Oh the People You'll See In Your M1 Year

There is no med school movie. When I went into college, my perception of what’s to come was shaped by years of exposure to sitcoms, YouTube comedy clips, and 4.7/10 on IMDb comedies promising both independence and more women than I could ever handle.

A burgeoning 7th grader’s mind is fed a fantastical lie steady stream of what high school will bring. My lived experience consisted of spontaneous musicals and solving mysteries with stoner buddies in a van but YMMV.

And, though its past my recollection, I’m sure that my adorable grade school self was entranced in his own vision of what the next three years of higher education would look like (hint: not fun) – a hazy construction shaped by struggling writers seeking to capture their own rose-tinted memories.

These ideas on what to expect were, of course, blatant lies, slanderous misinformation, wishful thinking, and the reflections of out-of-touch and mid-life crisis-ing producers (except for my experiences with talking dogs and being the simultaneous pillar of both the football team and theater troupe). But, collectively, they shaped the cultural perception of each of these stages of life. College became a wet n’ wild non-stop frat party where adults but not-quite-adults go to find themselves. High school not only never ends, but is that period of rapid growth where children become not-quite-adults and experience the first tastes of mature power dynamics, relationships, and concern for the future – all at caricature-esque levels. And find themselves. You get the idea for primary education too – life events aaaaand find yourself.

Life, as Scott Alexander writes, was broken into four-year chunks, and at each stage I had a hazy expectation of what the next four entailed. Induction, however, breaks down at the gates of medical education. Residency? Attending(ship?)? They’ve been captured in perfect, lifelike detail through the lenses of Grey’s, Scrubs, House, and the like – yet where lies the crown jewel of medical school shows? Searches for shows or films centered around the med school experience turned up nothing. The years before and careers after are captured and caricatured throughout Hollywood, yet the most crucial four – the gatekeeper to the hallowed halls and twisted traditions of Hippocrates and (Mehmet) Oz – are a black box. College grads line up, chasing education, money, prestige, and meaning, and out comes not-quite-doctors not-quite-ready to be trusted with lives.Expanding my search to look for anything set to the backdrop of medical school, Legally Blonde-style, I found Gross Anatomy (1989) and Pathology (2008), a romantic comedy and horror-thriller both set against cadaver labs. I guess people really love dead bodies.

I bring up the lack of these niche entertainment products to bring attention to how little the medical school experience is understood, even by physicians just a few years removed from their own time in it.

I then take it upon myself to fill this gap in the literature and give you the character archetypes, that Hollywood has long denied you, of future physicians – in the form of a tabloid-tier listicle:

For God’s Sake, Go Get a PhD

The concrete originalist. They’ve only known one happy place, and it’s the lab. While the rest of us stumbled around searching for our cutie marks, they were born knowing what they wanted to do – dig the well that is man’s knowledge. Unfortunately, they used their blessed intellect to realize the return on investment of actually getting a PhD and made the wise decision to belay, delay, and possibly betray their love to instead get an MD. Close to their precious original research, but unable to touch, they’ll pursue MD-PhDs, or heaps of med school research, but it’ll never scratch their itch to abandon the clinicals and embrace academia fully. They’ll grow up hoping to leave practice as soon as possible for industry, or go work at an ivory tower academic center - doing exactly what a PhD would, but cost their institution far more than if they just properly compensated PhDs in the first place.

Hickory Dickory Dock, I’m About to Fly Off My Block

They haven’t relaxed since the second grade. Whether it be academics, relationships, or the most minor of choices, the chronic overthinker relentlessly drives themselves to an absolute mess. They got through high school wound tighter than an atomic clock. They scraped through college with the blood pressure and arterial integrity of Philip Morris himself. And now, in medical school, their incessant tension has manifested in a perceptible vibration – shaking their desk and everything around it. Like the tick-tock heart beneath my floorboards, their cardiac rhythms add a sense of bass to every interaction as their anxiety projects a literal electric field in front of them. You’ve made it this far champ. Relax.

