Hi, I’m a final year medical student from Malaysia. i have been in medical school for the past 6 years. I’ll be 25 years old by May this year. My final MBBS examination will be this coming March. Ive been the lower centile students since my first year. Medicine was not my calling since 6 years ago but i sucked it up in every single year and pulled through. i hit my lowest about 3 months ago. I had severe depression and anxiety disorder and was diagnosed last year to have bipolar disorder. I couldn’t even drag my self to classes. i was doing my Paediatric rotation then and i felt very much trapped to be in the ward from 8-5 not including past hours attending to patients, taking histories from one bed to another. Ive done every single rotations there is and Paediatric was my last and turning point. The consultants and my superiors were not much of a help. I have to face them every single day, they will bark at you over simple mistakes in history and such. I know that we’re dealing with patient’s health, but i don’t think such mistake need such respond and i am not saying this coming from a single person, but from most of them. There were few who were helpful, but being barked at soooo many times made you lose all the motivation to suck up and go on. My depression was very severe, i was suicidal every other day and to be alive at the end of the day was a miracle. I had few episodes of overdose with benzodiazepines and few times of admission to the psychiatric wards. I was in the state where a slightest idea or visualization of the wards and clinic will make me breakdown and started asking for benzodiazepines. Weekly consultation with psychiatrist was a must and i was and still is on 800mg of Seroquel. My parents and wife started giving me the idea to defer, taking a few months off the study. The idea of it excites me but it was short-lived. i started questioning the idea and started thinking that i will be wasting 6-7 months more of my life. Everyday was a battle to decide whether to defer or continue with my underlying condition. i started having breakdowns again and was feeling hopeless and trapped all the time. I started reading more about depressions and how to get over it from every single articles and books that can be found. i started questioning myself on what was the underlying problem to my condition, was it the consultants? was it the clinics? was it the posting itself? and finally, i t came to my realization that medicine and being a doctor is not the life i wanted. I started thinking of quitting the course and believe it, i started feeling better and slowly recovering from all the negative thoughts. By today, I’ve already submitted my letter to change my course and it is supported with a medical report from my psychiatrist. There will be and has been moments where i regretted of wasting 6 years of my life, but the sudden relief from all the burden has saved my life from my-suicidal-self.
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hi-just stumble upon ur blog--im actually glad i found someone who dare to quit.bcoz im doing so too
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