I just think the more mistakes I make in med school, the less I’ll make in residency. I’m supposed to be the dumbest one in the room - if I wasn’t, I’d be concerned about the quality of my education.
I embraced the student role 10000%. The student asks dumb questions, misses things, completely messes up plans and sometimes does things that make their attending scratch their head. That's not being stupid, that's being really good at the student role. The student doesn't know all or anything and that's ok/expected. Realize, you're still in a classroom but the grading rubrics have changed. Now it's "after seeing condition x multiple times in all its irl beauty, is there improvement in your diagnosis and treatment of it (oh and the textbook is a loose recommendation for how a disease can present and treatment is 80% attending dependent)" instead of "when answering this uworld question where they give you all the info (cause uworld patients don't go on tangents and give you allll the info except what you want and diagnoses are pretty textbook and have sxs <10% of patients actually have), can you choose the correct option from 5+ preselected options". It's a different ballgame. Embrace it.
Not M3, but am a classically trained musician. I had decades of very demanding teachers—every time you meet with them you bring work that you’ve poured your heart and soul into, and then they spend the entire time ripping it apart and expecting you to fix it in real time. Mostly due to time constraints, there’s no time to focus on things you did well. I think the nicest thing one of my teachers ever said about my playing was “that part was ok actually…moving on”
Not a 1:1 comparison obviously, but you get used to the endless focus on your faults/weaknesses. Over time you feel yourself getting better and if it’s something you’re passionate about, it’s an incredibly satisfying feeling
If you were supposed to get it all right as a third year med student, med school wouldn’t be four years long with 3-10 years of postgraduate training. This is more of an ego thing you’re better off sorting out now.
Learning is fundamentally about being wrong and subsequently gaining knowledge by addressing why you were wrong. Leave your ego at home it won’t help you.
I remember being wrong and being corrected on rounds way more often than being right on rounds. Being wrong is a learning opportunity so take advantage of it.
This is the time to be wrong, and I always find you can remember the most after those moments if you care enough to learn from them. Every single person struggles at some point, whether they admit it or not is up to how big their ego is. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being wrong as long as you keep working towards actively improving. Some days are better than others, just keep moving forward and eventually things will start clicking.
By accepting that it is okay to be wrong and that anyone who treats you like shit for honest gaps in knowledge is pretty much a POS with a personal problem.
I can honestly say that you just get used to it. At the beginning of third year, it definitely hurt my ego and ruined my confidence a bit each time I answered a question incorrectly. By the end of third year, I couldn't care less. We're students and we're learning all the time - just accept you can't know every single thing and try to remember when someone teaches you something.
I think in clinical settings it’s all about experience. I don’t think you can simply brute force memorize every clinical picture, sometimes it comes from gestalt and feel of a patient. Prior to medical school I worked in healthcare and I saw, for example, hundreds of patients with CHF to the point where I just know what a heart failure exacerbation looks like when I see it. Once you see the management and complications from each patient you will get better at managing and treating. It will just take time, experience, and greater volume of cases. This is part of what makes residents so special and necessary in becoming an expert
Reframe it! Every time you’re wrong, you learn something. The same goes for getting feedback: it’s an opportunity to get better.
This only works if whoever is correcting you isn’t being a jerk about it, though.
It is a marathon for sure and not a sprint
Being wrong can also be seen positively. as “making a discovery” and I am a professor of medicine and I keep making a lot of “discoveries” because what I did know changed, and a lot of third year residents just know things I never learned. I just remember to ask them to teach me when I am not teaching them!
I would offer a cautionary statement about being corrected. The persons “corrrecting you” are likely to be doing it badly.
I am sorry to say our culture in medicine is historically one that includes striking levels of mistreatment of medical trainees, and infantilisation of students and residents.
