Dropout Archives | Page 7 of 7

You are not a failure if you change plans

That’s the brilliant gem from Alex, when he wrote the post:

The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned in Medical School (and It’s Not Medicine)

Changing plans isn’t a sign of failure. In fact, changing plans is the only way to achieve success.

Nokia started as a paper mill…until it transitioned to be a mobile phone company.

Amazon started by only selling books…and then expanded to become the multi-billion dollar Everything Store.

Google started as just a search engine…and grew to fulfil its vision of ” all the world’s information in just one click”.

You started life out as a foetus living in your mother’s womb with webbed feet, a tail, an umbilical cord and a placenta. When it was time for you to be born, you got rid of everything that was unnecessary for your new phase of life in order for you to thrive in your new environment.

Just because you start somewhere doesn’t mean you have to stay there.

Remember: you are not a failure if you change plans.

This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.

You’re not the only one (staring at the sun)

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

I’m not the only one starin’ at the sun
Afraid of what you’d find if you took a look inside
Not just deaf and dumb i’m staring at the sun
Not the only one who’s happy to go blind — Bono

Cindy quit in 3rd year to become a teacher and start a family.

Roshaan quit in his 4th year, to pursue a lifelong passion for astronomy, despite the lack of support or esteem from his community in Pakistan.

Michael graduated from Harvard Medical School, did a postgraduate fellowship study at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies…and then quit to become a full time science fiction writer…creating novels, movies and franchises such as Jurassic Park, ER, The Andromeda Strain, Twister, and many others.

Ali also went to Harvard, became a Doctor, and then quit to pursue a career as an author…publishing the #1 rated dating book on Amazon for 4+ years: The Tao of Dating.

Peter wanted to fly into space…but went to medical school to make his parents proud. He launched a space company in his 4th year, graduated after promising the Dean he would never practise medicine…and launched the $10million X Prize, Planetary Resources (an asteroid mining company), just to mention a few projects.

Lisa, Ernesto, Pau, and Graham each abandoned a career in medicine to pursue a path that led to a role as Phoebe in Friends, leading a Marxist revolution in Argentina, 2 NBA championships and a career as a professional basketballer, and the founding of Monty Python.

Pamela qualified as a Doctor, but quit the traditional pathway to build a medical practice designed by her patients.

Maria walked away from medicine 4 years after qualifying. She told TEDxJohannesburg it was the best thing she ever did.

You’re not the only one…and you’re in great company.

Get busy living, or get busy dying

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

Go watch The Shawshank Redemption…and you’ll see the whole film is summed up in 7 important words:

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Life or death.

Waving or drowning.

No in between.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Those 7 words are why you’re reading this right now.

Be grateful

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

Be grateful.

Anytime you dare share how you’re really feeling, chances are that someone will tell you to just be grateful.

Don’t you know how many people would kill to be where you are…?

A variation of the “starving kids in Africa” argument that some parents use to guilt their kids into eating their supper.

But the problem is that when they tell you to “be grateful”, what they’re saying is “stop complaining”…and also “how you feel doesn’t really matter”.

How you feel does matter. And ignoring how you feel is an extremely dangerous thing.

However, the first step on your journey to a life of freedom and fulfilment…is to be grateful.

As in, to exercise your gratitude muscle.

Remember, this is in the context of dropping out of medical school and doing something about how miserable life feels right now.

But realise that as suicidal as you may feel…you’re still alive and able to do something about your situation.

You’re breathing. Your heart is pumping 5 litres of blood around your body every single minute. You have access to an Internet connection. You can read. You were born into the Connection economy. You have a device in your pocket that gives you access to over 2 billion people around the planet. You can watch Randy Pausch’s last lecture, What does the Fox say, or Uptown Funk anytime you want.

Now none of this is about diminishing the negative emotions you’re feeling right now.

But this is about hitting the reset button to place all the negative things you’re experiencing in the right perspective of all the positive things that you’re not acknowledging.

Gratitude isn’t a sedative to numb the pain and get you to stop complaining.

Instead, Gratitude is the rocket fuel that you’ll need for pursuing your dreams and desires.

So before we go any further, take a breath…and say thank you out loud for something you’re grateful for.

And if nothing else, be grateful that you’re on the verge of successfully dropping out of medical school to live the life you’ve always imagined.

The Ultimate Suicide

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

Here’s the punchline: it isn’t going to get better by itself.

Ignoring how miserable and stressed you feel because “that’s medicine” or because of how terrified you are of disappointing those whom you love…isn’t going to make the problem go away.

The longer you walk on this journey without changing anything…the closer you get to the fate of the Doctors profiled in Dr Pamela Wible’s book Physician Suicide Letters — Answered.

Ah, but I’m different. They were weak/ unmotivated/insert diminishing adjective here.

No they weren’t.

They were just like you. Smart men and women who wanted to make a difference…but they ended up being broken by the system they’d dedicated themselves to serve.

That’s why 1 in every 4 Medics is reported as being severely depressed.

That’s why Doctors have the highest suicide rate of all professions.

And that’s why 400 qualified physicians commit suicide every year in the US.

Just a little more than 1 suicide every day.

Or to put it into perspective, 400 is about the size of a 1st year medical class.

So imagine 400 students crowding into a lecture hall on their first day of term…and then simultaneously slitting their wrists or blowing their brains out.

Yes, that’s a graphic image.

But the statistics show that this is exactly what’s happening…just protracted over a longer period of time.

What the numbers don’t show, however, is the number of Medics who don’t commit suicide…but are living lives of “quiet desperation”.

Doing their job, going through the motions, keeping the health care system ticking along…

Saving every life except their own, and never tapping into the full potential of who they were created to be.

That’s the ultimate suicide.

No, it isn’t Med School’s “fault” (not really).

Yes, you need to pay attention to how miserable you’re feeling…and commit to doing something about it.

Reading this blog is a step in the right direction.

How To Drop Out of Medicine

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

You need to drop out of medical school, right now.

And if you don’t need to…then this blog isn’t for you.

Instead it’s for those who feel frustrated, burnt out, disillusioned, out of options, overwhelmed and right at the end of the line.

It’s for those who joined medical school because they wanted to make a difference/ make their parents proud/ make the most of the good grades they got in school/ make sick people better…

…and then found themselves with various addictions, on their third suicide attempt, with no joy, no purpose and trapped in a pressure cooker of debt, depression, and the expectations of other people.

This blog is for those who feel that they’d “rather die than face the disappointment of those around them”.

This blog is for those who know — deep in their marrow — that something needs to change.

Something. Anything. You’re not sure of what, exactly. You only know that you can’t keep living the way you have been any longer in this “thing” called medical school.

That’s where I was the first time I got kicked out of medical school in 2003.

And having gone through this experience, “survived” it, and coached others in how to make their escape over the last decade…I’m hoping this book gives you 2 things I desperately needed all those years ago.

Hope…and a compass.

Hope, because when you’re under the weight of your own misery, financial obligations, family expectations, no sleep, uninspiring lectures, unrelenting test schedules…you can feel as if you have no way out other than to end your own life.

Hopefully this blog will play a part in shining a light on all the options and possibilities that you can’t see right now.

And once you’ve seen what’s possible, I hope this blog will serve as a compass… to guide you from where you are, to where you want to be.

It’s not a map, because the terrain of each person’s experience is different.

But wherever you are, and whatever you’re feeling right now, How To Drop Out Of Medicine will give you the tools and mental&emotional frameworks to help you successfully navigate whatever you’re facing.

You’ve been talking about making a change, pursuing your dreams and dropping out of Med School for months and even years.

How To Drop Out Of Medicine is your personal guide to help you do this.