Who Shouldn't Apply For Medical School?

Every year hundreds of people apply for medical school - who really shouldn't!

Let's have a serious chat about WHY you're applying and WHEN is best for you!

As you've probably heard me say a million times already - I applied for medical school 7 consecutive years in a row before finally being accepted. And I will be the first to admit that if I got in much earlier I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN READY! Of course at the time I thought I was ready, its not until the brilliance of hindsight I can now really see how terribly things could have gone for me if I had gotten in straight after finishing my biomedical degree.

This blog is going to talk about some things that we tend to avoid chatting about, that are important to consider. Some of these things might make you have a strong emotional reaction - maybe because deep down you think its describing you, and you don't want it to because not many of us feel comfortable admitting we need more time to do things - but I want to tell you why its so important to get out of that toxic mindset ASAP!

All premeds PANIC at the thought of not being accepted into medical school. the daunting "but what will I do next" "what will I do with another year" really sets in hard and is scary for a lot of people - but I am here to tell you what I WISH someone who was wiser and been on this journey before me could have told me - THOSE YEARS ARE AN ABSOLUTE GIFT! Of course you won't realise it at the time, neither did I, I was too busy thinking "why am I such a failure at everything?" But now I realise how badly I needed those years and how freakin grateful I am to have had them!

So let's break down some bullshit together shall we!

Bullshit concept #1: Getting into medical school straight from undergrad is better than having "gap years"

WRONG.

Sure if you get in, any year of your life, im going to be jumping up and down for you, celebrating your amazing achievement and wanting to send you all my notes and links to all the stuff that got me through preclinical school! BUT there are VERY FEW humans on this earth that could not benefit from a year of "self development" between their undergrad and medical school.

I'm not saying "I took 7 years off and thats the perfect amount of time" omg no. I created Med Mentors to help people avoid 7 year of suspenseful GAMSAT filled hell like I endured to get here!

But I highly recommend taking 1-2 years between undergrad and medical school to become a human being.

If this suggestion strikes your interest even remotely - DO IT.

If the thought of it makes you feel physically sick - MY GOD YOU NEED TO DO IT.

Once you've been given your ticket into medical school its really difficult to get off the train. Some people take a year off here and there during medical school because of wanting to fulfil life goals outside of medicine (if you don't have those - get some), having a baby, caring for loved ones, health issues, burnout and mental health issues etc. But those who take gap years are pretty rare. The rarity of those taking time off only seems to become rarer once you're in the workforce, there is a certain layer of guilt that falls upon you in healthcare, you taking time off means more work for your colleagues which is why many doctors never call in sick, even when they need to. You also tend to feel like you need to keep going with your career progression and you cant just stop once you've got some momentum.

What I'm trying to say is, once you're in, you're in. Many of those in medicine are a particular Type A personality type (more on this to come) and once they are in they just keep planning that next step of career development and career progression and then all of a sudden you're 80 years old and all you ever did was medicine.

I love medicine - but if your'e entire life is only medicine, and thats it - you just wasted your life. There is a lot more out there you should be loving and investing time into and having crazy goals, OTHER than only medicine!

If you are one of these amazing, smart, well rounded, wonderful people who have already developed some life goals outside of medicine (again, if you don't have these - stop what you are doing - and go get some) Maybe you want to learn 100 songs on guitar, you want to take up a sport, you want to be a cheerleader, you want to work in some random profession, you want to work at all, you want to travel (maybe if Corona ever ends), maybe you want to volunteer, get married, have kids, write a book, do research, go to the olympics, go on big brother ANYTHING YOU WANT - do it before medical school if you want to - because you'll never get that time back!

The number one piece of advice I hear from my peers who got in straight outta undergrad is that "if I could go back I'd take a well deserved gap year before med"

Don't put your life on hold for medicine - not ever

If you have life goals that don't fit with getting into medical school next year so you have to put them off to "one day" - just don't apply for medical school yet - it's totally okay!

Medical school is NOT GOING ANYWHERE. It will be there waiting for you when you have lived the one life you were gifted to the fullest and you are ready!

