I know, I know, I’m insane. Is this just clickbait? Well, let’s take a look.

If you asked me ten years ago if I thought med school would be easy, I would have looked at you crazy. 

Like many people out there, I had this mythical belief that med school was tough and only for the smartest of the smartest. Yet, for me, med school was easy.

What is so tough about med school?

Discipline. Yup, discipline is the most challenging part of medical school. 

Imagine being 25 years old, and instead of going to dinner, the movies, a bar, the club, or a house party on a Friday/Saturday night, you are sitting in the library for 8-12 hours studying. That takes discipline. 

Reflecting on med school, I think this was the most challenging thing I saw my younger classmates deal with. Yet, if you can do it, med school overall is not that bad when it comes to the content itself. 

Prerequisites

To get into med school, whether M.D or D.O, you need good grades and a decent MCAT score. For U.S med schools, nowadays, your undergraduate major does not matter much. You can major in a relatively easier field such as psychology (don’t write me hate mail). As long as you complete the pre-med coursework and show on your resume that you are genuinely interested in medicine, you will have a decent shot at getting in. 

Let’s look at the medical school prerequisite courses for 2019-2020 from the University of Miami. 

In undergrad, I remember my colleagues that were going through the premed track. The two classes that gave them hell were organic chemistry & physics. Otherwise, the rest of the pre-requisite courses are not that though. 

As a non-traditional med school student, I worked for more than 10 years before deciding to switch careers. I went back and took night courses in order to fulfill these prerequisite

requirements for med school. It took me two years to complete. Yup, working a full-time job and going to classes from 6 pm-10 pm for two years sucked, but I had a goal and was willing to chip at it slowly.

Being older, in my early 30’s at that time, I had more of an appreciation for the courses. This was not forced upon me by my parents. I willingly chose to take on that challenge. I had my fun in undergrad, which made it easier to focus. Personally, these courses were pretty easy compared to my engineering courses, but organic chemistry kicked my butt. I think that is one of the most challenging courses I’ve ever taken outside of my engineering course load. Yup, even compared to med school courses. 

For those of you who are in the process, just know that organic chemistry is one of many beasts that need conquering on the journey.  

Medical School Vs. Engineering

Med school is easy…well, it depends on your perspective. For me, med school was easier than engineering school. 

Going through engineering school in my early 20’s was hard. I don’t think I was mentally prepared to go through that gauntlet. I did well in some courses and poorly in others. I had to drop classes and retake them so as not to affect my GPA. I partied, I joined a fraternity and enjoyed college. To graduate on time, I had to take summer courses instead of doing internships, which was not fun. 

During this time, I had no plans to pursue graduate school. My goal was to graduate and start working for Florida Power and Light (FPL). If I had put the same dedication that I put in medicine into my undergrad, I would have probably graduated early and worked for FPL as I wanted, but that did not happen.

Which curriculum would you rather go through?

The left column shows the courses that I took during medical school – the asterisks (*) represent the courses that were the most challenging. The right column represents my engineering courses, which were all challenging. Just by the names, you can get a sense that after going through those courses, the medical school courses should not be that daunting. 

Engineers are thought to think differently from the general population and our coursework exemplifies that. We are thought to think logically and use different methods of problem-solving. Our training influences the way that we think. 

Engineering is a science discipline, and like physicians in medicine, we simply solve our problems differently. 

My training as an engineer simply made med school a lot easier for me. During the first two years of completing the basic science med school curriculum above, the thinking required simply was not the same. 

An abundance of information

Another aspect of medical school that made it difficult for me in the ***courses highlighted above was the abundance of information. This is where the med school curriculum gets tough. The material is easy to understand. The plethora of information to memorize makes it very difficult. There are few courses like pathology and physiology that requires thinking like an engineer, but the rest of the courses are merely pure memorization. 

The basic science courses of medical school are crammed into two years. If this information was spread out over four years, I honestly believe that most individuals would not have a difficult time with the curriculum. You are forced to cram whole textbooks of information in 3-4 months, which gets overwhelming. Trying to memorize that much information requires the discipline to study for 8-12 hours on a Saturday/Sunday. There’s just so much information. You simply need to review it, over, and over, and over again. This requires many flashcards (for most) and a lot of sample test questions to reinforce the material. 

This is merely different from engineering, where memorization was not the primary focus. We’re thought logically, with equations, and applied concepts to solve problems. 

My physiology professor stated, “You don’t need to be smart to be a physician.”

The debate in the classroom that day was heated. Looking back now, I agree with him. Becoming a physician requires hard work, not some genius IQ. 

Overall, yes, for me, med school was easy compared to what I had experienced the decade prior. I was a teacher assistant (TA) for three classes; Cell Biology, Microbiology, and Behavioral Health. I do think I had a distinct advantage as I was an older learner who came in with a different perspective, which allowed me to excel. 

Medical school will be or was challenging for many of you reading this. If you think back, what stage of life were you in? For those who followed the traditional med school path ( high school > undergrad (premed/biology) > med school), you were in med school in your mid 20’s.  Do you think you would have done better if you went in your 30’s after working for a few years and getting your adult legs under you?

Most individuals would appreciate the journey of graduate school, especially medical school, more and would not look at it as a chore if they went later in life. They would bring life experiences into a field that automatically puts them into a leadership role that they may not be ready for. 

Life takes us down unexpected roads, and as humans, we can adapt. We all have different obstacles in our lives that we need to conquer. Our past experiences significantly impact our future, whether good or bad. It’s important to learn from those past challenges and turn them into learning experiences.