The Year Medicine Gets Real: Inside a Third-Year’s Wake-Up Call

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Session 17

Welcome to the seventeenth episode of The Med School Years Podcast! We sit down with Nicole Hinz, an M3 at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, to discuss the raw reality of clerkships and the transition from preclinical studies. Nicole shares her journey from aspiring neurosurgeon to discovering a passion for Pediatrics, detailing the emotional shock of M3 (where she almost passed out in the OR!) and the difficulty of coping with patient mortality while maintaining energy. She offers powerful advice on abandoning perfectionism, building empathy through experiences like the Gateways program, and why finding a support system, like a therapist or counselor, is crucial for survival and preventing burnout in this high-stakes field.

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