All this pressure everyone puts themselves under to get into medical school right away - IS ABSOLUTE BULL SHIT - read it again my friend - that weight on your shoulder that you need to get in ASAP - IS JUST FUCKING CRAP! Please do yourself a favour and pick that weigh up off those shoulders of yours and throw it out a window and just get rid of it forever. It's only causing you unnecessary stress.

We have people in their 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's and even a 75 year old in our medical school right now!

You have your entire lifetime to get in and complete medical school - its not going to disappear if you don't get in next year or the year after, or even the year after that.

PLEASE stop trying to rush it!

The pressure your parents are putting on you, or society, or your peers - gotta get in gotta get in gotta get in - its all made up. It's not real. It feels real. But once you do inevitably get in, you realise how stupid it all is and regret getting so sucked in and upset and stressed over absolutely nothing.

Let break down the pro's and con's of getting into medical school right out of high-school or undergrad:

Pro's:

You're younger than most of your peers by the time you get into the hospital, this theoretically means you will serve more years in your life as a doctor , which could potentially lead to more savings.

A common misconception is that you will complete a training program and become the top of your field sooner/at a younger age - but this is not always the case and become less and less streamlined due to the huge bottle neck of too many medical students no where near enough training programs (some of us will never get into any training program in our entire career - but thats another blog to come)

Con's:

Your'e younger than most of your peers by the time you get into the hospital - this is SO obvious even in 3rd year. The first two years of preclinical school and every student straight out of biomedicine was absolutely in their element , like a continuation of their previous degree. But it becomes glaringly obvious now in the hospital who has had ANY life experience before, and who has not. Those coming straight from and undergrad often fall behind with personal skills and find it harder to talk to patients, of course theres years a head of them to get used to this and practice - but those who have worked/volunteered/had a life outside of just studying before, in any career/field/adventure are already well ahead of the game with patient interaction, which gets them ahead so much faster later in their career.

Hospitals want to work with people that are easy to work with, get along well with their team, don't need hand holding, patients love them and so do everyone else - people with more life experience often fit this description more than people who have only ever studied and are yet to really figure out the workplace, the world or themselves.

This is why schools like Deakin offer a bonus when applying for anyone with a year of health worker work OR 2 years full time work in any profession, and schools like Notre Dame and Wollongong have portfolios - because life experience is worth A LOT more in medicine than many premeds can appreciate yet. TAKE THE TIME TO GET THAT EXPERIENCES AND THOSE BONUS POINTS!

If you get straight in after undergrad, thats awesome, but dont assume it's going to fast track your career for you. Often that one or two years of 'set back' if you dont get accepted right away set you up with experiences that are invaluble to the rest of your career and thats actually what fast tracks many future doctors in the end - So PLEASE stop thinking of it as failing because it has SO many benefits! PLEASE stop stressing like your life depends on getting in this year, because you will get in if you want it bad enough, you just will, but the extra years you get in your journey are so incredibly invaluable and if you want those experiences and to take some pressure off yourself PLEASE DO THAT!!!!!!!

If you don't get into medical school right away THANK GOSH - think of all the incredible adventures you're going to have to add to a portfolio, learn from, and become a WAY better version of yourself which will makes you a far better doctor in the long run!

Just take the arbitrary weight off your shoulders about needing to get in right away - you can get in anytime and its going to be amazing - do it at your own pace - not anybody else's!

Take home message:

if you get straight in: YAY!

if you don't get straight in: YAY!!

Who else shouldn't apply for medical school?

Type A People

A lot of medical students have a Type A personality.

What is a Type A personality I hear some of you asking?

The theory was actually created by two cardiologists, who also believe that those with Type A personalities are more likely to develop coronary artery disease!

"In this hypothesis, personalities that are more competitive, perfectionists, highly organized, ambitious, impatient, highly aware of time management and/or aggressive are labeled Type A."

