Learning, Resilience, and the Journey to Medicine: Student Reflections
When applying to medical school, I remember how easy it was to shift from feeling confident to becoming more self-critical and uncertain. Self-doubt and comparison can become barriers to being truthful and genuine in your application, and it can take a toll on your sense of self. With this in mind, I applied for the Admissions Student Representative position to bring a human perspective back to pre-med dialogue, reminding students that you can be successful in your application by being entirely yourself and showing up authentically.
Throughout the admissions process, there are numerous platforms that offer information. While some of these are supportive, others create a rhetoric that students need a certain GPA, specific extra-curriculars, and several publications to enter medical school. The truth is, if everyone who applied to medicine had the exact same portfolio and application, we would be creating a medical school graduating one type of physician. The patients who seek our healthcare are incredibly diverse, each with their own needs, values, and backgrounds. By including students who are true to themselves in our medical education, it is actually an asset to the school and our patients. Authenticity breeds a cohort of physicians with unique skillsets who will offer more personal, sensitive, and compassionate care to diverse patients.
My co-representative, Parneon, and I connected early in first year through shared vulnerability and honesty about our experiences. We became each other’s support in moments of self-doubt, and we realized we wanted to do the same for prospective students. We are vocal and unapologetic, encouraging students to build their identities beyond academics – art, athletics, poetry, music, and beyond. We use our own stories to “myth-bust” pre-med dialogue around academics, achievement, and linear life trajectories. We are inspired by the beautiful and unique backgrounds of our classmates, whose individuality brings strength to the next generation of physicians. We strongly believe University of Toronto allows personality to shine through their application process, and we encourage prospective students to honour their own life story.
My journey to medicine and the application process involved moments of hardship in my health and well-being, but also moments of growth and community. From a young age, I was an avid volleyball player and found incredible joy in team sport. In my Grade 12 year, I tore multiple ligaments in my knee including my ACL, MCL, and meniscus and fractured my tibia. My recovery was emotionally and physically difficult, and I felt a profound loss of identity as an athlete. Knowing that surgery and recovery was going to be long and arduous, I made an unconventional decision to pause my education for the remainder of the school year and return back to Grade 12 the following year to start again. I delayed my applications to university and watched my classmates graduate without me. I used the year to focus on mental and physical rehabilitation, and while there were moments of defeat and loss, I am grateful every day for the difficult decision that I made.
The experience taught me that resilience can look different everyday – healing is not linear and it takes strength to decide when you need to rest. My family banded together to support me, and I know I would not be where I am today without their love and care. After graduating the following year, I attended the McMaster Health Sciences Program and started playing volleyball again.
I share the story of my injury in Grade 12, even though it occurred many years prior to my application process to medical school, because these were the formative years in my education and development of my sense of self. Unfortunately, it was also just the start of my health adversity. In the summer before my fourth year of my undergraduate degree, I endured an almost identical injury while playing volleyball… this time to my other knee. This was just a few days after writing my MCAT and I was about to start the application process to medical school. While the surgery and recovery was physically taxing, the emotional toll was deeper and shaped by the memory of my first injury.
I wrote my applications to medicine while on bed rest and with an ice machine on my leg, and I remember being honest and truthful about my identity and adversity. As I wrote my personal statements, I felt a sense of relief, using this writing opportunity to process and unpack my own experiences and sharing the most authentic version of myself with U of T. In a time where my sense of self as an athlete was shaken, the application process reminded me of who I was holistically. I felt invigorated and excited to pursue this future, knowing that my own experiences with health would help me become a more compassionate and caring physician. I encourage you to relinquish any expectations or external narratives, and to simply write and share who you are at your core. You may actually find the application process to be a healing, meaningful, and rewarding experience.
Your challenges and adversities are strengths for your application and future patients. Take time to reflect about the lessons that these hardships have taught you and consider how these will shape the way you interact with patients who are experiencing some of the most difficult days of their lives. How will you sit with them in moments of discomfort and heartache? How will you process your own emotions when the demands of medicine are high? Your sensitivity and ability to reflect are superpowers in medicine – the ability to care for others starts with the ability to care for yourself. If you notice yourself feeling lost in the admissions process, turn to places that ground you and remind you of who you are – your friends, family, faith, culture, hobbies, or memories.
