The Cardinal Sin...

... I have committed it.

I have suddenly realized just how much time has passed since my last post. Credit for this should go equally to the ridiculous amount of metabolism information I'm currently trying to stuff into my head and the way that the passage of time is forever changed by the course of medical school. Every day seems like one of the longest of my life, and yet somehow almost 2 months of school has flown by. This whole time-relativity thing is tricky. There seems to be a convincing dearth of time for the things that I really want/need to do, but the lecture by the guy who mumbles and can speak in the longest sentences humanly possible drags on at an unbelievably slow pace.

In other words - I'm sorry for neglecting you, dear blog.

Life has gotten considerably more stressful in the last several weeks. It could be the material (biochemistry/metabolism, with its infinitely detailed mechanisms that make me think I am going insane when I confuse glycolysis, glycogenesis, and glycogenolysis). It could be my impressive procrastination. Or, it could be the fact that psychologically I have hit the proverbial "wall." In looking around at my classmates, it seems that many of us have encountered just such a fate. We as a bunch are looking more bedraggled, more worn-down, less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Even those consummate optimists - the ones who show up to the 8AM lecture every day - are starting to fade. They still show up for the early morning lecture, but occasionally a few minutes late and looking decidedly unenthused. And, just the other day, I caught one of them napping discreetly.

What is happening to us?

The sheer volume of details and the realization that all of this knowledge will soon leave our short-term memories due to lack of use has outweighed the novelty of being in medical school. In fact, for most of us it rarely seems like what we thought medical school would be. Sure we have an occasional clinical day here or a shadowing opportunity there, but the bulk of our lives right now is spent elbow-deep in textbooks and class notes. I'm sure this is by no means a new occurrence. Probably countless classes of students ahead of us have hit this wall head-on. And now, here we are, too.

In the last week alone, I have personally witnessed several teary emotional breakdowns with critical questions: "Why can't I do this?" "Is this really all it's cracked up to be?" "What am I doing here?"

Now, this could be due to the generally high-strung nature of medical students in general. Or, it could be a symptom of the kind of lifestyle we have to lead in this education. In truth, it could be good training for the rest of our lives when on-call hours, life-and-death situations, and ethical dilemmas far outweigh any possible angst over learning the pentose phosphate pathway.

In either case, despite what people might say (you know the ones...), this is hard work. No amount of preparation in college can honestly make you ready to deal with the onslaught of personal dilemmas and the feeling of being sub-par once you're here. There is literally more work to be done than humanly possible.

For those of us who like to be super-human, that is a difficult pill to swallow.