It's crazy what you learn looking back at your journey to get to medical school.

First, you're a freshman trying to navigate college during COVID. You work to stand out among other pre-meds, because that's what you're told to do in order to get in. After all, the competition is steep. You begin crafting your narrative, picking experiences that will check every box schools require--volunteering, research, shadowing, community service--and turning down others, not because you're not interested in them, but because you're concerned medical schools won't value them, or that they won't make sense with the rest of your application.

Next, you're an upperclassman, who wakes up at the crack of dawn to volunteer at the hospital before class, stays late in the lab, drives home an hour to care for family, and studies every chance in between. You've been doing this for years. You watch your pre-med friends give up and start switching majors, one by one. You feel even more isolated as the people you could once relate to move on. Sleep evades you. You can't remember when you last had time for yourself, when your future wasn't looming over you. You're beginning to burn out, and your health starts failing. But you continue to push forward, because your goal of applying is right around the corner.

Then, after getting your MCAT scores back, you find out your pre-med committee won't endorse you and won't write you a letter. They say you don't meet their requirements, and that without their letter, you're a red flag. So you take your first gap year and hope to try again next cycle, working full time to provide for yourself while studying for a retake. You learn a lot from your job. You give 150% to every task. You need your PTO for cram days as your MCAT gets closer, or for when interviews start piling in after you apply. So you push yourself even more, through sickness, through exhaustion, because you need to stay focused and have resources for what really matters.

But then you get laid off, not because you did something wrong, but because your job fell on tough financial times, and had to make some difficult choices. You're heartbroken and scared for the future. But still, you have to push through, because your MCAT score won't raise itself and you need money. You find another job a few months later, and you're killing your MCAT practice exams. But your pre-med committee still says you're not good enough, and tells you to try again next year.

So you shift into maximum overdrive, sacrificing every last portion of your free time to get a top MCAT score, knocking out potential publications while working full time. You're beyond tired, and your body starts giving out, but you're so determined to impress your committee, get that letter, and apply to have your dream come true. Months later, you meet with your committee again--you got the letter! And finally, you can apply to medical school! You submit early, pour your heart out in your essays, and cast a wide net to schools all over. You're ready to have your hard work all be worth it because you'll be a doctor one day!

August comes. It soon becomes September. Then October. Then November. Then December. Then January. Your inbox holds several rejections and no interviews, the complete opposite of what you expected. You turned down vacations and time with family and friends to study. You hoarded hundreds of hours of PTO for things that ultimately, never happened.

Your body, after years of running on full-speed, finally gives out. Your life becomes nothing but doctor's appointments. You already had one surgery from the neglect. You may need more. You planned your entire life on this one goal, only for it to seem farther away each passing day. You realize that you'll likely have to try again next year, or think that maybe this wasn't meant for you. You really hope it's not the latter. You have several conversations with disappointed family members, who can't understand why you haven't heard anything. Your spare time is filled with endless cycling through Gmail, Reddit, and SDN.

And in the midst of everything, you realize that you've been revolving so much of your life around this process that you forgot to find happiness, to keep yourself healthy, and to find peace.

The moral of this story is: please take care of yourself. This process is one of the hardest things I've ever been through. Don't let it break you. It's okay to need rest, to not do 700 things every day, to do things not related to your application, to be human. Ask for help if you're struggling. Spend time with your loved ones when you can.

Your physical and mental health are so important. Don't let this process take them away from you.