Heal Thyself — To Be a Good Doctor Means to Also Take Care of Yourself By Wasana Weerasuriya

This may be cliché since everyone tells me this but it’s true that to become a good doctor you also need to make sure you are also healthy and in the right mental state. It’s no surprise that being a premed major is arduous and rigorous; as a result, some get very stressed.

In regards to me personally, this did not come to me clearly until this semester. I did not keep tabs on myself, especially my own health and mental status. In fact, it was not until I saw how it started to affect my academics that I grew concerned. Thereafter, I sought out medical and psychiatry help. To tell you the truth, it helped a lot. Though there is a long journey for me to recover that I take day by day, it definitely improved my ability to excel in everything else in my life now that I am beginning to take care of myself.

The life lesson to learn: if you want to become a doctor, make sure you also take care of yourself and not just your future-to-be patients in your future-to-be medical career. This entails checking to make sure you are also healthy and mentally ready for what is to come in medical school. Its horrifying how the suicide rates are drastically augmenting in medical students and to start reducing this horrible statistic that’s becoming an epidemic it starts at its beginning: pre-med life. So, take it from me, go and see your own doctor, visit that zoo or that carnival you were eyeballing and make sure you hang out with your friends so you don’t feel lonely after studying for a whole week with no sleep for that one upcoming organic chemistry exam.