I clung to as a premed. There were days I couldn’t see past the stress and wondered if I’d made a huge mistake. Days when all I wanted was a 9 to 5 and the ability to make weekend plans without guilt.
But for every low, there were moments that reminded me why I was here. Learning how to read an EKG, understanding how a disease progresses, and how to treat it, realizing I could explain what was actually happening in someone’s body, and that it made sense, was a turning point. Practicing taking patient histories and diving deeper into the different organ systems added another layer of meaning. I wasn’t just memorizing anymore; I was beginning to think like a clinician. That realization hit me hard, and it made me realize that this was the tradeoff: I gave up freedom for meaning, comfort for a chance to do something that mattered to me. Some days, that choice still feels brutal. But on the days it clicks, when the material feels real and alive and worth it, it’s enough to keep going. I’m not writing this from the other side yet. I’m still in it, still tired, still asking questions. But I’ve learned that doubt doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong; sometimes, it just means you’re paying attention.