What a year it’s been! Scary, exciting, fun, confusing, inspiring, frustrating, challenging – at times all at once. I would resort to all-too-familiar it’s good every time someone would ask how it was going because there was simply too much happening to put everything into one sentence.
Speaking of studying, I had some reservations and concerns. After all, Lithuania has changed a lot whilst I was living abroad. It’s interesting to experience culture shocks in your own home country. I was prepared for the worst, expected the best, got a mix of both.
In the spirit of making this medley of thoughts helpful for people considering a career change to medicine (also known as the non-traditional route), let’s look at the last 12 months by topic:
The bright side
One of the best things I have done at the beginning of the academic year was creating an Instagram account to record my favourite moments of medical studies @medgmb. The account might not have been as active as initially planned, nevertheless, it’s super motivating to look back at how things changed.
Medicine is just as intellectually stimulating and rewarding as one would expect. Having spent so much time studying the outside world and how communities interact with each other, it’s been refreshing to look into (literally) the human body and focus on how cells and molecules work together to make our existence possible.
Was Medicine the right decision? As long as I continue to wake up in the morning and have to pinch myself to confirm it’s not a dream – yes. There were many moments I enjoyed. To mention a few:
● finally understanding chemistry,
● learning anatomy and seeing how things look from the inside,
● discovering whole new ways to memorise and learn information,
● convincing myself that I could never suture a wound – then doing it perfectly(-ish),
● studying one subject for a couple of weeks, then moving on to another,
● connecting puzzle pieces and making correct diagnoses,
● getting to know Lithuanians from all walks of life,
Speaking of work and studying, being able to support myself has been one of the highest items on my priorities list. In short, I’ve been working and studying since high school and simply cannot imagine doing one without the other anymore. It’s empowering, it helps to put academic things into practical perspective, it allows me to continuously develop as an individual and as a professional, and it pushes me to manage my time better. There were times when work commitments would overlap with lecture schedules. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was good communication – both the lecturers and university administration were very accommodating and provided enough flexibility to manage both.
Now on to the cheesy part – every morning I wake up feeling grateful for having found a way to work whilst studying. The work I do is mostly remote freelancing, but it gives that much-needed flexibility to use my skills to work on projects and topics that inspire me – legal research (including overlaps with medical topics), tech, and education. Everyone I worked with throughout this year was so supportive of my journey, this as an attempt to put my appreciation into words. Take it from a person who next year will have ten years of work experience (certified workaholic?) – being happy with your work environment should never be taken for granted.
The not so bright side
There were hard moments. There were days I would ask myself why someone would voluntarily put themselves through something so demanding and could not articulate a clear answer other than a simple it feels right. I found it helpful that during my legal studies, I’ve experienced a few burn-outs. Back then it was safe (my university provided a lot of support) and a relatively good way to learn what my limits are, and why it’s important to prioritise sleep and nutritious meals.
In Medicine, most of the challenges and less positive experiences were because of personal preferences and available resources. Someone who I look up to once told me that to improve, I need to learn to accept what is good enough. As a perfectionist, I could not fully comprehend what that meant until recently. Everything had to be perfect to be good. If it’s not perfect, then it simply cannot be good enough – right?
Perhaps in a perfect world. In a world where I found myself in this way of thinking, it would have led me straight to burnout. An easy fix was to redefine what perfect means to me – the best possible outcome, taking into consideration available time, resources, and what’s actually needed to move forward. For example, taking time to rewrite the notes I took during lectures in a nicer writing and notebook might be aesthetically satisfying, but it takes away precious studying time and doesn’t add much value.
Or spending hours perfecting the presentation design that has no direct impact on further studies and patient outcomes to get the highest marks instead of spending more time studying theory for modules that create more value. I used to do the same at work – if someone would ask me to create a report, I could spend hours adding design and making sure the grammar was perfect when what was needed was a quick analysis that would never be used again or published externally.
My inner perfectionist might not always be satisfied with this approach. Sometimes, there’s still a voice in my head making me feel guilty every time something is not my absolute best, but hey, at least this way, I have time to sleep, eat, and maintain a decent work/life/study balance – even make time to go on holiday or to a party.
That said, there were events and trips with family/friends I missed due to academic commitments. There were birthday messages I forgot to send if they weren’t on my calendar reminders list. It’s far from ideal but yet again a moment of appreciation for the people around me with whom I can be upfront about my priorities and work together to maintain the relationship. It was also important to be upfront with myself about what I could do, learn not to overpromise and say no to things that don’t create value.
Moving on to available resources. Nothing in Lithuania compares with the quality of the studies in the UK. A lot of lab equipment is outdated, there are experiments we weren’t able to do due to the lack of material, student support services are non-existent, and some lectures are designed at a high school level for those who are coming to study straight from high school. Yet lecturers somehow make it work so that it doesn’t have too much of a detrimental effect on the quality of the education. I was also glad to see some modern administrative decisions being made throughout the year.
