I Didn't Know I Was Growing Until I Looked Back: A Medical School Reflection

Well...hi again.

It has been a couple of weeks since I have sat down to write here, and for once, that was not because I was procrastinating, buried under a mountain of lectures, or convincing myself that I absolutely had to finish one more thing before I could take a break.

I actually took one.

A real break.

And apparently, giving myself a couple of weeks to rest also gave me approximately seventeen thousand thoughts about T4 that I now feel the need to share with you. So consider this your warning: we are doing a full T4 brain dump today, and it is going to be a long one. Grab a coffee, a snack, or your beverage of choice and settle in because, as it turns out, I have some things to say.

After finishing T4, I gave myself a couple of weeks to rest, breathe, and remember what it is like to be a person whose entire personality is not determined by what lecture she needs to review next. I slept. I read. I did things simply because I wanted to do them, not because they were strategically placed between study blocks. And perhaps most importantly, I experienced the deeply confusing post-finals phenomenon of finally having all the free time I had been begging for...and having absolutely no idea what to do with myself.

Apparently, when you have spent months operating according to exam schedules, lecture objectives, and an aggressively optimistic to-do list, your brain doesn't immediately understand the concept of nothing to do.

Who knew?

But somewhere in all of that quiet, I finally had enough distance from the term to look back at it.

And T4 was...a lot.

It challenged me academically, of course, but I expected that. This is medical school. At this point, I have accepted that every new term will find increasingly creative ways to humble me. What I was not quite prepared for was how much this one would challenge the way I saw myself.

There were so many moments when I doubted whether I was doing enough.

Whether I was studying enough.

Whether I knew enough.

Whether everyone around me somehow had this whole medical school thing figured out while I was quietly trying to remember what day of the week it was.

Some days, I felt confident and capable. Other days, I could answer twenty questions correctly and somehow spend the rest of the evening thinking about the three I missed. My brain apparently believes positive evidence is lovely but requires several peer-reviewed sources before it will be considered valid.

And still, I kept going.

I studied when I felt confident, and I studied when I did not.

I showed up on the days when I felt like I was exactly where I belonged, and I showed up on the days when the little voice in my head tried very hard to convince me otherwise.

I kept learning.

I kept pushing myself.

I kept trying.

And somewhere in the middle of all that uncertainty, something was happening that I could not quite see yet.

I was growing.

Not just academically, although I would not fully understand how much that work had paid off until the end of the term. I was growing into someone other people trusted. Someone people came to when they were struggling. Someone who could sit beside another person during a hard moment and remind them that they were capable of making it through.

And, somehow, someone that a few people told me they actually looked up to.

Which still feels absolutely insane to type.

Because while they were apparently looking at me and seeing someone strong, capable, or worth learning from, I was sometimes looking at myself thinking, "Girl...are we sure?"

There is something almost funny about that disconnect.

We spend so much time assuming everyone else can see our uncertainty as clearly as we can. We know every moment we have doubted ourselves. Every mistake we have replayed. Every time we have felt overwhelmed, scared, or completely unsure of what we are doing.

But other people do not only see those moments.

Sometimes they see the way you keep showing up despite them.

And now that I am standing on the other side of T4, with a little more sleep, a lot more perspective, and a final grade that still makes me smile when I think about it, I realize this term gave me so much more than another semester of medical knowledge.

It taught me what can happen when you keep going before you have proof that everything is going to work out.

Because for most of this term, I could not see the ending.

I could not see the High Pass waiting for me.

I could not see how much I was growing.

I could not see myself through the eyes of the people who believed in me.

All I could see was the next lecture, the next exam, the next difficult day in front of me.

So I kept taking them one at a time.

And somehow, eventually...I made it to the other side.

The Version of Me No One Else Could See in Medical School

If you had asked me at different points throughout T4 how I thought I was doing, you probably would have gotten a completely different answer depending on the day. Honestly, maybe even the hour. There were moments when I felt genuinely confident and could see the progress I was making. Then there were moments, sometimes not even twenty-four hours later, when I was convinced everyone else had somehow figured out medical school and I had missed the meeting where they explained how to do that.

