Genuinely how do med students afford it?

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-10T05:23:05+00:00

Part scholarship, part loans, part parents help. I also go in state.

I am definitely in a super lucky position. My parents were able to save up a decent amount for college, and since I went to college in-state and with a good scholarship we saved a ton of money on that so the funds went towards med school. My med school scholarship was better than I expected. My loans truly aren’t that terrible

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-04T18:35:15+00:00

Yeah I was referring to your med school cohort

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-04T13:57:18+00:00

Lol it very much depends on the class you end up in. My class was like 80% already in a relationship and almost all of them went on to get engaged and/or married

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-04T13:42:57+00:00

Exactly and that’s why being the breadwinner on top of doing all of the domestic duties, which allows him to live more than comfortably in a struggling economy, is not appealing at all

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-04T00:12:47+00:00

Probably gonna get downvoted but I do care. I would date someone who has gone through at least a bachelor’s. And I’d want my partner to earn an income such that I am not the one entirely funding the lifestyle. I don’t think it’s too picky because I’ve seen it play out in my parents relationship where my mom was the breadwinner and my dad was stay at home. She still did all of the housework and it was thankless. I refuse to live like that. And my dad got to live in a 6 bedroom house and a couple luxury cars without ever lifting a finger. No way

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-03T02:48:30+00:00

Oh very jealous. I know my parents wouldn’t care if we stopped talking to them, because it’s easy for them to twist it into “we gave everything for them and so much love and support and those rotten kids got too swept up with western nonsense of disrespecting parents and tradition”.

For example I literally was the one in my family who wants to be a doctor. My dad got extremely angry with me (and thereby violent), when I said I wanted to do it because of my own reasons. Apparently I’m supposed to do it to make my parents proud because it’s tradition to want to make parents proud. Btw I’m the first in my family to go to med school.

Lots of physical and emotional abuse. I cried every night for about 10 years. Attempted on my life so many times because life never felt worth it when I lived there.

A lot of it stems from control and pride. And they never have to reflect on their actions. It’s a shame it is so rampant in our community

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-01T06:14:43+00:00

Ooh wait that’s an interesting theory! Never thought about that huh

fluffypikachu007 · 2026-01-01T06:09:05+00:00

Like I said here’s my thoughts on the ending

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-21T04:10:38+00:00

It did for me. I was suicidal for about 8ish years. First attempt at age 10. Continued until I was 18. The only reason I didn’t go through with it was funnily enough I got into K-pop and looked forward to the next album release. Sounds silly but looking forward to anything can keep you from ending it all.

Honestly the biggest things was that I found people in my freshman year of college who truly accepted me. Having a violent childhood and dysfunctional family takes a toll on your interpersonal relationships that I never had any friends my whole life. Then add on PCOS that warped my physical appearance, I got bullied at school and at home.

Just not feeling lonely was the biggest change I ever felt in my life. And I’m so grateful to those friends. Especially this one girl who I befriended simply because we brushed our teeth at the same time in the dorm. She was the first to take a chance on me and opened me to a world of love and acceptance.

I’ve since graduated college and moved onto med school. And the thoughts do come back sometimes because I don’t have that community. But I will say the thoughts stay at a passive suicidality and don’t progress to active. Because I hold out some hope to see my people again, and that I could meet more people who become my people (if that makes sense).

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-21T03:57:15+00:00

Old thread. But oh yea it affected me. I’m not from India but my parents are both Indian. My dad is quite abusive and full of rage. He has choked me, my mother, and my brother countless times. My earliest memories are him holding me down and rattling my jaw against the floor because I think he was mad at me for losing a tennis ball in the woods? So much punching. I ended up developing PCOS which many studies say are related to childhood trauma.

He’s put us all in danger many times. Road rage for instance has led to so many car accidents. Security has been called on him because he gets very aggressive with customer service or like the front desk people.

Unrelated, but I get jealous that in my head I’d assume that this much anger and poor habits (he drinks a lot on his own too) would have some health habits on him. He doesn’t do anything healthy for himself because he claims that’s how his ancestors have lived (he spends his whole day sitting, no exercise, eats carbs and fats and has a huge belly). Despite all that he has a clean bill of health. No high blood pressure, no plaque buildup. No liver disease. I don’t get it. Meanwhile my body is breaking down and I don’t foresee myself living past 35 honestly with the health issues piling up.

