Part I
Change
Returning home means confronting what has shifted, what remains and whether moving on is ever as simple as it sounds.
Memoir of a Med Student · Year III · 2017–2018
Third Year
Breaking down and rebuilding
Change, growth and rebirth.
Third year began in the aftermath of Colombia, with the uneasy work of moving on as travel, medicine and identity collided more forcefully than before.
From Malta to Nepal and Hungary, the story moves through volunteering, clinical placements, friendship, pleasure, failure, rock bottom and the decision to rebuild.
III
Third year of the memoir
2017
The year of transformation
14
Journal entries
III
Parts
Read Year III
Three parts. One year of transformation.
Year III is divided into Change, Growth and Rebirth. Choose a part, then open any entry directly from the chronological reading list.
Part II
Growth
Nepal, medicine and unfamiliar places widen the world again as challenge, pleasure and uncertainty force another kind of growth.
Part III
Rebirth
The year reaches rock bottom before turning towards deliberate rebuilding, with Budapest, hedonism and the decision to begin again.
It took me so long to do so many important things. It's just hard to accept that I spent so many years being less happy than I could have been… Not that I'm a tragic person. I'm really happy now. But... it would just... just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this and she said to herself, “Be strong, trust yourself, love yourself. Conquer your fears. Just go after what you want and act fast, because life just isn't that long.”Pam Halpert The Office
The complete medical-school journal
Continue beyond Year III.
Third Year is the memoir's most dramatic turning point - a movement through Nepal, Hungary, medical volunteering, rock bottom and deliberate rebirth.
The third year ended with a decision to begin again.
Continue into a year of balance, vulnerability, relationships, grief and the increasingly complicated effort to build a human life alongside medicine.
Continue with Fourth Year.