Where did my free time go?

The first few months of medical school were crazily busy and a steep learning curve but I was supremely happy having achieved that elusive place! Fast forward three years and the enthusiasm is still there but the amount of energy I have to learn things is starting to dwindle. Its exhausting to spend all week continuously concentrating on absorbing information and coping with random questions thrown at you by tough consultants.

The biggest problem is that there is no such thing as free time. As we get closer to exam time those precious evenings and weekends get filled with OSCE practice and revision. Or worse, learning things for the first time! Medicine is just such a huge subject - there's always another gap to fill. All of which leaves you longing for a real job once more just so you can take a night off and not feel guilty.

Of course, all this pressure to study is entirely self imposed but I defy anyone to spend years with other competitive students and fail to get sucked into the mutual peer pressure driven hamster wheel of learning!

Even more stressful than studying is the realisation that everyone you know seems to have been to a revision course except for you. What does this all mean? Am I going to fail because I didn't spend several hundred pounds being talked at for two days? Do they have special insider knowledge now? Maybe I should get a last minute place? Except they are all filled up so now its just me and the books...

Which reminds me, what am I doing blogging? there's neuroscience to learn...