The Challenges of a Medical Student
Becoming a medical and healthcare professional is consistently getting more difficult, an unfortunate reality for society’s most important backbone. As seen by the tough entrance and selection at each step, the long and gruesome hours, and the years of commitment involved, medical school students face many challenges as they inch closer to their dreams.
Forget being a doctor—applying to one day become a physician comes with endless difficulties. Medical schools consistently require high standards, with more people being denied admittance than becoming doctors. Unfortunately, this makes competition for limited spots very fierce and cutthroat. Prospective medical students face often strict GPA requirements, requiring academic excellence from the start of a student’s undergraduate years. Furthermore, the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) serves as a gatekeeper for many students, demanding months and months of preparation and commitment to the exam. Test prep websites write how the MCAT is “an extremely difficult exam, […] perhaps the toughest graduate school entrance exam in the US.” However, students also often face difficulty with medical school interviews, which can range from traditional panel interviews to the multiple mini-interview (MMI) format. These interviews can add another layer of challenges to the admissions process, as they require on-the-spot thinking and answering. Once admitted, medical students face an even larger academic load. This pressure causes “60% of students [to report] mental health concerns and 60% [to be] worried [about] how clinician shortages would affect their workload.” The same article discusses how, due to academic pressure, “seniors are forsaking the traditional path of patient care for a diverse array of non-clinical careers, from consulting and finance to biotech and health policy.”
Medical students also have to grapple with the emotional and mental problems that arise as full-time medical students. The pressures of medical school often lead to high levels of stress and burnout. In fact, “medical student exposure to stressors is associated with depression, burnout, somatic distress, decreases in empathy, serious thoughts about dropping out of medical school, suicidal ideation, and poor academic performance,” explaining how ever-present stressors, from demanding exams to the responsibility of patient care, can take a significant toll on their emotional and mental well-being. Moreover, students face the complex challenge of finding effective coping mechanisms to manage these emotional burdens, including having trouble relying on support networks through friends and family and accessing mental health services. This is often because of the stressors that medical students are put under, including “patient suffering, death, breaches of patient safety,” and how this treatment is constantly normalized.
Although there will be challenges ahead, these complexities do not, and should not, deter the aspiring medical professional: driven by a passion for healing and a commitment to making a difference in the world of healthcare, they persevere. However, as the medical field changes in the coming years, pre-med students need to understand what they’re getting into.
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“Challenges for Medical Students - Health Action Campaign.” Healthactionresearch.org.uk, 2020, www.healthactionresearch.org.uk/mental-health/challenges-for-medical-student/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.
Picton, Aled, et al. “Why Do Students Struggle in Their First Year of Medical School? A Qualitative Study of Student Voices.” BMC Medical Education, vol. 22, no. 1, 16 Feb. 2022, bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-022-03158-4, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03158-4. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.
Aziz, Anbreen, et al. “What Problems Make Students Struggle during Their Undergraduate Medical Education? A Qualitative Exploratory Study.” Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, vol. 36, no. 5, 27 June 2020, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7372650/, https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.5.2267. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.
Densen, Peter. “Challenges and Opportunities Facing Medical Education.” Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, vol. 122, 2011, pp. 48–58, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3116346/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.
“How Hard Is the MCAT?” Test Prep Insight, May 2024, testprepinsight.com/resources/how-hard-is-the-mcat/#:~:text=Well%2C%20there’s%20no%20reason%20to,school%20is%20510%20to%20511. Accessed 5 Sept. 2024.
“Beyond the Stethoscope: The Growing Appeal of Non-Traditional Med Careers.” Doximity.com, 2024, opmed.doximity.com/articles/beyond-the-stethoscope-the-growing-appeal-of-non-traditional-med-careers. Accessed 5 Sept. 2024.
