 What is up guys karma medic here and welcome back to another dose future the channel then hi My name is Nasser and I am now a final year medical student studying at Kings College London and in today's video We're gonna be doing some reflecting now If you know me at all then you'll know that I'm not much of a reflector But as I said in my podcast with Kenji and other podcasts on the karma cast which if you're not subscribed to already Please go check it out I'm actively trying to become a more reflective person someone who takes the time to think about the things that are going on Why it is that I'm feeling the way that I do in an effort to do that here we go for better or worse I am now in my final year of medical school just deepening that for a second I'm in my final year of medical school. I've been in university for about nine years now four years at the University of Toronto Shout out U of T and then almost five years now at Kings College London That's almost an entire decade spent in higher education That is one-third of my life part of me wishes that it was ten years just so it could be a nice even number But at the same time I'm so done I don't even want to do one more year of this like nine years is plenty and now obviously with this shift from being a Medical student to being a doctor. There's going to be this huge transition in my life I think no matter how much I try and prepare myself for it and how much I try to think it through I'm just not gonna be prepared like a lot is gonna change It's all gonna happen so fast and it's kind of nerve-wracking kind of similar from when you leave high school And you go to university now. I'm gonna finish university and start working entering the workforce full-time five days a week or more Depending on my rota. It's a really big step something that I really had to think about for a while because it was always so far off Like, you know, yeah, it's in three years from now. It's in two years from now It's from one year from now It's just so far away that I never really had to sit down and actually think about it properly and to be honest with you I'm feeling a little bit scared a little bit nervous part of me thinks Oh my god How am I gonna make such this huge jump and then the other part of me is Rationalizing and being like, you know what hundreds and hundreds of medical students have done this exact same thing just before you Some of my closest friends have done this exact jump in the last two or three years So, you know, if everyone else has done it surely I can as well It's absolutely wild to think about where we started the other day I was filling out my Applications for my job to be a doctor in a couple of months one of the questions was when did your course start? And so I had to go look up the course starting date, which was back in 2017 and I was just sitting there staring at the number thinking about how different things were back in 2017 I remember back in 2013 when I first got rejected from all the medical schools that I applied to here in the UK and I moved to Canada of course to do my Undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto and you know all of my high school friends. They went to the UK I was literally by myself in Canada. My sister was in London. I was by myself And I remember being so upset and so heartbroken. I was devastated that that had happened I thought it was gonna be the worst thing to ever happen in my life and it turned out to be just the exact opposite of that It was just impossible to see at the time then of course I went through those four years of my undergrad at U of T Easily the hardest four years of education. I've ever had U of T is just a completely different thing Anyone who's been there will know exactly what I'm talking about. It's an extremely highly academically oriented school There's a lot of pressure to perform very well consistently over a four-year period Which if you're trying to go to medical school is absolutely necessary because you need the grades to then apply to medical school And it can do wonders for your mental health in 2016 I was grinding finishing out my degree at U of T and then writing Two entrance exams for both UK and Canadian medical schools the MCAT and the UCAT and applying to medical school in two countries at the same time Very very difficult. I honestly wouldn't wish it on anyone But you know, I was really determined to get into medical school. I knew that if I applied in multiple countries I would increase my chances and blah blah blah and thank God I did because here we are today That day that I actually got accepted into medical school. I was on this like grass field at U of T I remember calling my mom and I just started crying in like the middle of the day I was like walking around this grass like crying I was so so so happy all the hours all the years of effort and work had finally paid off and now Five years later. I'm like finishing medical school I'm finishing that thing that I worked so hard to get into and it's just it's a little bit surreal to be honest with you I'm actually almost a doctor almost there literally just a couple of months And I'll be a doctor on the wards taking care of patients with real responsibilities, which is just mad I have mixed feelings about it on one hand I'm really excited because it's quite literally as I just said something I've been working towards pretty much my whole life My entire adult life to reach this end goal, you know, I mean now to be here It's such a great feeling on the other hand when you finally achieve something that you've been working so long for You just get this like big emptiness inside of you I'm sure you guys have experienced this with things like Final exams when you study for like months and months and months and then write your exams as soon as you finish Them or the day after you kind of sit there thinking like what now So I feel like I'm about to go through that but on a much bigger scale over the last couple of years I've watched every last one of my friends enter the workforce before me You know those who studied accounting engineering law philosophy and even medicine They all entered the workforce a good one two three four years ago And I look at all of them now and I'm yet to see someone who is so so happy in their job Who really loves what they're doing loves life most of my friends and most people that I've met You know, they just they do what they got to do and they move on with their life And this honestly kind of sounds like the worst case scenario, which I just hope doesn't happen to me It's a huge reason for why I chose to study medicine in the first place I just thought and I still think that medicine can provide for me a continuously changing and interesting career One that I hopefully won't be able to get bored of and one that I don't think I could replicate anywhere else Before we move on to the rest of the video It's time for an ad from today's sponsor Squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics Squarespace is an all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business Their website builder makes it easy for someone like me with no knowledge of how to make a website to custom design one from scratch What I like most about Squarespace is those customizable templates each designed by a world-class design team to help you