Med School: Where Dwell the Lonely in Heart

Medical school is lonely.

It's a strange scenario. Most US med schools have class sizes that are less than 200 students. There's even one school out there with an entire class size of just 100 students. Can you imagine? My undergraduate biology lecture class was larger than that.

So, med school is like a small village. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone is friends with everyone. Within the first few months of school, everyone in your class knows where you live, what college you went to, whether you're single, whether you're dating someone else in the class...you get the picture. In an apocalyptic sense, nothing about you is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known. Your life becomes transparent to 199 other people. That's just the nature of medical school.

Everyone knows who you are. And yet, medical school is utterly and painfully lonely.

What's the reason for this conundrum? The thing is, if you want to do well on your classes and board exams, your life becomes a routine of classes in the morning and endless of hours studying in the afternoon and well through the night. Shower, sleep, (oh yeah, maybe eat too), wake up, aaaaaand repeat. The only way you can have a social life is by going to class to see other people. Your weekend, which used to be pleasantly entertaining during college, gets whittled down to a routine two days of studying interrupted by one event: Sunday morning liturgy. You see pictures of your other non-medical-school friends on Facebook having the time of their lives on a beautiful sunny spring day, and you're painfully reminded of why you can't join them.

Loneliness is real.

But what I've discovered is, one of the best ways to combat loneliness is to a) stop feeling sorry for yourself and b) remember what God has blessed you with.

What are your blessings? Need a reminder? Remember how happy you were when you got that first acceptance letter from a medical school? Look around your room while you're reading this blog. Appreciate the comfortable bed you will sleep in tonight, and remember the homeless on the streets of New York. Take a glance at your picture of Christ, and remember those who have no Church to turn to. Look through your phone's contact list, and remember those whose families have turned them away out of hatred and division.

Loneliness is real. But blessings are real too.

A list of other ways I've learned to deal with loneliness:

1) Remember always to thank God for His blessings in your life.
2) Pray, pray, pray. Pray constantly. Pray always. Pray without ceasing.
3) Never ever ever stop going to church services!! This is KEY to living a balanced life.
4) Remember who your true, genuine, God-given friends are, and make the effort to keep in touch with them.
5) Listen to music while you study, if you are able, particularly classical music. It helps you focus and calms your soul. Beethoven's 9th is a particular favorite.
6) Avoid facebook. It doesn't help when that particularly annoying friend of yours posts a million selfies of him/herself and all your friends at some restaurant.
7) Use your break times from studying wisely. Don't just sit and watch TV. Take a walk with a friend, go to the gym and get those endorphins flowing. Read a book, paint a picture, do something productive for your brain.
8) Remember who you are, where you belong, what your passions are, what makes you happy. What is it that drives you? Following a particular sport? Training for a marathon? Saving the whales? Whatever works.
9) Friends and family. They're so important.
10) Remember that God didn't necessarily promise you happiness. More on this to come in a later blog.

So, yes, loneliness is real, but don't forget that blessings are real, too.

Hello all you Coptic MDs!!!

This blog is geared towards American Copts currently enrolled in any type of graduate school (ie medical school, dental school, PA school, DO school, etc) that by its nature inflicts severe stress on its students. Have you ever heard the phrase: "medical school is like drinking from a fire hose"?

Well, if not, don't worry - you'll come to know and understand what it means very intimately: it'll be your mantra for the duration of your time as a health professional student.

I started this blog, "Coptic Rx," because I believe that very few people truly understand what it's like to be a medical student. People say they understand....but they don't. People think they can imagine what the stress is like, but they can't. Let's be real here. You can't understand what it's like unless you've gone through it yourself. Period.

And yeah, it can be annoying when people try to sympathize with you, "Ya habibty, I know what it's like," and inside you're asking, "Really Tant?...." but at least they're doing the Christian thing by "weeping with those who weep."

But really, the worst thing is when people try to belittle the amount of stress med school inflicts on you. "Come on, bro, it's really not that bad...." or "Why you upset all the time, bro?" or better yet, "Why you don't hang out with us after church anymore, bro?" Maybe because "I'VE GOT AN ANATOMY EXAM TOMORROW PEOPLE!! DOES NO ONE UNDERSTAND??"

Well, that's the thing. Most people don't understand. Except for those few like yours truly and other lucky med/dental/PA/DO/what have you students out there going through exactly the same thing.

So that's one side of it. The other side is, not only are you a medical student, but you're also Coptic. Aaaahhh yes, there's your strings attached. It's hard enough being a medical student, a period of your life when you're asked to give 100% of yourself, your time, effort, and skills to your studies. But as Copts, we strive to give 100% of ourselves, our time, effort, and talents to Christ and the Church.

So how does that work? How can anyone possibly give more than what they have?

Have you ever felt, as a medical student, that you've been torn between the two - school and church? You haven't gone to Sunday School in weeks, but really, who has time for that with these two pharm exams coming up? You're about to go to sleep, utterly exhausted, at 2 am in the morning after a long night of studying physiology and you realize you haven't touched your Bible for the last three days? You suffer through another humiliating day on rotations being pimped by your attending, and you know you should "turn the other cheek," but all you really want to do is give your attending a piece of your mind?

Well, if you've ever been in those situations, this blog is for you, because, don't worry, there are other Copts out there trying to figure out the same things.

So I hope it helps. Enjoy. Now get back to studying :)