Moving Up the Med School Food Chain

Kendra Campbell -- It’s back to school time again. I just purchased all my new binders and notebooks, and refreshed my store of colored highlighters. Monday was the first day of classes at my school. Since I don’t actually have to attend the classes, I was planning on just staying home and watching them. But something told me that it might be fun to take a trip around campus. So, I walked down and checked out all the new faces.

Ahh, the innocence of all the first semesters! They walk around campus in complete oblivion, confusion, and excitation. For they are about to embark on one of the most challenging, grueling, and rewarding adventures of their lives: med school on an island in the middle of nowhere. Many of them are well prepared for the journey they are about to begin. Some of them have absolutely no clue what’s about to happen to them. But either way, they will all face new challenges, which they’ll have to overcome to survive.

I am both elated and worried for them -- because I know that some of them will pass with flying colors, while others will find out that they just don’t have what it takes. Sometimes I just want to grab them and shake them up a bit. I wish that I could lend them the wisdom that I’ve accrued in the year that I’ve been here. However I know that most of them will have to learn to survive by making their own mistakes.

The strange thing is that I am at the end of my basic science tour of duty. After this semester, I will have everything it takes to sit for the USMLE Step 1. I will then be moving on to the clinical years. So right now, I’m the “old school.” I am the highest up on the med school food chain of students. But in just four short months, I will become the “new school.” I will once again be the lowest on the food chain. I will be the one walking around with a dazed look on my face, while all the higher up students will be smiling as they watch me mutate into something new.

And so goes the progression through medical school. One day you’re at the top of your league, and the next day you’re right back down at the bottom. I think it’s a very good lesson in humility. No matter how high up you think you are, there is always someone who is higher. But that doesn’t make me the least bit sad. Actually, it gives me the motivation to keep going and to do the very best job that I can.