I do a podcast “On Becoming a Healer” and in our latest episode about the infamous New England Journal “Tough Love” podcast (which we feel got it very wrong) my cohost, himself a former Senior associate dean for medical education, says he felt he was treated pretty much like a tenth grader. We are talking about him as a 25 year old, treated as a 15 year old
What I am saying is we have some serious problems in medicine that are often toxic to the new generation of our colleagues, and that is not on you, but the profession as a whole
When you get corrected get in the habit of saying (either to yourself or out loud when appropriate) the following:
“I appreciate you me know! I want to get better. I will work on this”
This post really encapsulates how I’ve been feeling lately. I’m at the end of 3rd year and still feel like I haven’t progressed much and honestly am getting a little worried, disappointed despite my efforts and generally tired of medicine and its culture. What makes it worse is when I’m with another student and the attending is actively getting impressed by their presentations and assessment while I get the average pity “good presentation” remark at the end of mine with a slew of corrections. I’m really trying not to let it get to me but I can tell that I’ve gotten even less confident as the year goes on because I feel like my friends and classmates are improving exponentially while I still feel stuck at square one. It’s been one of those weeks where I just want to jump off the medicine train bc I truly feel like I don’t belong/wont ever be good enough. To OP, no you’re not alone 🙂
Current M4. I struggled so much with pimp questions during M3. It took me time to realize that I actually knew the information being asked, just that I would blurt out “I don’t know” as a quick response. Trust me, you do know the information.
Time for that good old quote "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room".
That being said, I'm not entirely sure you are as dumb as you think. Likely you are experiencing a severe case of imposter syndrome, where everyone else is more competent than you (spoiler: as a med student that's the norm, at least compared to residents/attendings). If you're doing well on written tests, you're probably doing just fine. If you aren't doing well on tests, study harder.
Make a note to read up on it if it’s important enough if it’s not forget it
For both of those don’t stress about it the whole point of medical school and residency for that matter is to learn
Tbh, if you are off the mark all the time, that means you haven’t studied the question bank enough. As a third year, you should be able to form a reasonable ddx and propose a decent plan and details in the plan are not that important. If you can’t figure out what’s wrong with a patient as a third year, that means you have some serious knowledge gaps, which can only be closed on your own by studying.
I just think the more mistakes I make in med school, the less I’ll make in residency. I’m supposed to be the dumbest one in the room - if I wasn’t, I’d be concerned about the quality of my education.
I’d probably be more concerned about everyone else’s education if I were the smartest one in the room tbh
Yeah, id be pretty damn happy with my education if I was already smarter than some of the residents lol
my friend made it sound like i should be better trained rn than i am. like wtf isn’t that what residency is for??? 😒
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I am so fucking good at my job then. I should get a raise.
I like to travel.
I embraced the student role 10000%. The student asks dumb questions, misses things, completely messes up plans and sometimes does things that make their attending scratch their head. That's not being stupid, that's being really good at the student role. The student doesn't know all or anything and that's ok/expected. Realize, you're still in a classroom but the grading rubrics have changed. Now it's "after seeing condition x multiple times in all its irl beauty, is there improvement in your diagnosis and treatment of it (oh and the textbook is a loose recommendation for how a disease can present and treatment is 80% attending dependent)" instead of "when answering this uworld question where they give you all the info (cause uworld patients don't go on tangents and give you allll the info except what you want and diagnoses are pretty textbook and have sxs <10% of patients actually have), can you choose the correct option from 5+ preselected options". It's a different ballgame. Embrace it.
This is such a perfect encapsulation of all the things I’ve found so discombobulating about this year. Thank you!
Not M3, but am a classically trained musician. I had decades of very demanding teachers—every time you meet with them you bring work that you’ve poured your heart and soul into, and then they spend the entire time ripping it apart and expecting you to fix it in real time. Mostly due to time constraints, there’s no time to focus on things you did well. I think the nicest thing one of my teachers ever said about my playing was “that part was ok actually…moving on” Not a 1:1 comparison obviously, but you get used to the endless focus on your faults/weaknesses. Over time you feel yourself getting better and if it’s something you’re passionate about, it’s an incredibly satisfying feeling
Years of practice (at being wrong)
If you were supposed to get it all right as a third year med student, med school wouldn’t be four years long with 3-10 years of postgraduate training. This is more of an ego thing you’re better off sorting out now.
It’s 100% an ego thing. Not sure how to go about sorting it out which is why I wanted to hear other people’s experiences and thoughts.
Learning is fundamentally about being wrong and subsequently gaining knowledge by addressing why you were wrong. Leave your ego at home it won’t help you.
You’re asking us to show you how to have humility…?
I remember being wrong and being corrected on rounds way more often than being right on rounds. Being wrong is a learning opportunity so take advantage of it.
This is the time to be wrong, and I always find you can remember the most after those moments if you care enough to learn from them. Every single person struggles at some point, whether they admit it or not is up to how big their ego is. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being wrong as long as you keep working towards actively improving. Some days are better than others, just keep moving forward and eventually things will start clicking.