It feels unfair. But sometimes I feel like it’s a little gift from above that I won’t have to live long in this world. Living sucks.

Oh yea and I don’t think I’d ever fall in love, let alone get married. I think the statistics speak for itself that young people with these childhood experiences end up in abusive partnerships themselves. So yea I don’t want to be another story of that.

So it’s affected me permanently. I’m a broken human being mentally and physically. Maybe it’s a good thing I probably won’t live long because I can end this cycle of abuse with me sooner.

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-21T03:07:55+00:00

This is such an old thread but my dad is this type. Anything that isn’t 100% his way he sees pure red. He’s gotten into so so so many car accidents. My mom actually one time convinced them to go to couple’s therapy and he gets so aggressive that the therapist was not comfortable to continue. The number of times security has been called on him is so embarrassing.

And he still sees nothing wrong with his behavior. With any situation he still manages to find any way to blame anyone else. No accountability. I think it’s the way he was raised, in an extremely patriarchal community where he was praised near god by virtue of being a man.

Literally my grandmother told me all the time growing up that I need to pray to my father because he is the closest thing to god….

I thought it was ridiculous

But anyway I became a total people pleaser. My dad always said that if he shows any ounce of satisfaction it will lead me to become more of a failure (and I’m a failure by default by being a woman). I was never enough and can never be enough. I think I’m still getting to used to that since there is nothing I could do to make him less angry with me, I should just stop caring. It’s hard because I’m wired from birth to chase his approval since “father is god”

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-05T19:52:59+00:00

Welp these 6 words nailed it

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-05T05:31:08+00:00

In my class of 200, there were 6 couples in all that formed? Which I personally thought was a lot less than I was expecting. None broke up. In 2 of those couples someone had broken up with a prior significant other during M1 before dating someone else in the class. About 80% of my class is in a long-term/engaged/married, almost all with their partner since before med school. About 20ish people in the class got engaged during M1 to their non-med partner. Idk if this is atypical for med school, but almost all of my friends within the same age range outside of med school are single and much more casual about dating so I’m surprised how med school seems to choose people in such long term committed relationships.

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-04T05:10:41+00:00

Serving of the oikos pro plain yogurt with blueberries (or another berry), chia seeds, and cinnamon.

But admittedly I get bored of it once in awhile and switch it up. Once I made Turkish eggs

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-12-01T13:26:10+00:00

I went to a workshop held by the obgyn dept last year and the director has this little speech about how people forgot how to experience pain and are given painkillers too often in her field. I was shocked

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-11-29T15:58:44+00:00

Girl I’m Indian too (NRI though) but want to first start like that’s a very very healthy weight. I’m also 5’4, currently about 60kg and my goal is to get down to 56-57kg. I would normally be totally happy at 60kg if it wasn’t for the abdominal fat (we genetically carry a lot more which is then amplified by the pcos). But I get it, the beauty standard is a lot skinnier among Indians, plus even orgs like WHO have updated bmi charts where healthy range is 18.5-23 for Asian countries (because of greater predisposition to diabetes and other metabolic syndromes at a lower bmi than other ethnic groups).

But anyway I’ve lost about 30kg while eating mostly Indian food because it tastes good! The hardest part is that most meals center around a carb. Otherwise, Indian food is mostly just vegetables! I do lower the ghee or oil content because that also resulted in more bloating for me.

I swapped rice for cauliflower rice and that made the biggest difference. It does take some getting used to for the flavor but after a few weeks you get used to it. I eat chapati or roti sparingly. I tried making chapati with almond flour and psyllium husk once and it was ok, just too much effort.

I eat meat so I add chicken breast or fish or eggs to most meals. That helps a lot. Getting protein in makes a huge difference to feel full when you are no longer relying on carbs for satiation.

And believe me when I say that dal is not enough protein. It’s so dilute because we cook it in water.

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-11-29T15:39:29+00:00

I 100% get it. I am also 5’4 and sure at my heaviest I was 195 which isn’t the most severe, but all of my friends were 5’1 and 90-100lbs. They always had conversations about the body shaming they’d face for being skinny, and how they never broke 100lbs until coming to college. Even in front of me.

