Med Student Personality Types Q&A: What Challenges Have You Faced as a Med Student?

This post features medical students with different personality types and different religious/spiritual backgrounds, and their responses to the following question:

What challenges have you faced as a med student?

Long gap between university and medical school, my last science course was in 2009 or 2010. I studied extra material early on in med school to get caught up to my peers from a science standpoint.

Family issues, managed with therapy the best I could.

-ENTP

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I think one of the biggest challenges I’ve had is my type A personality. I find that I am a competitive person and I am always striving to beat my peers. This has been a challenge when I’ve been struggling in some classes and haven’t been in the top of the class. I handle this by telling myself that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and that I can’t be “perfect” at everything. Another challenge I have faced is finding the motivation to study when I’m struggling with some personal emotional problems. I can overcome this by focusing on what really matters, accomplishing my lifelong dream and goals.

-ESFP

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I have faced disappointment, failure, rejection, hopelessness, dissatisfaction, frustration, anger, and success (yes this too can be a challenge). Learning to trust and obey God has been the only way for me to navigate these challenges in a productive and successful way. He redeemed, renewed, refreshed, and guided me to a much better outcome than I could have ever done on my own.

-ISFJ

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The struggle to experience peace with the moment basically summarizes my greatest challenges as a med student. I’ve always been someone who’s strongly goal-oriented, focused on ensuring success and perfection in achieving the ultimate goal I’ve set my mind to. So in the context of med school, the goals are often academic, making sure I meet high personal expectations for academic success. But this can also be applied to my spiritual goals as well, which includes being a devoted follower of Christ who prioritizes Him, avoids sin, and keeps the focus on Him as I pursue my academic goals. And overall, when I set my mind to something, I often have no problem following through and meeting my goals for the most part. However, the greatest challenges come with handling the process to achieve those goals. Because I’m so focused on achieving the goals themselves, I get so caught up with looking toward the future that I get very impatient with the tedious things I need to do to get there. This has led me to experience major problems with crankiness, discontentment, and worst of all, fear.

However, I’ve learned to overcome these challenges by remembering that ultimately, God is in control, and He knows how to ensure that we reach our best potential regardless of what life may bring. He can either prevent anything bad from happening, OR make sure that something good comes from whatever bad that He allows to happen. Thus, learning to trust in Him and stay obedient to His guidance helps me either avoid or properly handle the challenges I face so that I can better experience peace when achieving my goals and ultimately glorify Christ through the process and outcomes.

-INTJ

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My biggest challenges that I have faced as a med student are my test taking abilities and comparing myself to others. I would change my answers a lot during exams and later would find out that I was correct the first time. I had to learn to become more confident in my answer choices. I started telling myself that I couldn’t change my answer choice unless I came up with a valid reason for that change. I used to compare myself a lot to my classmates especially when it came to what grades we were getting. I would wonder why I wasn’t getting as great of scores as my friends even though I was studying. I had to learn that everyone is different and it was a waste of my time to compare myself.

-ESTJ

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I feel that my greatest challenge is accepting the fact that every event in my medical school career has a greater purpose. With each failure, I question, “Why God? Why did I fall short this time?” Often, I have to remind myself of His greater plan. I have to reiterate to myself that God might be saying that I was not ready to pass a certain exam, as I was not as proficient in a certain subject as expected. On the contrary, I must also acknowledge that my successes are not due to my own ability. Rather, it is due to the strength of the Holy Spirit that God has instilled in me. I am a vessel intended to do God’s work, a speck in a giant ocean that can easily be swept away by the currents.

-ENFJ

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Perfectionism. My first term in medical school was challenging in the sense that I wanted to do better than I performed in college and was desperately looking for advice anywhere how to do better. Trying to figure out what worked for me to study most effectively and be able to pass exams was a constant battle that semester. I had to readjust after every exam and try different things. I had to learn to be okay with failure and how to learn from it.

Loneliness. I stepped back into a world where I did not have the unity of religious culture and similar religious thought I had lived in the past 7 years as a student at Brigham Young University. I had to still stand firm in my beliefs and not make others feel judged for how I was different than they were devotedly not participating in alcoholic consumption amongst other activities. I sought to be active in school clubs and achieve a good balance between the time I needed to devote to my studies and the time I could give participating in the school’s traditions and extracurriculars. I felt and wanted to help those struggling peers of mine who needed a break by having opportunities with recreation and service to renew themselves.

Fear. The pressure of borrowing money to pay for my education with interest rates racing against me and not being sure if I would succeed in my educational pursuits. Seeing firsthand the attrition of my classmates who started with me and for one reason or another did not finish. Feeling like my efforts or what I was doing in my classes was futile for what really mattered most. That even if I did those immediate things, I still was not competitive enough in comparison to others who had contributed to research. Learning to surrender to God and be kinder and more patient with myself has been an ongoing journey in medical school. I’ve worked to overcome bad habits that my mismanagement of these emotions have brought me to in my periods of slight anxiety and depression and have become much better at doing so as I’ve gotten out of my own head and been more empathetic with the struggles of those around me.

-ESFJ

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as a med student, i think we all have questioned why we would even put ourselves thru this kind of gruesome training and even if it is worth it. i find myself sometimes questioning God and if this is even the right path for me because we can all agree med school isnt easy and to combine that with family issues and just the stress that comes with trying to learn the amount of information you have is not easy. everytime i find myslef drifting to questioning and wagering (which is something i do a lot), i just take a moment and remind myself of how good God has been to me and how far he has brought me and that always gets me through because i know he would not bring me this far just to leave me.

-ESTP

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It is really hard to keep the bigger picture in mind while getting buried in books. I'm also learning some lessons on doing my best, actually doing my best, and trusting that things will work out some way even if the immediate future is uncertain.

-INTP

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