🩺 Scrub In: The Motivated Med Life

I’ve been studying for Step 1 for a while now, and I’m slowly starting to see progress — which is both uplifting and overwhelming. Uplifting because I can finally see the results of all the timed practice questions, the effort poured into making personal flashcards, and the mental energy I’ve invested. Overwhelming because part of me still wonders: Will it be enough? Even with all the progress I’ve made, there’s this lingering fear that it might not be sufficient to succeed when test day finally comes. The fear of failure, especially when it really counts, still scares me.

There’s a strange kind of fear that comes with progress — the fear that all your growth might still lead to disappointment. When I do better on a practice test or finally commit a set of flashcards to memory, my mind instantly worries that the next set will go poorly. When I don’t do as well, it feels like confirmation bias — see, I’m still struggling; I’m not ready. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions: moments of confidence quickly followed by doubt, as if my progress can’t be trusted to last.

It’s fatiguing, and honestly, I just want to get off this Step 1 prep ride.

I was chatting with a friend who’s also preparing for Step 1, and she compared it to dating. We’re at that end stage where we both know it’s time to break up with Step 1. It’s been too long, and we’re ready to move on — but still, there’s hesitation. Because as much as we want to move forward, there’s always that question: what if we’re not ready to let go?

But I’m ready to get this done. I’m ready to move forward.

Sometimes I wonder if this fear of not being “ready enough” ever really goes away — or if it just changes shape as we reach new milestones. After finally breaking past the 50% mark on my practice tests, I felt closer to my goal of successfully taking and passing Step 1. Yet my new fear became that I might dip below 50% again or plateau there without real improvement.

Another layer to all this — one I know many medical students can relate to — is the strict timeline we live under. Four years of undergrad. Summer MCAT prep. Fall applications. Two years of didactic learning ending with Step 1. Then rotations, residency applications, and specialization. It’s a perfectly mapped-out timeline, until you find yourself taking an extra year to study for Step 1. Suddenly, it’s not just overwhelming — it feels like you’re falling behind.

I’m grateful that my program allows flexibility and support for students who need extra time to study, so we don’t have to fear being removed from the program. Still, it’s made clear that sooner is better than later. Even as I study, I feel the pressure of the ticking clock. Like I said — overwhelming.

And yet, like clockwork, I wake up, go to school, and study. Like an athlete, I show up every Saturday to take a practice test or simulate test-day conditions. Each session, each question, each note — it’s all practice for the day when my effort will finally be measured against a passing Step 1 score.

My hope is to pass. But more than that, my hope is to learn to trust the process — to believe that progress, even when slow, is still progress worth fighting for.