Blog Post Focus
This post explores some challenges and difficulties an anxious person may face when going through medical school. Medical school is a challenging environment for everyone, especially for an anxious person.
Introduction: An Increased Challenge For The Anxious Person
Medical school is challenging in all planes as a human being. It has mental and physical demands in the form of studying. It is not uncommon for students to be hunched over study materials for hours a day throughout their medical school experience. It has emotional demands. Everyone tries to match to their ideal specialty and vies for a favorite program over the course of four years of study. It has social demands. During medical school student schedules can be rigorous and demanding. It is not uncommon for students to feel they are missing out on opportunities to be with family and friends, especially for anyone who moved to a new area for school.
All these challenges may then increase or continue in residency and then as an attending physician. For the healthiest person with the best life balance medical school and a career of medicine is challenging. For a person with anxiety it will be even more challenging.
Anxiety will likely make medical school an even less pleasant experience that it would be for a person without anxiety. Anxiety can intensify any doubt and negative experience of medical school. Anxiety can lessen the high of any positive experiences of medical school. Anxiety that follows you now can follow you through your medical education and as an attending physician.
So, should A Person Go to Medical School if They are Anxious?
Controlled Anxiety?
First, how controlled is your anxiety? If it is not controlled, get it controlled. If it is well-controlled then it may still be a source of more unpleasant medical education experiences. If it is not well-controlled then it will likely only get worse with the stress of medical education and the later demands of being a high-functioning professional affecting the lives of patients. Even if it is well-controlled it may well get worse with the demands of medical training and later practice.
Future Insurance Considerations with Mental Health
Second, be aware that any documented psychiatric disorders will affect disability insurance down the line. Yes, you are punished as a medical provider for having documented medical conditions (not just psychiatric). Insurance companies may only cover you for conditions outside those documented disorders. For example, you have a history of anxiety and then you become an attending physician. You have overwhelming anxiety and need a break from practice. Your disability insurance may not cover any of this, but it may have covered it had you not had a documented history of such disorder.
Support
Third, how are your support structures? Can someone be there for you whenever you need them? Are you struggling to care for yourself and your loved ones as you are? The demands of medicine are great and will make your demands on support structures greater while stressing your ability to be a support for others.
Medical school is a very challenging time for anyone. Having support available is crucial. Additionally, having support aware that you will be limited in time and flexibility is important too. You may not always be able to reciprocate the support for others that is shown to you. Your support system needs to be aware and ready despite the hardships.
Conclusion – An Increased Challenge to be Considered Carefully
Considering all these things, I think the ultimate message I shared in prior posts about attending medical school remains—only attend medical school if it is your only passion or there is nothing else you want to do. Medicine is a harsh place, especially so for an anxious physician. That being said, many other jobs can be stressful and worsen anxiety, so it is just one more component to consider when thinking about becoming a physician.