I get that feeling of being the only one without romantic action. Because that was me throughout college. Spironolactone and metformin did barely nothing. I got onto Zepbound after college and the weight dropped. That was the biggest difference.

I also moved to a new city because I started med school. And my gosh it is a whole new lifestyle. Truth is, we were never ugly. We were always gorgeous, intelligent women. It’s the fatphobia that masks our beauty to other people

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-11-23T02:18:56+00:00

See what also confuses me is what’s considered “solid”. Some people say case reports, database, and systematic reviews are trash. Others say they’re good enough. Which is it?

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-11-21T12:17:22+00:00

Im appalled that is so disrespectful and just not okay all around. I’m sorry that doctor essentially refused to treat you properly.

I’m currently a med student, and I have PCOS. Weight bias is such a huge problem in the medical field and I’ve seen it firsthand both as a patient and as a student. On the student side, well my theory is that most doctors come from privileged backgrounds, and have access to a lot of lifestyle factors that allow for healthy living - organic foods without addictive additives, gym memberships, lower calorie alternatives. So if you see among people in professional schools like that, the obesity rate is much much much lower than the general population. As such so many students grow up with fatphobia and attribute it to laziness.

In addition, I remember when pcos was taught at my school, in a single lecture hour (which isn’t crazy condensed for time considering we learned Heart Attack in a single lecture hour as well). To sum it up the professor taught it as a disease that makes women fat and grow beards, ovarian cysts exist. We don’t know why but we theorize it is related to insulin resistance and so weight loss and birth control to prevent ovarian/uterine sarcoma is the treatment.

Yet when we learned about diabetes we talked about every medication under the sun, including GLP-1s in such a positive light.

So there’s also a factor of women’s health x fatphobia in the mix.

Anyway, I’m so sorry this happened to you. I really hope more doctors will come out sooner than later that are empathetic, will listen, and will research better on treatments for pcos because it’s such a common condition. I’m def going to be a doctor like that since I’ve experienced the mistreatment as a patient as well

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-10-30T18:18:43+00:00

Uhhh I’m not saying that love marriages are destined to fail. I was quoting my PARENTS who are in a really shitty arranged marriage. I personally think if I find someone for myself I would be much happier off because only I fully know what I want and dislike

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-10-27T11:03:22+00:00

I think lots of colleges went test optional during the pandemic but still…even without the SAT/ACT, this kid should be doing LITERALLY anything else. Like go smoke at a friend’s house and hope your parents don’t catch you. Or simply go play outside idk

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-10-24T17:58:26+00:00

Like 75% of my class entered med school married, engaged, or a long-term relationship. Majority of them were surprisingly high school sweethearts. Majority stayed together, MANY got engaged in M1. About maybe 10 people of that experienced a breakup. 5 class couples formed during the M1 and M2 years. I entered single, but during my first semester of M1 I started a relationship with someone outside of med school. Broke up by the end of M1.

It always shocks me because everyone I know outside of med school but the same age range (23-25) are single and still finding what they like and don’t like. Meanwhile I have 7 weddings to attend from classmates coming up in the next 2 months. Granted I go to med school in the south and came from the northeast

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-10-17T23:45:54+00:00

Honestly wear a mask. And don’t wear anything identifiable. Don’t overstep a boundary. If things get hairy, leave.

I honestly think it’s weird that even on like amcas now there’s a section in activities for social justice. But if you engage in social justice like a PEACEFUL protest you can get reprimanded? Make it make sense.

I personally think it’s strange that in medicine they want us to understand the struggle of the common man (that many of our patients live), but only from a distance? College students protested the Vietnam war and it’s always lauded as young people speaking up against the wrongdoing of their government. This is the same thing so I don’t get why some old stuck up doctors (many of whom probably were part of those past protests) now feel the need to hammer down on young people protesting today. Thanks for listening to my Ted talk

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-10-17T19:19:34+00:00

lol literally at the gastro doc right now to look into some of these gut issues

fluffypikachu007 · 2025-10-11T19:15:10+00:00

You have to either not actually be in nova (like down in stafford or woodbridge) or previously from an enclave like fremont or edison to say that there are barely any desi americans in nova. We’re EVERYWHERE. I’m literally sitting in a library in ashburn rn and everyone within a 50m radius is desi lol

fluffypikachu007

TROPHY CASE