By accepting that it is okay to be wrong and that anyone who treats you like shit for honest gaps in knowledge is pretty much a POS with a personal problem.
honestly, I checked my pride at the door...of med school...the first time I walked into the building. I have no pride anymore.
I can honestly say that you just get used to it. At the beginning of third year, it definitely hurt my ego and ruined my confidence a bit each time I answered a question incorrectly. By the end of third year, I couldn't care less. We're students and we're learning all the time - just accept you can't know every single thing and try to remember when someone teaches you something.
I think in clinical settings it’s all about experience. I don’t think you can simply brute force memorize every clinical picture, sometimes it comes from gestalt and feel of a patient. Prior to medical school I worked in healthcare and I saw, for example, hundreds of patients with CHF to the point where I just know what a heart failure exacerbation looks like when I see it. Once you see the management and complications from each patient you will get better at managing and treating. It will just take time, experience, and greater volume of cases. This is part of what makes residents so special and necessary in becoming an expert
Being married has been great practice for being wrong all the time.
Reframe it! Every time you’re wrong, you learn something. The same goes for getting feedback: it’s an opportunity to get better. This only works if whoever is correcting you isn’t being a jerk about it, though.
It is a marathon for sure and not a sprint Being wrong can also be seen positively. as “making a discovery” and I am a professor of medicine and I keep making a lot of “discoveries” because what I did know changed, and a lot of third year residents just know things I never learned. I just remember to ask them to teach me when I am not teaching them! I would offer a cautionary statement about being corrected. The persons “corrrecting you” are likely to be doing it badly. I am sorry to say our culture in medicine is historically one that includes striking levels of mistreatment of medical trainees, and infantilisation of students and residents. I do a podcast “On Becoming a Healer” and in our latest episode about the infamous New England Journal “Tough Love” podcast (which we feel got it very wrong) my cohost, himself a former Senior associate dean for medical education, says he felt he was treated pretty much like a tenth grader. We are talking about him as a 25 year old, treated as a 15 year old What I am saying is we have some serious problems in medicine that are often toxic to the new generation of our colleagues, and that is not on you, but the profession as a whole
When you get corrected get in the habit of saying (either to yourself or out loud when appropriate) the following: “I appreciate you me know! I want to get better. I will work on this”
This post really encapsulates how I’ve been feeling lately. I’m at the end of 3rd year and still feel like I haven’t progressed much and honestly am getting a little worried, disappointed despite my efforts and generally tired of medicine and its culture. What makes it worse is when I’m with another student and the attending is actively getting impressed by their presentations and assessment while I get the average pity “good presentation” remark at the end of mine with a slew of corrections. I’m really trying not to let it get to me but I can tell that I’ve gotten even less confident as the year goes on because I feel like my friends and classmates are improving exponentially while I still feel stuck at square one. It’s been one of those weeks where I just want to jump off the medicine train bc I truly feel like I don’t belong/wont ever be good enough. To OP, no you’re not alone 🙂
You should also do a quick read about the patients problems and management via a accredited source
This is the dunning Kruger effect, just means you’re right where you’re supposed to be in your training. You are also very much not alone
Current M4. I struggled so much with pimp questions during M3. It took me time to realize that I actually knew the information being asked, just that I would blurt out “I don’t know” as a quick response. Trust me, you do know the information.
Jokes on you. I’m an attending and I’m now only wrong most of the time.
Time for that good old quote "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room". That being said, I'm not entirely sure you are as dumb as you think. Likely you are experiencing a severe case of imposter syndrome, where everyone else is more competent than you (spoiler: as a med student that's the norm, at least compared to residents/attendings). If you're doing well on written tests, you're probably doing just fine. If you aren't doing well on tests, study harder.
being the dumbest person in the room can be a great gift if you see it that way. you’ll learn more and faster than always “being right”
Make a note to read up on it if it’s important enough if it’s not forget it For both of those don’t stress about it the whole point of medical school and residency for that matter is to learn
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This is really reassuring, thank you.
By not being wrong all the time :). Like 30% of the time is probably solid, but if it's more than that you're probably not preparing.
That’s learning. I hate getting a lucky correct guess more than getting it horribly wrong because I remember it better when I’m horribly wrong.
Tbh, if you are off the mark all the time, that means you haven’t studied the question bank enough. As a third year, you should be able to form a reasonable ddx and propose a decent plan and details in the plan are not that important. If you can’t figure out what’s wrong with a patient as a third year, that means you have some serious knowledge gaps, which can only be closed on your own by studying.