Secondly, it may take more than one admissions cycle to enter medicine. Not receiving an acceptance can be a heavy feeling, and it absolutely requires emotional processing and grieving. However, I want to remind you that the path TO medicine is meant to reflect the path IN medicine. There will be moments in medicine where patient care does not work out in the way you want, or perhaps you suddenly have to re-direct a plan. The grit it takes to return back to the drawing board, repeat the MCAT, and re-write your applications requires commitment and discipline, attributes of a strong physician. Another year, two years, or three years before medical school is simply and opportunity for growth and building resilience.
The journey into medicine, and a career in medicine, is rooted in community and mentorship. It’s a challenging path that requires us to lean on others, especially during periods of intense pressure and uncertainty. I was fortunate to have a strong support system of family and friends who encouraged me throughout the way, and members of the medical community were also incredibly generous with their time and guidance.
However, as someone without family members in medicine, I understand firsthand how overwhelming and isolating the process can still feel. At many points throughout the journey, it can feel like every decision carries significant weight for your future and making those decisions without mentorship can be stressful. It can also be difficult to navigate the sheer volume of advice and opinions from others. In the face of that uncertainty, it’s natural to want to seek out community, but sometimes that leads students, myself included, to spaces that are driven more by anxiety than support.
That experience motivated me to apply for the Admissions Student Representative role as an opportunity to give back and help foster a more supportive, reliable community for prospective students.
Together with my co-representative, Jayhan, we are particularly passionate about addressing common misconceptions about medical school and the admissions process. By sharing our experiences and offering honest, transparent insights, we wanted to ease some of the stress and uncertainty that applicants often face and help them feel more confident in navigating their journey.
When I reflect on my journey into medical school, what stands out most is how uncertain and lacking in confidence I felt as an applicant. I faced some academic challenges in my first year of undergrad and ended up withdrawing from a physics course. At the time, that felt like a defining moment that I believed would significantly impact my future in medicine. In hindsight though, that became a turning point for me. It pushed me to reconsider the expectations and boundaries I had set for myself and to approach my academics with more intention. Although in the moment I felt so disoriented, I am grateful for that experience because it shaped how I navigated the rest of my undergraduate years. I became more resilient, developed better learning strategies and performed much stronger in the years that followed.
Despite that, when it came time to applying, I was so worried that my earlier setback would overshadow everything else. Seeing how competitive medical school admissions was only amplified that fear. When that doubt set in, I started turning to different forums like Reddit, which only reinforced my doubts and made me question whether I was good enough to apply at all.
What changed things for me was the perspective of people outside of medicine like my family, friends and mentors who reminded me of all the things I had accomplished and the broader qualities that I have to offer. They saw way more than just my transcript and reminded me of the importance of demonstrating that in my application. Looking back, I’m incredibly grateful that I decided to apply and can see just how impactful the negative self-talk can be. That experience is a big reason why I care so deeply about debunking common myths around the medical school application process. It’s so easy to get caught up in external noise and comparison, and it can really distort your self-perception and hold you back from opportunities you are ready for. So hopefully you can take this as a reminder that your path doesn’t have to be perfect, and that your growth and perspective matters.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned came from a mentor who told me to stop chasing the peak of the mountain, because life is lived in the journey. When pursuing rigorous paths like medicine, it’s easy to get caught up in constantly looking ahead… “when I get into medical school, when I start clerkship, when I match into residency, when I finish training.” It can start to feel like life is always waiting for the next milestone, when the reality is that life happens in all the years in between.
If there’s one piece of advice I would pass on, it’s to find a way to genuinely enjoy the phase of life you’re currently in. Not only does this make the journey more fulfilling, but it also helps build the resilience and perspective needed for a career in medicine. Don’t put off your happiness by waiting for life to get “better” or “easier”, be intentional and take charge of your own happiness in the moment.
As a medical student, I want to reassure you that there is so much joy to experience along the way! The best way to fully enjoy the fun and challenges that lie ahead is to first embrace and appreciate the phase you’re in right now.
