Struggles of A Frustrated Medical Student

Jide
4 min readJan 10, 2023

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Me everytime I try to read upper and lower limb

If I were appointed to develop a motto for my college, it would be "We would break you to make you." I know it doesn’t exactly sound like a good motto, but it definitely feels like it.

I am in Part 2 — the supposed easiest class in pre-clinical. Yet, sleep is luxury. You know how you say you want to spoil yourself, then you decide to get two portions of Iya Sarah’s rice instead of your usual one portion? Trust that when I say I want to spoil myself, I am talking about a good 8 hours of sleep.

It usually feels like myths and stories when we hear “college is not for the weak.” But it is not. It really isn't.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places…." Ephesians 6:12

To us medical students, Paul wasn’t talking about the devil.

I am reading anatomy; it is safe to say nothing is funny. Can’t patients just point to where it hurts? I mean, why do we have to know what is posterior to what? Sighs

But college isn’t all bad. There is this pride in having people chant “shana” and look at you with admiration when you say you are a medical student. But then again, there is still something a bit patronizing about how they say it.

Didn’t you hear I have exams every month?

Just the other day, my roommate, Mj, almost gnawed a man down for calling him “Iwe” (book). So, from now till the end of our exams, steer clear of whining part 2 medical students.

The worst part of college is that getting into a relationship is a fool’s pipe dream. Flirting is exhaustive. We already have to bend Medicine over. We don’t need to bend Kemi too. But we can’t ask Medicine to come over. We need to ask Tola, the fine girl we saw last week at the library. After a night of letting go of all the exam frustrations, she starts asking, "what are we?"

I once told a girl to leave definitions to BCH and Physiology. I mean, I am not even getting those right, and you still want me to define us? Listen, you are the only thing I sleep on that doesn’t give me paper cuts.

I won’t say it doesn’t come with its perks. Non-medics love us. I once told a girl that I wanted to palpate her for revision. And she was down for it. The following day, Dr. Asafa asked for the location of the nipple while he was teaching the anatomy of the breast, and God, was that the first time I got a question right!

I probably sound like a womanizer. I should use palpating only clinically and for diagnosis. But learning is broad. And all forms of it are allowed. We will be having our incourses soon, so ignore me if you see me with a particular Tola. I am just looking for a fast way to get started with revision.

In college, results are scary. Unlike the non-hellish departments, we have negative marking. It is not enough that we have 500 pages of materials to perfectly understand. We also have to make sure we don’t pick the wrong options. When they paste our results, they ensure they keep our names next to it. So you can’t lie about your results as you did in part 1.

"What did you get in Zoo 101?"

"Oh, I haven’t seen it."

The conversation ends there. But in part 2, it goes like this:

"What did you get in Biochemistry?"

"Oh, I haven’t seen it."

"Oh, we have seen it though."

"You got 21."

These are the issues sincerely. A man can’t breathe anymore.

I think the reason I’m not too fond of Medicine is I don’t get to write. I once wrote a love poem; all I could put were terminologies from our cardiovascular system lecture. My heart dilates and....It was a long letter about diastole and systole.

I didn’t get the girl though. She said the heart doesn’t dilate. It is the eye that does that. Oh the Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy! I also don’t get to deliver content here regularly. We don’t catch a break in college. It keeps piling up. So sorry, I promise to do better this year.

Happy New Year.

See you next week

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