The One Weird Emo Girl You Knew

To be fascinated by death is normal. At some point, we all come to consider our mortality and the fleetingness of experience – our doomed struggle against the forces of disrepair. Though, rarely, a select few somehow come to root for the other side? Death does not just intrigue them. It fulfills them. Only through commune with the reaper can they draw closer to actualization - and it’s kinda scary. Their white coat ceremony was the only time they’ve ever been seen a color darker than (dark) gray. Even anatomy professors are mildly off-put by their fascination with human remains. If they tried to treat a patient, they would be fantastic (passion lends itself well to learning) - but you’d almost wonder whether it constituted a conflict of interest. Best to leave them to their own devices, except for in a cadaver lab.

The Paperclip Maximizer

We’re all out here to maximize utility. What utility means, of course, is the topic of heated debateCitation Needed . For this rogue spirit, it’s easier to talk about what utility doesn’t entail – altruism. They’re in it for personal financial enrichment, spiritual growth be damned. Their test scores are perfect. Their research is uninspiring and biased towards quantity, but clearly good work. An extracurricular or two may even be in play, but only to the extent it can be gamed for interview talking points or a line about leadership. Peer into their eyes and see not the void, but an abyss of utter calculation – stripping medicine, scientific endeavor, and human experience down to a set of numbers to be optimized, all for a greater income-to-effort ratio. Medically, I would trust them with every aspect of my care. After all, patient survival is usually financially incentivized. But, make no mistake, if, one day, insurance reimbursements shifted to better compensate ritualistic human sacrifice, their private practice would renovated overnight into an Aztec colossus, complete with EHRs tracking which man-eating gods have been successfully sated.

Forgot To Find Themselves in Europe

Brilliant. Ambitious. A joy to be around. Not really sure why he’s here. All accurate descriptions for our next study –of the genius lacking purpose. They could have gone to law school and plodded along just fine. They could have set their sights for Wall Street, and earned a prestigious position formatting excel tables in the company of Bulge Bracket associates. They could have delved so deep into madness that, for the rest of their cursed existence, only a wailing, penetrating stream of indecipherable half-truths could be made out. And then gone to work for McKinsey. The Hill. FAANG. A ridiculously niche PhD. Adrift in the sea of professional careers an above average graduate eventually faces, they dropped their compass, swallowed the astrolabe, and blew their nose on the map. Simply put – they’re lost. The ability to do anything, but without the drive to pursue any one thing, they… throw darts. And one happened to land on medicine.

God’s Gift to Medicine (self-diagnosed)

The newest generation of a medical legacy stretching back to Hippocrates himself. Exploring their family tree will bring you the pioneers behind medical revolutions from the use of leeches in balancing humours, to the use of cocaine to balance homemakers’ anxieties. Driven and insufferably righteous, there’s no cause too small and no moral high ground too low for them to ignore it. They hope to take their talents to the AMA some day.

I was a 90s kid. No, really

The fine wine of your M1 year. After a ridiculously cool backstory that casts doubt on their very sanity (because why would you ever give that up, to go to medical school???) , they’ll have won your admiration. Ex-military. World traveler (the cool kind, not like your friend who won’t shut up about Japan). Grizzled professional of another industry. They’ve veni’d, vidi’d, and veci’d, and then decided to conquer medicine too. Their experiences elevate their wisdom. Thoughts of their divorced spouses intermittently depress their moods. A case study in raising the bar for med school admissions, and probably a future surgeon, if they don’t reach retirement age before a fellowship.

Q.E.D

The one with something to prove. This truck runs on 100%, highly-leaded, liberal-tear generatin’, spite. Once, they were doubted. Now, they go through life with the memory of that petty slight on an Anki card where every option is set to “AGAIN”. Whether it was a student told by his teachers he couldn’t make it, an average child growing up under the shadow of a gifted parent or sibling, or just a man coming in at 5 foot - 7 and a half inches, their internal pyramid of needs has a new foundation. And it’s proving that they are him.her.them.xem?zim. Their perceived slight knowing no race, class, gender, or creed, they hail from diverse backgrounds and dream of the same conversation at their 10-year high school reunion.

“Hey, haven’t seen you in a while. It’s ________. Dr. ________ . Surgeon.”