The Umbra of Medical School

Once I got an admission into medical school, a little below the pulsating excitement about making the cut, was chilling fear. Fear, because the only side of medical school I was being told about was the not-so-rosy side of it, the side that involved ‘throwing your life away and living for your books’. I crystal clearly recall how scared I was awaiting the admission date, silently hoping that in the face of the petition-riddled elections that year that our admission date will be postponed.

Upon admission, studying was all I did during that first year because of that deep-seated fear seeded had now completely metastasized inside of me. Getting into my second year though, the fear having been beaten into remission by passing my first-year end-of-year exams, I felt a new wide world unfolding.

I discovered that contrary to the misconceptions I had been fed, I could truly experience the campus experience albeit a little stringently. I could get into sports, societies, volunteer programs, leadership, travel and have fun, all the while still giving my school work its much-needed attention.

The journey still continues…

On to the next penumbra of clinicals.

Written by Dr. Dominic Gibuswa