Academic life
When I speak with people who have studied various subjects in the UK, we always agree that the biggest advantage of the studies is how the system develops your critical thinking. This is something I missed a lot in Lithuania:
● there was no feedback provided after the assessments,
● the selection of student societies was wide but activity times overlapped with 98% of lectures,
● you could rarely find information about what mistakes you made or why you got a certain grade, asking lecturers didn’t always help,
● we didn’t have to do any essays or in-depth research – the learning was primarily based on ‘this is the information, learn it’.
The jury is still out though. I hope that in the later stages of the studies, we’ll do research and receive more feedback. At the end of the day, a simpler approach worked out for the best because some of my work projects were heavily based on research. I could focus all my critical thinking energy on them. If both work and university had included the same tasks, I’d probably have gotten tired quicker – something to keep in mind if you’re considering a career change.
Another question I got a lot of was how difficult or easy medical studies were. In the nicest way possible, timetable management was not the strongest in my university. There were weeks when it would have been physically impossible to learn all the complex material without compromising my well-being, even if I didn’t have a job or other commitments. I’m a fan of US medical schools where there are no grades – you either pass or fail.
Nevertheless, I understand that due to cultural context and having to prioritise students, somehow, grades matter in Lithuania. I was asked a lot what mine were. For what it’s worth, the average grade was 8.5/10, and I’m proud of it. During law studies, I often felt that had I not worked, I could have achieved better results, but this was not the case with Medicine. Having other commitments motivated me to structure the learning time better and don’t feel bad about taking time to rest.
Throughout the course, there were topics covered that were aimed primarily at students who came straight from high school, and it was easy to get the highest grade. One lecturer even questioned if my presentation was not plagiarised from something made by a professor. Thank you for the compliment – I guess? I chose to look at everything familiar as an opportunity to refresh my knowledge and gain a better understanding of what young professionals are thinking.
It also helped me to much better appreciate why the healthcare system experiences certain challenges. On the other hand, there were some difficult social concepts being discussed I’d have struggled to fully comprehend when I was younger or the impact they would have on patient’s lives. Either way, if I could go back in time and enter Medicine straight after high school, I wouldn’t have wanted to.
Community
Another unexpected discovery was the community. I got really lucky with my study group and lecturers. I often get asked how people at university react to my age, and honestly, I don’t know. A – I’m not that old. B – it’s not something that was discussed or if it did come up in the conversation, people would be surprised – apparently, I look younger than I am – not complaining.
Even during my summer practice in the ER (more reflections here), I didn’t experience any of the ‘bad’ things you often hear about the healthcare work environment. Everyone was helpful and respectful, doctors and residents took time to answer my questions and even provided opportunities for my input.
Nevertheless, everyone everywhere were Lithuanians. I missed being part of the international community. There were some attempts made by the university to create a combined module where Lithuanians could interact with international students but it had maybe two sessions.
Instagram turned out to be a great way to connect with fellow students from other countries who were interested in Emergency Medicine, as well as my absolute favourite website – MedAll. Their goal is to make high-quality healthcare education accessible everywhere, and having attended over 100 webinars, I can only attest to that!
What’s next?
Here are a few objectives I’ve set for myself for the upcoming academic year:
1. Well-being. The goal is to continue to prioritise it and include more regular exercise into the daily routine. If you only take away one thing from this blog post, let it be that maintaining your well-being is a must. Even when things start to go south, you’ll be more likely to have enough inner resources to get back on track.
2. Academic research. The actual outcome will depend on my availability. I’ll be happy if I can formulate the topic of the research and plan the next steps towards a published article.
3. Surgery. This one wasn’t on my 2023 bingo card. If you want to be a surgeon, you have to focus purely on medicine and practice from kindergarten – for me, it’s too late to start, right? Not necessarily. The more webinars related to surgery I participated in and the more consultant work I’ve seen in the ER, the more interesting and achievable it looks. The outcome for this one is to observe an operation and check if it’s really something I’d like to pursue further. Emergency Medicine is still on top of my specialities list, however, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth getting more familiar with others.
4. Keeping my legal knowledge up to date. Research, conferences, events, discussions, webinars – it’s all on my to-do list. The more I get to know Medicine, the more I see how both areas interact. In fact, in one of the conferences I attended this year, I met a doctor who’s also a lawyer. It was inspiring to see how other people combine these disciplines. We’ll have a module on ethics and human rights in the second year, which I’m very much looking forward to.
In summary – Medicine exceeded all expectations.
Excited and ready for the second year!
through the looking glass 