"What are you thinking? You're almost 50 years old! Stop trying to do something you can't!"
"Why are you putting your family through this? You obviously cannot pass."
"You are a failure. You have always been a failure. You will always be a failure. Throw in the towel."
Like cold pebbles dropping into an empty jar, these thoughts ping around in my head, bouncing off of the hope that once filled me as I started medical school in 2014. Next year, my class will graduate and move onto residency - I will be in my fourth year of school, still hoping to pass.
This journey has been more difficult than I could have imagined. Yes, I knew the academics would be challenging. Never in my wildest dreams, however, could I imagine that I would be a two-time failure at my medical boards and slip between the cracks out of my class. I feel that I have become one of the vulgus rejecti, one of the rejected people in my school and my profession as I heap failures upon my head. It is at these times, when such feelings assail me, that the whispering of the thoughts elucidated above becomes a roar.
Please don't misunderstand me. My school has been very patient as they wait for me to pass. My family has been almost supernaturally kind and supportive and, most of all, God has not forsaken me: He has been there this entire time to gently remind me that He is present and powerful and loving. Despite all of this, feelings of inadequacy persist. Maybe, as I was advised by a dear friend years ago, I actually am crazy for trying this at my age. Maybe these failures are God's way of telling me to throw in the towel.
It is during times like this, when these feelings and thoughts bubble to the surface, that I purpose to remember why I started this journey. May I list these reasons for you?
1. God placed in me a desire for medicine from my youth. Despite my failures, this desire burns in me to this day.
2. Becoming a physician will help my family, providing for them a future that my own father could not provide me.
3. I love caring for people. I love dealing with their hurts, seeing them get better, consoling their bodies and souls. There is literally nothing else I want to do.
Dear reader, I'm not giving up and I refuse to give in to the doubts that impugn my conscious. I might go down, I might fail out of med school - with two board failures under my belt that is a possibility. But before God I promise you this: I will not go down without a fight. I will not let feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure rob my family or myself from this goal. I will, again, pick myself up from the ashes of my defeat and doggedly place one weary foot in front of the other until one of two things happens: I reach the summit of this great mountain or I die trying.
I don't know what challenges you may be facing right now. Nor do I know with what failures you may be wrestling. I do know this, however: if your effort is for good you will meet with great resistance. Can I encourage you to never give up, never give in, never stop fighting to achieve what is right. Sometimes, life calls for just such an effort.
Hi, Troy! I was searching for quotes from Troilus and Cressida for my graduate students when I came across your post. I know we don't know each other, but I, too, understand the trials of starting an advanced degree later than I expected. You have me by a few years, but I wanted you to know the you encouraged me as the path of my Ph.D. has not been as linear as usual and feels some days as if it has had more than its fair share of ups and downs. But stay encouraged. God will not fail you. We may graduate later than expected or intended, but we will graduate because we persevere in His strength.
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