There were days when I walked out of an exam feeling proud of myself. I knew the material, felt comfortable with my answers, and could actually see the countless hours I had spent studying translating into something tangible. For a brief, beautiful moment, the noise in my head would become quiet enough for me to think, "Okay. Maybe I really can do this."

Of course, medical school is very good at keeping you humble.

Sometimes all it took was one difficult question, one concept I could not remember, or one conversation with someone who seemed incredibly confident for me to start questioning myself all over again. I could spend hours studying, accomplish everything I had planned for the day, and still close my laptop wondering whether I should have done more. There is always another lecture you could review, another set of practice questions you could complete, or another topic you could understand a little better.

That is one of the strangest parts of medical school. The more you learn, the more aware you become of how much you still do not know. You can spend an entire afternoon finally understanding one disease process, feel incredibly accomplished for approximately seven minutes, and then open the next lecture only to discover seventeen additional ways the human body can malfunction that you are now apparently responsible for knowing.

Very humbling.

T4 brought a lot of that uncertainty to the surface because I cared so deeply about doing well. I pushed myself incredibly hard. I studied long hours, went back over concepts that were not sticking, adjusted my approach when something was not working, and kept returning to the material until I understood it. And yet, even while putting in all of that work, there was still a quiet question sitting in the back of my mind:

Is it enough?

I think that is the part of self-doubt we do not talk about enough. We tend to imagine insecurity as something that disappears once we start succeeding. Surely, once you get the good grade, you will finally feel capable. Once someone tells you you are doing well, you will believe them.

Except sometimes...you do not.

You can get a grade you are proud of and immediately calculate how many questions you missed. You can answer twenty practice questions correctly and somehow become emotionally attached to question twenty-one. You can receive a compliment and appreciate it while simultaneously thinking, "That's very sweet, but unfortunately you do not have access to the extensive case file I've compiled against myself."

Apparently my brain believes positive feedback is lovely but requires additional supporting documentation before reaching a final verdict.

I can laugh about it now, but constantly wondering whether you are doing enough can make it difficult to recognize when you actually are. When you are always looking for evidence of where you are falling short, you become incredibly good at overlooking the evidence that you are growing. The mistake becomes more memorable than everything you got right, and someone else's confidence becomes something you compare yourself against without knowing what their internal experience looks like.

Looking back, I think one of the biggest things T4 taught me is that confidence and capability are not always the same thing. I spent so much time assuming that if I were truly capable, I would feel capable all the time. I thought there would eventually be some magical moment where I suddenly felt completely certain that I belonged here.

Spoiler alert: that moment never came.

Instead, growth looked much quieter.

I kept showing up when I was not confident. When something did not make sense, I went back and tried again. When I got something wrong, I learned from it. Concepts started connecting faster. I became better at recognizing what I did not understand without immediately interpreting confusion as proof that I was not smart enough. Even after difficult days, I started finding my footing again a little faster.

The self-doubt did not completely disappear. I simply became better at continuing despite it.

And maybe that is what growth actually looks like.

Not becoming fearless, but realizing fear does not get to make every decision for you. Not walking into every room completely certain of yourself, but trusting that you have worked hard enough to figure out what comes next. Not never having the thought, "I genuinely don't know if I can do this", but learning that having that thought does not mean you cannot.

That is the version of myself I could not see during T4.

I could see every hesitation, every mistake, and every question I changed when I probably should have trusted my first answer, which frankly deserves its own support group.

What I could not see was how all of that looked from the outside.

While I was paying attention to all the places where I still felt uncertain, other people were noticing something completely different. They saw the way I kept showing up. They saw the way I cared about the people around me and tried to help when someone was struggling.

I was so focused on the person I was still trying to become that I did not realize some people already saw pieces of her in me.

And maybe that is one of the strangest, most beautiful things I have learned from this term: sometimes everyone else can see your growth long before you finally learn how to see it yourself.

Somehow, People Were Looking Up to Me

One of the strangest things about T4 had absolutely nothing to do with an exam score.