fit your own personal brand Their websites are also optimized for mobile devices so that it looks great Whether you're looking at it on a phone a laptop or a tablet and you can even manage the entire website from an app on your phone My friend an amazing photographer Aaron who takes a lot of my photos on Instagram has his portfolio on his website that he built using Squarespace there's loads of other features like powerful email campaigns built in SEO and in-depth analytics tools Whether you want to start writing a blog selling things online or sharing your photography portfolio Do it with Squarespace head to Squarespace comm for a free trial And then when you're ready to launch good Squarespace comm slash karma medic for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain All right now back to the video, but of course as with anything that you do in life You know the more and more you do it the more repetitive it becomes the less interesting it is and the more it becomes like a task or a chore But I have faith in medicine that it will sort of not do this to me It won't betray me and it'll keep me interested and engaged and you know fulfilled for a long time to come between right now And the end of medical school. We've got a couple of things going on. I've got a couple more rotations I've got some big exams coming up and I go into a lot more detail about this in another video Which I'll leave linked somewhere up over here if it's already out, but to be completely honest with you I'm not too worried about it. You know, we'll have some exams. We'll have some assignments We'll have some rotations nothing that is going to be too too challenging nothing Hopefully that I'm gonna fail if I put in enough work and time and effort studying for it So it's more about just keeping on top of my schedule You know doing what I actually need to do and hopefully everything is gonna go fine The one thing causing a little bit of stress up in the noggin is the situational judgment test I've talked about this in detail in that other video But basically it's this one big test that counts for 50% of our entire score Which determines where in the country we will be placed as working doctors And so if I want to stay in London close to my friends close to my family close to my girlfriend and sort of In the big city where I've lived for the last five years and where I want to be living for the foreseeable future I need to score very very well So it's a little bit scary to think about how much rides on this one exam There's a lot of factors at play and a lot that could go wrong But you know, I think if I put in the work I do my collaborative studying with you know, Kenji Georgina I use all the resources I possibly can and I put in the effort and the work then everything should be fine The more importance that I give to this exam and the more that I think about it in my head Then the more likely that I am to psych myself out and end up letting the nerves get the best of me come exam day So I'm just gonna take it one step at a time and we'll see how it plays out as a final year medical student One of the biggest things that's changed for me is my attitude towards being in the hospital and my attitude towards talking to patients Now when I'm on the wards and when I'm taking patient histories and doing exams I'm like really really focused and thinking about what it is that I'm being told what I'm asking what I'm listening for because You know in a couple of months like it's gonna be me again But all the decision-making and responsibility is gonna fall on me right now I'm in the privileged position where I can do all of these things, but the ultimate responsibility is not mine But in a couple of months that won't be the case So I'm paying extra attention to sort of the lesser taught aspects of the job of being a junior doctor So obviously you need to know your medicine you need to know how to handle certain clinical emergencies But you know you can learn a lot of that from a textbook as well as obviously being in the hospital But some of the things that you cannot learn from a textbook are like, you know How to use the computers how to request investigations like chest X-rays, bloods, ultrasounds How to document properly in the patient notes in the format that most consultants want it written in How to prescribe medications properly using the online electronic system You know, these are all things that I can't learn from a textbook I can't learn from my computer at home I need to actually be in the hospital standing side by side with an f1 doctor and being like Can you please walk me through this? Can you tell me if I'm doing this right? Etc So these are the things that I'm trying to learn right now One thing that I feel is gonna happen when I graduate medical school is that I'm just gonna have this Identity crisis both personally for myself and for this youtube channel You know from my entire adult life I've been a student and specifically a medical student for the last five years And this entire youtube channel is centered around the idea and around the fact that I am a medical student So to lose that as sort of a key Identifying part of me and who I am and this channel is gonna be a big change But hey, I'm here for the change I'm evolving as I go along and you know, I'm also doing it in public Which makes for an interesting perspective I think definitely opens me up to a lot of vulnerability But I think learning in public and showing my sort of process of going through these changes is not only helpful for me But I think it could be helpful to other people as well I think certainly when I've been in places in my life where I've been uncertain or unsure About myself or about something that I'm doing watching other people talk about their experience on the internet has been crucial for me You know youtube videos have always been a source of education for me a source of comfort a source of entertainment It feels only right to be able to give that back as opposed to just sort of posting about the finished polished product when it's all said and done Without showing the process as I go along one step at a time one day at a time one task at a time I'll make it and of course, you know, I'll be here on youtube documenting this entire transition to becoming a doctor And then life as a doctor So, you know, subscribe to stay tuned if you haven't already and I think that's it for me guys Just a short quick one I wanted to like get these thoughts out and reflect a little bit about my time in medical school because If I don't make this video about it I'm gonna forget all these thoughts and feelings in the near future And I won't have something to look back on see just how I was feeling at the time and what was going on with me I promise myself. I'd be a more reflective person. So here I am. I'm taking the steps to do it staying true to myself You know, if there's anything else that you'd like to hear my thoughts on anything else that you want me to reflect about Please do let me know in a comment down below I'm definitely not opposed to talking about it in a video like this as opposed to some of my more organized and structured videos And on that note Make sure you leave a like on this video and subscribe to my channel to see more content from me in the future And I'll catch you in the next one face