on the toxicity of medical students

I have never wanted to be so anti-social in my life, as I do now.

Being in a new country, far away from home, and really only having fellow medical students in my circle of 'friends', I have come to detest and avoid the company of such students.

In my eyes, medical students are some of the most self-centred, attention-seeking, fiercely competitive, superficial, egotistic, hypocritical, whiny, and social retarded human beings on Earth. They complain about the most useless things in life; many view themselves as "God" especially being so close to obtaining the title of "Dr."; they are willing to go to any lengths and to step on other people's toes just to get ahead and to achieve what they want; they are highly capable of portraying themselves as the most rational and compassionate creatures ever to grace this planet, only to turn around and ridicule people behind their backs; many of them are simply unaware of how they act in social situations, often creating an element of confusion in the minds of those they interact with.

I truly worry about the future of Medicine; after all, these classmates (and myself) will become the next doctors. This would mean that we would then have the responsiblities of caring for the lives and well-being of others. Yet, with the above characteristics possessed by so many of my classmates, I can only feel pity for the many patients they have yet to encounter.

This post undoubtedly makes me sound incredibly judgmental. Yet, after having spent nearly four years with these people, I have come to view my relationships with each one of them in such a different light. Sometimes I wish that I could go back to merely knowing a lot of these people by acquaintance, so that I wouldn't be able to make such harsh judgments of them. But, after getting to know many of them more deeply, it's hard not to acknowledge their true characters, beneath those superficial personas that they so project.

I have also come to loathe how much I have been influenced by my relationships with many of these people. In the past nearly four years, I have become such a cynical, judgmental, anti-social, and quick-to-write-off-others, type of person. I simply can't stand how I have turned out this way, because deep down, I know that these traits misconstrue my true character. (If you know me quite well, you can attest to how I am really quite sociable, optimistic, and non-judgmental.) This is also why I have taken to avoiding the company of many of these students, in the hopes that their negative traits will cease to rub off on me.

As a result of my avoidance, many such students have come to view me as distant and recluse. In my mind, an effort to protect and preserve my true self provides justification for acting this way.