Somewhere in the middle of everything I was dealing with internally, I started realizing that people were coming to me when they were having a hard time. Sometimes they needed advice. Sometimes they needed encouragement. Sometimes they just needed someone who would sit with them for a minute and understand without immediately trying to make everything better.

And I tried to be that person whenever I could.

There were people around me navigating their own difficult moments this term, and being able to support them became one of the most meaningful parts of T4. I could not always fix what they were going through, and honestly, most of the time that is not what people need anyway. Sometimes they just need someone willing to listen, remind them that one bad day is not the end of their story, and sit beside them while things feel a little messy.

What I did not expect was what some of those people would eventually say back to me.

I had people tell me they admired the way I handled things. That they looked up to me. That there were qualities in me they wanted to have themselves.

And every single time, some part of my brain went: "...me?"

Because there is something objectively hilarious about someone telling you they want to be more like you while you are internally running on caffeine, determination, several questionable sleep decisions, and a deeply committed we'll figure it out somehow mentality.

But underneath the humor, those conversations genuinely affected me.

When someone tells you that they see strength in you during a season when you have spent so much time questioning yourself, it makes you stop for a second. It forces you to consider the possibility that maybe the version of yourself you have been seeing is not the entire picture.

I knew about the nights when I felt overwhelmed. I knew every exam question I had overthought, every moment I questioned whether I was capable, and every time I worried that I was not doing enough. What I did not always notice were the moments in between, the ones where I got back up, checked on someone else, shared what I had learned, offered encouragement, or simply made space for another person to feel whatever they were feeling.

Maybe those were the moments other people were noticing.

I think we have a tendency to imagine that the people we look up to must feel incredibly confident in who they are. We see their strength and assume they must feel strong. We see someone handling a difficult situation with grace and assume they are not scared. We see someone succeeding and assume they never question whether they are good enough.

But now I am starting to wonder how often that simply is not true.

Maybe some of the strongest people we know are still figuring things out themselves.

Maybe courage does not always feel courageous from the inside.

Maybe sometimes being someone others can lean on simply means you have learned how to sit beside them in the dark because you have spent enough time there yourself to know they should not have to sit there alone.

That realization changed something for me.

Not because I suddenly stopped doubting myself or decided I had everything figured out. Trust me, we are absolutely not there yet. But I started becoming a little more curious about the person other people seemed to see in me.

Maybe she was not some future version of myself I still needed to earn.

Maybe pieces of her were already there.

And perhaps that is one of the most meaningful things T4 gave me: the opportunity to realize that becoming someone I am proud of is not only happening through the grades I earn or the milestones I reach. It is happening in the way I treat people while I am reaching them.

Years from now, I hope I remember what I learned in these classrooms. I hope I remember the medicine, the mechanisms, and at least a respectable percentage of the pharmacology I have fought so hard to memorize.

But I hope I remember this lesson even more.

No matter how difficult life becomes, I never want to become so focused on getting myself to the other side that I forget to reach back for someone else.

Because sometimes, while you are busy wondering whether you are strong enough to keep going, you become part of the reason someone else believes they can, too.

Sometimes, Being There Is Enough

One of the things T4 reminded me of is that you do not always need to know exactly what to say to make a difference in someone's life.

I am naturally someone who wants to help. When someone I care about is struggling, my brain immediately starts searching for a solution. What can I do? What can I say? How can I make this hurt less? There is something deeply uncomfortable about watching someone you care about go through something difficult and realizing that you cannot simply fix it for them.

This term gave me more than a few reminders that some things simply are not ours to fix.

There were moments when people I cared about were hurting, overwhelmed, doubting themselves, or navigating circumstances I could not change. I could not make the problem disappear, and I certainly could not guarantee everything would work out exactly the way they hoped.

So I learned to stay.

I listened. I checked in. I reminded people they did not have to figure everything out immediately. Sometimes I offered advice when they wanted it, and other times I simply gave them space to say, “This really sucks,” without trying to turn their pain into a motivational speech.

Sometimes people do not need a solution. They just need to know they are not sitting in the hard part alone.

That realization feels especially meaningful while studying medicine, where so much of our training revolves around finding answers. We are taught to identify problems, build differentials, interpret findings, and decide what comes next.

