Third Year
Change, Nepal, medical volunteering, rock bottom and the slow work of rebuilding a life with more intention.
Change, growth and rebirth.
Third year began in the aftermath of Colombia and with the uneasy work of moving on. It became the year when travel, medicine and identity collided more forcefully than ever before.
The story moves from Malta to Nepal and Hungary - through volunteering, clinical placements, new friendships, pleasure, failure, rock bottom and an eventual decision to rebuild.
The third chapter transforms.
Browse chronologically, search for an entry or filter the memoir by its original Third Year movements.
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Gathering the Year III entries from the journal.
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Search the journal insteadIt 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
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.These entries are personal reflections written at particular moments during medical school. Medical information and professional perspectives may have changed since publication.