How to make it in Medical College?

Gary Neville, the great Manchester United right-back, in his autobiography recalled what he had to go through at the youth level before he was given an opportunity with the first team. Neville said that when his youth coach would tell him to run 6 miles in the morning, he would run 7. He and some of his teammates in the youth team that did this, made it to the first team. The others who did not put in the hard yards, did not.

A similar attitude is required in medical school. It is not a pre-requisite to be supremely intelligent in order to become a good doctor, just like how you don't have to be naturally gifted at everything to win trophies in football, like Neville. Of course, it helps to be able to learn things quickly, just as it is to have Messi's ability on the ball in football. But attitude and hard work is what shapes good doctors, much like it is essential for young footballers.

Ravel Morrison was once touted to be most talented prospect in English football since Paul Scholes but his career has gone nowhere due to a variety of off-field and personal reasons. Similarly, I know a lot of very bright young students who lose their way after becoming disillusioned with medicine as a whole.

Every medical student experiences doubts. "Am I good enough?" "How will I learn everything?" What makes the difference after many years is not how smart you were in the beginning but how persistent you were in learning things that you need to know.

One of professors told me that you will only start learning when you stop studying for yourself. Study for patients and you will always feel that you have more to learn. Studying for yourself is a selfish motivation, it won't make you go that extra mile for your patient. That extra mile is what will make the difference in a decades' time.

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