The path to becoming a healthcare professional is notorious for being less of a path and more of an arduous journey with a million obstacles littering the way. Those who apply for a medical degree Malaysia do so at their own peril. Unfortunately, the thousands of benefits that come with the title does not soften how difficult it is to graduate from medical school. If you’re wondering why exactly is becoming a doctor so difficult and largely discouraged for the faint-hearted, here are some major reasons.
There’s so many things you have to learn and master
Healthcare professionals literally hold their patients’ lives in their hands. Therefore, they have to know everything about everything. If they get one thing wrong or forget something, the repercussions would be catastrophic. Lives could be lost. Hence, when in medical school, these future doctors must study hard and often. There are so many different subjects focusing on the most minute things about our biology, medicine, technology and so much more. Not only must they read every textbook on every topic from cover to cover, they must also master what they have read. Biochemistry, neurology, anatomy, behavioral science, medical ethics; future doctors must know them all. Not to mention the board exams that the students will have to pass in order to graduate medical school.
You have to make sacrifices
Do you know that 10% of students drop out of medical school? Even though a vast majority of medical degree students graduate and become doctors, there’s still a big margin for dropouts. Research found that a factor for these students quitting is the fact that they have to make so many sacrifices. Though university can be fun, this isn’t usually the case for medical students. Earning a medical degree means that your social life becomes non-existent. With the amount of studying you have to do, there’s just no free time for you to see your family and friends, let alone enjoy things like night life or other forms of entertainment. You might even have to miss important things such as your mother’s birthday or your sister’s graduation in order to get things done. These sacrifices prove to be extremely depressing for students.
The challenges of real hands-on experience
Medical school isn’t just about learning theories and passing board exams. Usually in the third year of a medical degree course, students will start to have real interactions with patients. This is referred to as starting the clinical portion of medical school. These students will have rotation schedules so they will receive experience of working in every medical specialty such as surgery, pediatrics, radiology and much more. With this new hands-on training comes a whole host of different challenges. Some students discover that they are better at theory than practical training and experience depression. Others are unable to deal with the pressures of working with patients and being instructed to do a hundred different things by their superiors every day. No wonder clinical is seen as one of the hardest parts of medical school.
There’s no way of sugarcoating it. Gaining a medical degree is one of the most difficult things you will do in your lifetime, not even counting the challenges you will face after you graduate and become a medical practitioner. But with every cloud, there’s a silver lining. Focus on the good more than the bad and you will make it through.