You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake

This is not you

Just a quickie, but I just thought I'd share an experience I had yesterday that has really helped me deal with the self-doubt and associated shit that this week has brought to the surface.

I have a very good friend with whom I go drinking and she has a good friend who has just taken his entry exams for the Royal College of Surgeons.

Apparently the night before his exams, he too was wracked with self-doubt, suggested it was all too much, how could a person remember all this, he should chuck it all in now etc. etc.

My friend, Hazel, opined that this was just how doctors (and by extension, med students) are, full of self-doubt, neurotic and constantly feeling overwhelmed by the volume of knowledge they are expected to have.

So, in one respect, yay! I'm not behaving in an abnormal way, my negative emotions are validated and guess what? It doesn't mean everything is doom and gloom, it's probably just a emotional survival strategy.

In another respect, boo! I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake and hey, guess what? My emotions really aren't anything special!

*sigh* I jest, I'm feeling a lot better and more capable. And maybe just a little bit apprehensive about the future ;)

Have you got what it takes?

So it feels like I need to work on my clinical self-confidence.

I'm finding the transition going from senior staff nurse to wet-behind-the-ears-med-student hard. It's hard going from being on top of your game, in a comfortable place - the go-to guy full of how-to and confidence - to being uncertain and feeling vulnerable. Before I started this course, I didn't realise how fragile my ego is.

It's compounded by being surrounded by a group who are effectively the top 10% of the class. Imagine the equivalent of a class filled with the girl who has a dozen different coloured highlighters and does extra reading for fun. I know I've earned my place here, but it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable. I know this is all in my head and I should just deal with it and crack on with the work...

It's pretty tragic that this is taking up so much of my run-time, as the course is full of work I need to do and is more than capable of giving me stuff to worry about. I think I just feel like the fact I'm an awkward nerd who tends to make friends on his own terms, is being thrown into sharp relief by the naturally gregarious and socially-engaged behaviours of med students in England. Why that is the norm, I don't know, but it's just helping me to relive a whole bunch of shit that I thought I'd dealt with in high school but apparently really haven't.

Good grief, this is a wee bit self-indulgent, isn't it? Hopefully telling the internet my deepest, darkest worries will help me get a handle on them. It would be really nice to be over all this kind of nonsense so I can really focus on worrying about how much I need to learn in four years!