Sounding familiar to anyone?? *raises hand*

"People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving "workaholics". They push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence.People with Type A personalities experience more job-related stress and less job satisfaction. Interestingly, those with Type A personalities do not always outperform those with Type B personalities. Depending on the task and the individual's sense of time urgency and control, it can lead to poor results when there are complex decisions to be made. However, research has shown that Type A individuals are in general associated with higher performance and productivity. Type A people were said to be hasty, impatient, impulsive, hyperalert, potentially hostile, and angry" - Wikipedia (not the most credible sources but its getting the point across!)

So why shouldn't these people apply for medical school?

I'm not say DON'T EVER apply for medical school if this description of traits fits you to a t.

But my biggest recommendation to you is before beginning medical school - TRY as hard as you can to get rid of some of these perfectionist traits - TRUST ME I can not adequately describe to you how much better life will be for you in medical school, if you try to let go of more things in life. We can't control everything - and thats OKAY!

I have always been a pain in the ass Type A person. When I was younger in my undergrad and especially during my honours year at the Royal Women’s Hospital - I was at the peak of my Type A personality, and the peak of my eating disorder.

I was a GOD DAMN NIGAHTMARE to be around, externally and internally.

The perfectionist within me and the traits that came with it did help get me the GPA I needed to get into medical school, so I am grateful to them in some regard, but I probably could have done it being more of a Type B and been less of a control freak and been more happy too?

But I knew that being so short tempered, bossy, rigid, thinking I was always right, overpowering, and kinda mean wasn't going to get me anywhere in medicine - this profession isn't about me, or my achievements?

A lot of Type A personality type seek a hell of a lot of external validation for their achievements etc. Medicine is not the place to give you the external validation you are looking for Type A friends. You will never receive the validation you crave, especially in regard to the level of work and sacrifice you will be putting in.

This might come as a painful shock to my Type A buddies - but medicine is not about you. and it never will be. Doing medicine and becoming a doctor does not make you special or better than anybody else out there. It is just another of the millions of job choices out there, except you get covered in every bodily fluid imaginable on a daily basis, you don't get many days off, you will work yourself to the bone and give up so much of yourself and your life, and thats just considered the bare minimum.

If you're doing this hoping for eternal glorious validation for just how wonderful, special, gifted, talented, and smart you are - go into business or something because medicine won't give that to you.

Medicine is about the patients - not about the doctors. Greys Anatomy might have you fooled here. Your patient is never going to ask you "did you get the top score in your second year finals?" So don't kill yourself trying to be that person for absolutely no bloody reason what so ever. No-one will care which university you studied at, what scores you got, what your major was in undergrad. None of it matters.

Not long into your first year of medicine this phenomenon sweeps through the entire cohort - suddenly after years of being the top of your classes, the smarted in every room, identifying yourself as an intelligent person destined for the challenges that only medicine can offer you - you realise suddenly youre in a cohort of people who are exactly the same as you. You are on a completely even playing field. Every single person in the room has the same chance of being the top student that day and chances are it might never be you again.

How are you going to cope with that if you are a Type A personality? Judging by the mental health statistics of most medical cohorts: not well. It's a loss of identity for many people which is a sort of crisis. It's so incredibly common that most schools will try to sit you down and tell you its going to happen in the orientation week, but it won't be until your first set of assessments you realise "oh my god, I didn't think they were talking about ME". If you're lucky you might get the top grade again maybe once, maybe twice, depends how big your cohort is I guess, but get ready to start feeling plum average from now on and for the rest of your career friend!

If that thought is making you physically uncomfortable GOOD - probably time to start working on yourself and your coping mechanisms for these things now before getting in and having to juggle all of these struggles while also trying to keep up with the fire hydrant of information being blasted at you relentlessly every day.

I want to tell you this because the best thing that happened for me as a person and as a future doctor was the opportunity to take the time to change a lot of my Type A traits before starting medical school. It has made medical school SO much better!

I get stressed when I spend too much time with medical students who are still stuck in Type A ways. They catastrophes EVERYTHING! As a group medical students tend to be huge complainers, I feel so sorry for the staff running the programs having to deal with our endless whiny emails about absolute crap that at the time we think is THE biggest deal in the history of medicine.

I also feel many of my Type A tendencies trying to creep back in during the pandemic when everything feels like uncontrollable chaos, we Type A's try to take back control anywhere we can - and guys THATS JUST CAUSING YOU UNDUE STRESS FOR NO REASON.

