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Wow, I am so happy to see so many responses! I was a bit hesitant to post (you all know how in medical school you are trained to not show weakness) but I'm glad I did. Thank you all -- this seriously makes me feel a lot better!
It has been a bit hard for me because I am a very different situation than most of my class -- I go to a medical school in a small, conservative city where the majority of my classmates are younger than me, conservative, married, have children already and aren't in a similar situation as me. If anyone has taken a year out, it has been to do a "research year" where they have kids; I instead left a bad relationship and took a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on an HIV/AIDS clinical trial in Uganda. It has been cool to be traveling a different path than the average med student at my school, but I am coming to find that the path less traveled is less traveled because it is hard!
Many of my mentors and clinical instructors are in a similar boat as my classmates so I don't feel like many people I know can relate to my life, nor can serve as good life mentors. Most of my clinical instructors/mentors came to my institution because they were married and where I live is a great place to have kids. I also don't know many people who work in global health at my institution (though there are a few).
Also, I'm the only person who has gone to med school in my entire family (both sides, immediate and extended) save my grandfather who was a pathologist but died several years ago, before I started med school. Many of my friends in med school have parents or family members in medicine, so I feel like I have nobody in my family who can relate to my concerns. My mom met my dad at age 23, was married by 26 and had my brother at age 32 and she wants grandkids soon (but ain't none coming from me anytime soon), and she can't relate to the difficulties of dating as a medical student, nor give advice about marrying later or having kids later. My non-medical friends stagger at the amount of debt I'm in too so it just makes me worry more!
It has been hard for me to not worry since I feel like kind of an outsider in my current medical community and I don't feel like I have many people around me to give good advice. But honestly, thank you all for the thoughtful responses -- I was starting to get pretty bummed out about my age, singledom and huge debt burden, but now I feel a lot better.
It has been a bit hard for me because I am a very different situation than most of my class -- I go to a medical school in a small, conservative city where the majority of my classmates are younger than me, conservative, married, have children already and aren't in a similar situation as me. If anyone has taken a year out, it has been to do a "research year" where they have kids; I instead left a bad relationship and took a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on an HIV/AIDS clinical trial in Uganda. It has been cool to be traveling a different path than the average med student at my school, but I am coming to find that the path less traveled is less traveled because it is hard!
Many of my mentors and clinical instructors are in a similar boat as my classmates so I don't feel like many people I know can relate to my life, nor can serve as good life mentors. Most of my clinical instructors/mentors came to my institution because they were married and where I live is a great place to have kids. I also don't know many people who work in global health at my institution (though there are a few).
Also, I'm the only person who has gone to med school in my entire family (both sides, immediate and extended) save my grandfather who was a pathologist but died several years ago, before I started med school. Many of my friends in med school have parents or family members in medicine, so I feel like I have nobody in my family who can relate to my concerns. My mom met my dad at age 23, was married by 26 and had my brother at age 32 and she wants grandkids soon (but ain't none coming from me anytime soon), and she can't relate to the difficulties of dating as a medical student, nor give advice about marrying later or having kids later. My non-medical friends stagger at the amount of debt I'm in too so it just makes me worry more!
It has been hard for me to not worry since I feel like kind of an outsider in my current medical community and I don't feel like I have many people around me to give good advice. But honestly, thank you all for the thoughtful responses -- I was starting to get pretty bummed out about my age, singledom and huge debt burden, but now I feel a lot better.
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