“Six weeks. Ten hours a day. Practice exams. Questions. Flashcards. Repeat.”
That is what dedicated sounds like.
Every morning starts the same way. The coffee brews before the sun comes up. I sit down at my desk, open another question bank, and tell myself to trust the process. Forty questions become another forty. Flashcards. Review. Another block. A practice exam on the weekend. Then I wake up the next morning and do it all again.
Days slowly stop feeling like Monday or Thursday. Instead they become UWorld Block 18 or COMSAE number five. Time is measured by question blocks, percent correct, and how many flashcards are left before bed. It is a strange way to live, but for a few weeks every medical student understands it.
Dedicated is unlike anything else in medical school.
To most people it sounds like studying for a big test. To us, it feels like pressing pause on the rest of life. Weekend plans disappear. You trade evenings with friends for another few hours at your desk because somewhere in the back of your mind you wonder if one more question today might make the difference on exam day.
As a third year medical student, dedicated feels different than it did before Step 1.
This time I have faces to go along with the diseases. I can still picture patients I met on the wards. I remember hearing a new murmur for the first time. I remember watching a family receive difficult news. I remember sitting beside patients who were scared and simply needed someone to listen.
Medicine stopped being words on a page a long time ago. Now every question reminds me of someone I have met.
When I review heart failure, I remember the patient who could barely catch his breath walking across the room. When I study cirrhosis, I think about the woman who told me she just wanted enough energy to play with her grandchildren again. When I review depression, I remember conversations that lasted much longer than morning rounds because someone finally felt heard.
Those experiences have changed why I study.
I used to think dedicated was about memorizing enough information to pass an exam.
Now I realize it is about preparing for the next patient.
I have started telling myself that I am a mental athlete.
Athletes train their bodies through repetition. Musicians practice scales until they become second nature. We train our minds the same way. Thousands of practice questions. Countless flashcards. Hours spent reviewing mistakes that seem obvious after the explanation but impossible in the moment.
The funny thing is that dedicated has very little to do with being smart.
It has everything to do with showing up. GRIT and consistency.
Some days you feel sharp and everything clicks. Other days you miss questions you know you should have answered correctly and wonder if you have learned anything at all. You second guess yourself. You compare your scores to everyone else’s. You wonder if you are doing enough.
Then you close your laptop for the night, wake up the next morning, and do it again. This is where growth happens.
Dedicated has also given me something I did not expect.
Time to think.
Clinical rotations move so quickly that there is rarely a chance to slow down. One week you are delivering babies. The next you are in the operating room. Then psychiatry. Then family medicine. Every rotation teaches something different, but they all ask the same question.
What kind of physician do you want to become?
I think about that question often.
Medicine has never just been a career for me.
It has always felt like a calling; a vocation of service to humanity.
I want to be the physician who listens before speaking. The one who remembers that every patient has a story long before they become a diagnosis. The one who believes that preventing disease is just as meaningful as treating it.
Lifestyle medicine continues to shape how I see the future. Nutrition. Exercise. Sleep. Stress. Relationships. Purpose. These are not just topics for counseling patients. They are foundations for living well, and I want my future practice to reflect that.
Board exams test whether we know medicine.
Patients teach us why it matters.
The more I study, the more humble I become.
Every topic I master reminds me of ten more that I still need to learn. Medicine is too big for anyone to ever know completely, and maybe that is one of the most beautiful parts of this profession. It constantly reminds us to stay curious, to stay humble, and to keep learning.
This period of time is a brief moment of isolation. It is just you, your desk, and the quiet decision to keep going.
Again.
And again.
And again.
One day this season will end.
I will walk into the testing center, answer the last question, and close this chapter.
Soon after that I will submit residency applications and begin another season, another semester closer to becoming a doctor.
I hope I remember the discipline that was built in these quiet mornings.
I hope I remember the humility that came from getting questions wrong.
I hope I remember that every hour spent studying was never really about an exam.
It was about the person I hope to become.
I aspire to be the listener at the bedside.
The warm touch as I make rounds.
The keeper of my patients’ stories.
Today I am a third year medical student.
Soon I will be a resident.
One day I hope to be an attending physician.
Every question I answer today is another small step toward earning the privilege of caring for someone tomorrow.
That is why I keep showing up.
That is why I keep studying.
Not because I love board exams.
But because somewhere, someone I have never met will one day trust me with their health, their fears, and their story.
And I want to be ready when they do.
#dedicated #medicalschool #boards
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