The semestr No. 9

This is my 9th semester (out of 12) at medical school. I have only 1,5 year left as a medical student.

It's incredible how fast time is passing. I can still remember myself being stressed during the first year and studying all days, all nights. I have to admit that this has changed (at least partially). My days are still long but I am not so stressed as I was during the first year. As our teachers (doctors and professors) told us at the beginning of the this year – It’s too late to quit med school now. We (my classmates and I) are aware of it and we are slowly preparing for becoming doctors.

Our motivation to study is not to only pass our exams, but also to become a better doctor. Everything we are studying now is incredibly important for our future practice. Because being a doctor is not only a profession, but also a social role, we are following some expectations from a society regarding our behavior, thinking and acting. But it is not only biomedical knowledge that is necessary for being a doctor. Today I had an exam in Medical Psychology – and the aim of this course was to learn how to communicate with patient in difficult situations (serious diagnoses, death, patients with cognitive decline or psychotic patients) - it is necessary to be skilled in such a thing as it the communication with our patients that makes us being “the doctor” they are going to remember and hopefully like. On the other hand medical psychology is also focused on “How to survive a medical profession”; we learn about burn out syndrome and how to prevent it. So from now on I am going to focus on seeing future complications in my life as a challenge and not as a problem, on good relationships (with family and friends) but also on physical activity. These three things are considered to be the most effective protecting factors for being stressed or experiencing burn out syndrome.

 

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