Written by: Sara Mansour
Edited by: Esther Melamed
I’ve been living for this moment since fifth grade, waiting for medical school. Every decision I’ve made was for the sole purpose of somehow getting into the profession of my dreams, to enter the world of medicine. I shed tears of joy when I finally opened up the email saying “You’ve been matched!” Finally, I was going to be in a school that would allow me to learn what I’ve always wanted to learn! Finally, I was going to be surrounded by like-minded individuals who wanted nothing but to study all the time and simultaneously better the world. Finally, I was going to form intimate relations with faculty who lived the dream and could teach us from their experiences…. Well, I had finally made the move and met some of these glorious soon to be best friends, but unfortunately just as it all seemed too good to be true, we had received an email that not only changed what I thought medical school would look like but the process of learning as well.
We were going to be fully online for the indefinite future.
I had moved, I had left my family for a foreign city, with foreign people and I was going to learn something absolutely brand new…while online? This wasn’t what I had intended or dreamed was going to happen. I had built up this image of large lecture halls filled with students using the push-to-talk microphones to answer questions and ask intriguing inquiries of their own, working as small teams huddled together to figure out difficult cases, holding the organs in the cadavers to fully understand the human body, and walking through the hospital hallways conducting real patient interviews… but those experiences were taken from us during our MS1 year for the blessed unmute button on Webex and share screen on your desktop. Anatomy was held with videos showcasing the cadavers, human interaction was zoom calls with online game nights and the awkward “oh sorry, go ahead”. This wasn’t what I signed up for, this wasn’t what I built my whole life for, this wasn’t how I intended to spend my best years.
But that’s not where it ended. I am naturally an optimistic person, usually the cheerleader and morale booster in my friend group. I learned how to study with my online courses, how to use the apps our school provided for special learning of anatomy, how to conduct patient interviews through Webex, how to in general become more tech-savvy and resilient. I also wasn’t going to let this pandemic get in the way of enjoying my first year of medical school. I followed all COVID protocol, formed a study-quarantine group where we could only see one another, scheduled zoom calls with my professors to get to know them and ask questions, had hangouts outside while hiking with masks, and only had to-go food in our apartments if we were to eat together. Groupme became my new social media where personalities and frustrations shined and where comradery between my classmates grew.
We’ve created several memories; I’ve made friends that I will cherish together. We’ve strengthened our bonds together because we had to learn…how to learn together. How to make the most of this situation together and most importantly how to be in this situation together. We did it, we overcame this difficulty, it has become our new normal. Several different Groupme groups were created for all the different interests between our classmates, we learned how to bond online. We learned how to cherish the small moments in person. Medical skills slowly became in person with limitations and COVID restrictions, but those classes are finally where I feel like a real medical student.
Because of these amazing people, my natural positive attitude, and my excitement for finally getting to study medicine- granted the year of constant change and uncertainty muddled with fear of others and where they’ve been- one has to adapt. One has to become accustomed to change, and with all this being said, this has paradoxically been actually the best year of my life thus far.
Leave a Reply