Grateful for the Opportunities to “Struggle”

Although my younger sisters might tell me this word is no longer in vogue (I recently learned the word “clout” went in and out of style), I admit to contributing to the widespread over-use of the word “struggle.” I love medical school. I have made kind friends, I met my significant other with whom I now share a small and cozy home, and I have enjoyed the opportunity of a lifetime: I am studying something I love with the security of a lifelong fulfilling career at the end. Yet, why is it I and many around me speak of the “struggle?”

Medical school is not easy. There is significant pressure to perform. There is pressure to perform on tests, on demand in clinical setting, and in the operating room (though honestly—medical students’ performances in the operating room are basically just whether or not we can make it through a whole case without contaminating ourselves). Hours are long and students come from all different backgrounds, feeling varying amounts of financial stress, pressure from family, or, for some of my most impressive colleagues, actually raising children while going through this process.

I have to be proactive about practicing gratitude. It was hard to feel grateful while setting an alarm clock for 3:30 am after getting home at 9 pm or to feel appreciative of yet another anxiety-provoking exam looming in the weeks ahead.  But the “struggle” of being in medical school is a product of the tremendous opportunities I have had in my life. The struggle is a consequence of years of support from my family, friends, and professors. Most of all, it is a struggle I chose and do not for a moment regret choosing. Many patients I have seen face tremendous challenges, struggling with diseases they did not choose, diseases that do not grant them intellectual enrichment, respect from their community, or a generous salary to share with the ones they love.

As I am enjoying the relatively slower pace of my final year of medical school, I am reflecting on my time in school and also bracing myself for the intensity of residency. The weekly hours will match my most rigorous week while in medical school, but repeated week after week for four years. I will for the first time feel true primary responsibility for my patients, a stress that is only imagined as a medical student. Time for sleep, exercise, and family will be limited. It will be challenging beyond what I can honestly conceive of without having experienced it myself. Yet, it too will be another four years of opportunity. It will be four years of opportunity to learn, to hone a skillset I will use for a lifetime to help others, and to make new life-long connections with co-residents and faculty who will be woven into the overwhelming web of support created from others during this journey so far. Although I have not lived a life free of struggle, medical school is not a struggle. It is a gift.

— Ari