I woke up at 4:30 am the morning I started medical school. The one brain cell I had somehow retained in the three years since graduating college was really going wild at the thought of a highly anticipated “first day of school.” It felt like I was about to jump off a cliff, because despite years of preparation, I really had no idea what I had gotten myself into.

After a fresh breakup and a month of seeing a therapist, I was feeling hopeful but also like I was going to shat myself. So there I was, at 4:30 am, looking at the syllabus for my classes. And all I could think was, “shit, I’m going to have to re-learn the Kreb’s cycle again.”

I think I blacked out the whole week of orientation. Truly. I have never been that bone-tired in my life (except for maybe the mono days of undergrad). Highlights of that week include meeting some cool new friends, running around campus like it was 2019, and going on a date with a guy I made out with in a bar the weekend before. Overall, a solid week.

What I was wholly unprepared for was the absolute onslaught of material they threw at us on the first day. By the third day, I was dissecting in the gross anatomy lab, with the echoes of “did that girl just run to the bathroom??” still swirling in my brain. Turns out, even after throwing up in the PhD student bathroom, the lingering formaldehyde will lead you to eating the largest dinner you’ve ever seen.

Two weeks later, I had somehow made it through to my first exam. Here’s where it gets a little rough. I hadn’t been to the gym in three weeks, I hadn’t gone grocery shopping once, and I had barely showered. Glamorous, I know (those med students on TikTok are lying to you about how fun it is out here). I felt like a wreck, and every time I tried to do something that wasn’t related to studying, it felt like I was wasting time that I could be cramming things into my brain. Genetics, sickle cell, HIV, glucose catabolism, testing sensitivities, anatomy of the back…it all felt like it was just too much. What if I failed? I had totally made a mistake…I didn’t belong here. Why did they let me in? I felt like a total fraud.

“Would the world really end if you failed your exam?” I had to think about that one for a minute when my therapist so cutely inquired as to my deepest, darkest fear. Yeah, honestly it felt like it would. But would it really? YES. At least that’s what my brain cell was telling me. To have worked so hard towards something and fail on such an epic proportion would be such a catastrophic event, that I couldn’t even fathom what the fallout would look like. I had no other fallback.

So I took the exam. And you know what? I passed. And I scored above the average. And I’m not saying that in your typical type A medical student stereotype. I’m saying that because it really changed my outlook on deserving to be here. I made it through and my brain cell now actually believes that I can possibly make it through this in one piece.

Hopefully four years from now I’ll read this and laugh at how dramatic I was being. TTYL.