Dear Incoming Podiatric Medical Student

In a few days, you will embark on a lifelong journey, cloaked in the guise of a four-year excursion in podiatry school. Everything you have heard about this adventure will not do justice to what you will soon discover on your own. This is not because your predecessors leave out important information when you ask for their guidance. To the contrary, the advice I received from upperclassmen and mentors was invaluable. Nonetheless, the medical school experience is so heuristic that sometimes the best aspect you can prepare an incoming student for is its empirical quality.

There is no one-size-fits-all model for success in medical school. Success in and of itself is defined broadly depending on the person you ask. Obviously, the minimal standard for any student is to pass classes but in the pursuit of a career considered to be in the upper echelons of professions, your minimal standard should be to muster everything you have and pour it into your studies. Think about the first time you went to the doctor as a kid, worried, scared and uncertain about the visit, only to have a white-coated physician turn your anxiety into relief, and your pain into healing. One day, you will wear that coat and your anxiousness will yield not to the currency of “passing,” but to that of excelling.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that medical school and residency are mutually exclusive parts of the journey to becoming a doctor of podiatric medicine. As a third-year student who just finished his first week in clinic, I can tell you that every single effort you put into learning during your first two years of basic medical sciences is essential. It is remarkable how a single patient’s history of present illness can contain a multifaceted coalition of competencies from pathology and anatomy to pharmacology and physiology. The statement that what you put into it is what you get out of it is truly applicable in the medical school setting. So keep that in mind when you are spending copious hours learning subjects that might seem nonspecific to clinic at face value, I promise you that those subjects are highly relevant.

What if your best is not enough? That was my fear as an incoming student and many of my colleagues shared that stress. The fact is, medical school will teach you that what you thought was your best was anything but that. I am barely halfway through the journey myself but continue to learn that on a daily basis. In sum, one could describe medical school as a successive voyage of outdoing your previous performance. While the brain is capable of adapting to high intensity environments, it is also susceptible to the stresses that accompany such expectations.

Double up on that one thing you love to do most. Who said you had to give up your favorite pastime? You will likely reach a point in your studies where you feel burnt out and are forced to take a break due to exhaustion. Why should it get to that point though? Instead, schedule a well-deserved break around an efficient study plan. One of the mistakes I made during my first year was wholly exchanging fun for studies. Even during the few times I tried to enjoy myself, I let the tension of a heavy week linger over me. Complement your hard work with some quality de-stressing. You will not regret it.

On the topic of rest, when you find yourself scavenging study time during a tight schedule, make sure sleep is your last victim. The only thing worse than getting a question wrong on an exam because you did not know the answer is to get it wrong because you did not get enough sleep. Instead, stay on top of your workload by dedicating time to each subject every day as opposed to triaging subjects by earliest approaching exam. Triaging can seem tempting as a first-year student, especially when you are used to doing it throughout undergraduate college, where it might have been manageable. However, triaging feeds an endless cycle of cramming and short-term memory retention. Not to mention, it is much more likely that your attention span can focus on several subjects over a period of time versus one single subject in that same span of time.

Lastly, as you venture out to treat the world around you, do not forget to care for the people closest to you. Stay in touch with your loved ones, check in on your old friends and look out for the new ones you will make along the way. Respect your mentors and appreciate the idea that you are the beneficiary of a knowledge chain that spans from the inception of our specialty to this very day. By the time you graduate, you will be the culmination of generations of podiatric medical knowledge, and the onus will be on you to teach the next generation of podiatrists. So welcome to the family, Class of 2021. It is an honor to officially call you all my colleagues.

Follow the author on Twitter at @RamiBasatneh .