PLEASE - if you feel that you are a perfectionist, control freak type of person, before you start medical school do some self development, learn to let go more.

Medicine is a marathon not a sprint. if you keep trying to get there at warp speed no amount of rest days is going to save you from the level of burnout youre going to find yourself in. You need to learn how to calm down, learn to relax, learn to unwind and go with the flow when times feel out of control. Work on not beating yourself up for failing - because medical school will show you every way you can fail, not matter how prepared you thought you were and how many sleepless nights you wasted.

Perfectionism will get you so far and help you achieve so much - but it always comes at a cost. Usually in the form of high levels of stress that quite often negatively impact other areas of your life. That inner voice that compells you to keep working harder simultaneously telling you that your effort is never good enough - you can still accomplish amazing things without this inner monologue making you feel like crap. You can actually do all the things you're aiming for AND be happy in the process!

Medicine is hard enough already without trying to control the uncontrollable.

Many medical school interviews even consider "perfectionism" as a red flag for entry. Many of us might think its a good answer to the question "what are your greatest strengths" or even worded strategically for a "what are your greatest weaknesses". But be careful, it could be taken as a warning that you won't be a good fit to medical school. Perfectionism in medicine has been heavily studied and the consensus is that perfectionism does not make anybody a better physician. It leads to poor mental health and wellbeing which is the number one cause of detrimental decisions or oversights in the hospital that lead to poor patient outcomes or even death. Not to mention a huge contibuting factor to the devestating physician suicide rates in our country. Medical schools are very up to date with this. They don't want you to become on of these awful statistics, nobody does - so please, take this seriously and start working on you!

Become open to being more flexible - you're going to need that with the never ending changes to the timetable, (with doctors being our teachers, if theres an emergency patient of clinic runs over time you can imagine how often things need to be rescheduled and often at the last minute) the way all of your study methods will suddenly stop working for new rotations (totally normal don't freak out about it, just keep rolling with the punches and feel keen to find new methods and get involved with your peers and see if some of their tips and tricks work for you too), working with people you otherwise probably wouldn't get long with etc (PBL - theres always at least one person you wish wasn't in your group, usually because their Type A traits are clashing with your own).

GET A HOBBY! Not one that has a goal or an achievement attached to it - just something you love and enjoy and maybe even suck at - if you cant find that, thats a big sign that you really need to! Yoga and mindfulness are great things to include to your daily routine, they're going to suck at the start because youre typically on hyperdrive 24/7 and these tasks require you to be still, but you really need some of this. It'll really improve your life more than you can appreciate!

This is a great book about the importance of mindfulness and being able to be more still as a doctor! Its the hyper speed, perfectionism, rush to do everything that causes the most mistakes in the hospital - this book is great for linking the relevance for making a change now to become the best doctor you can be in the future!

GET A PSYCHOLOGIST - I can not recommend this enough - for anybody wanting to do medicine really, you'll probably need one at some point during your medical degree, SO MANY OF US DO! Why not find a good one you get along with and knows you know and can help you build those coping mechanisms and strategies for stress and anxiety before you get into medical school! Psychologist are absolute gold for those working in healthcare - if you're going to refer your patients to one, one day, don't be a hypocrite, get your mental health to the best it can be so you can help your patients be their best as well!

A great website for finding a psychologist in Australia is: https://www.psychology.org.au

I like it in particular because you can find a psychologist by searching 'by issue' so you can get matched with someone in your area that socialises in the thing your'e wanting to improve!

I hope you take some of this advice on board, your'e allowed to!

I know there are many who won't take this on board, or might try to but then have it all washed away by their peers still stuck on the "need to get in now, need to get in now, need to get in now' train.

But this is your one life. Do ALL of the incredible things you want to, and some that you didnt think you wanted to. Because life starts at the end of our comfort zones. We become the person we are supposed to be through challenges, unexpected turn of events and chances were weren't too afraid of taking!

You might think not getting into medicine right away is a giant step back, but I promise you - it will more likely end up being 10 steps forward!