The Gap Year is settling in
By Natalie Hearn and Jim Stellar
NH is about 8 months into her planned gap of two years. While she says that it still sometimes feels like she just graduated, there have been some changes that one could only know for sure after experiencing them.
I (NH) only knew about the medical field from what my mother told me about her experience, but now that I am in it, I feel like it is something like an “itch that you cannot get rid of.” I have an urge to be in the field that I do not want to leave even if it occasionally gets frustrating. For example, I am floating in and out of a variety of medical practices in my job, and when one seems overly challenging, rather than feeling a desire to quit, I get new ideas on how to run a medical practice more efficiently. I’m able to share ideas between practices and prepare myself for the specific needs of each. This must be what it is like for medical students when they do their rotations in medical school. I get some of this from talking to actual medical students who are doing their rotation in our medical practice.
I (JS) understand and it is why medical schools (where I did my own postdoctoral fellowship as a PhD researcher) use rotations in the various fields of medicine as part of their training. Yes, one has to experience the Emergency Room, or Obstetrics methods, etc. and experience the relevant practices to learn them. One probably needs the randomness of patients presenting and of experienced doctors jumping to treat them to really learn what to do in similar situations. But more than that, medical schools know that there is a difference between theory (e.g. the classroom) and practice. I also saw this factor in a story my father, a medical school professor, used to tell about his experience in the old days. He said that back then at the end of the first two years of training on the science of medicine and at the start of the last two years of training on the practice of medicine, the roster of who were the best students in the class almost flipped. Maybe that is the reason that over the years, medical schools began to introduce the clinical practice earlier and earlier in the medical student’s training. One just has to immerse oneself in that particular rotation to see if that would be what you wanted to do for your practice after graduating. One has to get the feel of that particular practice of medicine before knowing how to practice it and to decide if it is for you. NH is now getting a bit of that experience, and in the parlance of a recent book JS co-authored on “Professional Wisdom” she is getting a good deal of that professional experience now.
To the above point, after reflecting on 8 months of working as a medical assistant, I (NH) feel I am able to more confidently make the decision to work in healthcare for the remainder of my career. Working among those with medical degrees and nursing degrees continues to inspire me to build my professional portfolio and achieve more in the field. Given this experience, I even enjoy the classes I am taking to complete my premedical course work.
When I have a particularly fulfilling day, I notice my excitement for the ending goal of my efforts while also enjoying the journey for what it is. Following graduation and in this medical environment, I was experiencing imposter syndrome. That is the feeling that experience in the field would expose the fact that I wasn’t fit to work in healthcare. With some of that experience under my belt and with another successful semester of challenging classes resolved, these feelings have completely left my mind and I have never felt more equipped to tackle the challenges to come.
I (JS) find this interesting as I had a similar experience when I took my first professorship in 1978. I was worried that my students would see through me, that I was incompetent and should not be teaching them. After doing it for a while and having it work out (although I still had a lot to learn), I began to relax and that made me a better practitioner. I then had the bandwidth to be able to look at the students as opposed to white-knuckel-driving my presentation slides. It was more fun and I became a better teacher, more interactive. I became more of a professional.
From my (NH) experience as both an undergraduate and a graduate student, imposter syndrome can be very debilitating for one’s progression into a professional career. This may be the reason I did not start on the medical track during college. It’s easy to compare yourself to your peers and wonder why you are not as far along in your career planning. Once you begin to think this way, it can slow down or halt your progress completely. The big change for me was doing a medical internship in the Dominican Republic. Having no prior medical experience, this internship was also the first time I travelled alone … and I was traveling to another country. This experience changed my perspective about my own abilities and my various passions, opening my eyes to all the paths I could potentially pursue. For me, overcoming imposter syndrome meant finally leaving my comfort zone.
The spring term of classes has just begun. This marks a transition into a new period of change and growth. Going into the spring I feel enthusiastic about diving further into premedical classes and finding new opportunities to expand my comfort zone.
