“Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love for humanity.”
– Hippocrates
When I first applied to colleges, I initially had applied for a direct admission pharmacy program to about eight different schools around the country. I chose pharmacy because it dealt with a broad understanding of medical knowledge, patient interaction, and quite frankly… because it was a lot less competitive than medical school. I felt that I would never be smart enough to be a doctor, I’d never be determined enough, that I lacked the confidence of a doctor; and therefore, I would never meet the demanding criteria that medical schools required of me.
Eventually, I got accepted into the GPPA Pharmacy Program at UIC, which essentially summed up to my completing two years of undergraduate classes to fulfill prerequisite courses and head on over to the UIC College of Pharmacy by the time I was 18 years old. Yay.
This is supposed to be the part of the story where I’m satisfied with my life, and I accept the fact that pharmacy is my fate, and I’ll be heading into the workforce in 4 short years. But clearly, by the title of this article, the universe had other plans. Within my first year of college, I worked at a retail pharmacy and volunteered at a local hospital, within the emergency department. I got to know about a dozen pharmacists through these experiences, and developed great connections with them personally. By the end of the third month, I had come to the conclusion that as far as I am concerned: pharmacy is not for me.
There was a time period where I frankly had no idea what I wanted to do in my career. I knew that I wanted to be involved with clinically helping patients, and that I wanted to be a leader in a group setting. I confided in my family about the confusion I felt, and eventually I had an epiphany.
Achieving your goals in life will never come easy. Constantly finding shortcuts and settling for less will always cut you short of what you actually want to do. I decided to tackle becoming a physician head-on, and put aside any doubts I had about myself. I am intelligent, determined, and confident.
I joined a few of the Pre-Medicine group chats that students had made and was greeted with a warm welcome messages about how low my chances are in getting accepted into medical school, given that I hadn’t had this dream since I was a kid. This was my first encounter with the lovely group of students referred to as “toxic pre-meds”. Among other interactions, it has been made clear that many pre-medicine students are not too keen on supporting each other.
It all relays back to the competitiveness of medical school. There’s this view that, say, if I were to help someone get into a program to improve their application, they may get accepted to medical school and I won’t. That helping others just lessens your chances of being the best. Pretty toxic, if you ask me.
But at the same time, it’s also human. Survival of the fittest, in it’s most selfish and egotistical sense. It was something that I had to get accustomed to, if I wanted to truly achieve my goal. It was one of the reasons I chose to minor in sociology; the very study of it encourages learning about the development of individuals and the understanding and power behind social actions. Not to mention I had taken a deep interest in Critical Race Theory…
It will inadvertently always be a fact of life that there will be some people that wish for your downfall, and the good news is, it’s not everyone. There are genuine pre-medicine students that genuinely look out for their peers and aide them in any way they can.
But this poses a theoretical question: Can you blame the toxic pre-meds?
At the very least, it is a discreditation in the fact that they want to be physicians because they “want to help people”. In all honesty, it becomes a moral dilemma. I cannot boast about how we need to stop this attitude from our peers, because the mere conclusion that it’s “toxic” is only my own opinion.
But it is something to officiate. The idea of toxic pre-meds brings a bite sized perspective about how our society functions, at its core. That we claim to love one another, but never to the expense of ourselves. In that sense, do we even care for one another?
As Hippocrates said, “wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love for humanity.” As far as I can tell, not every pre-medicine student loves humanity… and that’s okay.
We’re all just young humans, trying to figure out our way in the world… and switch between career paths without too much judgement.