#lemonsnidget

[lemonysnidget]

what made you decide on medical school and how are you liking it? you're very good at analysis and seem to be very good at literature, so did you ever consider studying the arts? :)

While I haven’t enjoyed all parts of medical school (no one goes to medical school to be a med student, you go to be a doctor), I have just started my fourth year, so I’m about ten months away from achieving my goal of becoming a doctor. I’m pretty excited about that.

As for what brought me here... well, that was a long journey. Science and public health have always interested me, but so have the humanities. I studied the humanities and social sciences primarily in college, and I decided that I wanted to study public health in my last semester... so I had to take classes as a post-bac student after graduation to apply to an MPH program... but taking biology and learning about medicine, I decided I wanted to be a MD/MPH. So that’s what I’ve been working on for a while now. 

I have considered going into literature. In high school, I was pretty sure I’d wind up becoming a college professor. And then in college I learned about how unpleasant it could be to work in academia, and I just didn’t want to do that. It’s a life that you really have to want in order to feel happy and content. I love literature. I love languages. I love analysis. But I want to spend the next several decades of my life still loving all that! I don’t think I would if I had decided to go the PhD route. 

Just because you love something, that doesn’t mean it’s the best career path for you. And even if you choose something that doesn’t seem related, you can wind up bringing a lot of your hobbies and passions into that field. For example, I’m very involved in the medical humanities community. I read and write quite a lot. I create art that has been published in my school’s magazines - I’ve made the cover for our research magazine two years in a row! I definitely still do a lot with the humanities and creative arts. I just have it set up so it’s something I do entirely for me. And that might not be the best for everyone, but I am glad that I’ve gone down this path. 

Thanks for asking! :)