But people are not always problems waiting to be solved.

Sometimes they are scared. Sometimes they are overwhelmed. Sometimes they are grieving something you ca not give back to them. And sometimes the most meaningful thing you can offer is your presence.

No differential required.

I also realized that I do not need to have my own life perfectly together before I can show up for someone else. Some of the moments when I was able to support others happened during a term when I was navigating plenty of my own uncertainty.

I can have difficult days and still offer someone kindness. I can question myself and still remind someone else of what they are capable of. I can need support and still be someone others can lean on.

Those things can exist together.

I do not know exactly what kind of physician I will be years from now, but I do know how I want people to feel around me. I want them to feel heard. I want them to feel safe enough to be honest. And I want to remember that caring for someone will not always mean having the perfect answer.

Sometimes it will simply mean staying.

I Worked for This

And then, after all of it, came the moment I had been working toward for months.

My final grade.

I ended T4 with a High Pass.

Even typing that now makes me smile.

Not because I believe a grade can tell you everything about how intelligent, capable, or worthy someone is. If anything, medical school has taught me quite the opposite. A number on a screen could never capture everything that happens behind it.

But I know what happened behind this one.

I know the hours I spent sitting at my desk when I would have rather been doing almost anything else. I know how many practice questions I worked through, how many concepts I had to revisit, and how many times I stared at something thinking, "There is quite literally no way my brain is going to retain this", only to come back the next day and try again.

I know the days when studying felt productive and everything seemed to click. I also know the days when it took twice as long to accomplish half as much. The days when I was tired, frustrated, overwhelmed, or questioning myself but still found a way to do what I could.

There was nothing glamorous about most of it.

It was repetition. Consistency. Sacrifice. A slightly concerning relationship with my laptop. And a lot of choosing to keep going when there was no immediate reward for doing so.

That is why seeing High Pass felt different.

Those two words were not proof that I was suddenly smarter or more deserving than I had been at the beginning of the term. They were proof that the work had gone somewhere.

For months, I had been putting effort into something without knowing exactly what the ending would look like. I could control how hard I studied and how consistently I showed up, but I could not guarantee the outcome. There were plenty of moments when I wondered whether everything I was giving would actually be enough.

And then, finally, I got to see that it was.

I think high-achieving people can be especially terrible at letting themselves have moments like that. We reach something we have worked incredibly hard for and, approximately twelve seconds later, our brains are already asking what comes next or finding the tiny piece we could have done better.

But this time, I really tried not to do that.

I let myself be proud.

Not in an I've figured everything out kind of way, because I can assure you I have not. There are still plenty of moments when medicine looks me directly in the eyes and reminds me that I know approximately three things.

I was proud because I knew how hard the girl who started this term had worked to become the girl who finished it.

I was proud of every time I chose to try again after getting something wrong. Every time I adjusted instead of giving up. Every long day that felt insignificant while I was living it but ultimately became part of something much bigger.

The High Pass was incredible.

But I think what meant even more was realizing that I could trust myself to do something hard.

For so much of the term, I had been asking myself, "Is all of this going to be enough?"

At the end, I finally got an answer.

Yes.

It was.

And for once, instead of immediately moving the finish line, I let myself stand there for a minute and enjoy reaching it.

The Finish Line Did Not Look How I Expected

I think somewhere in my head, I had created a very cinematic version of what finishing T4 would feel like.

I imagined submitting that final exam, seeing my grade, and immediately feeling this enormous rush of relief. Maybe I would wake up the next morning completely refreshed, suddenly have energy for all the things I had been putting off, and effortlessly transition into my peaceful post-finals life.

Instead, my brain basically said, "Great work. We're shutting down now."

And honestly? Fair enough.

The first few days after finishing felt strangely disorienting. For months, nearly every part of my schedule had revolved around medical school. There was always something I needed to study, something I should be reviewing, or some tiny academic fire my brain had decided required immediate attention. Then suddenly...there was not.

I had spent so long wishing for free time that when it finally arrived, I almost did not know what to do with it.

There was also this tiny part of me that immediately started thinking about all the things I could finally accomplish. I could get back to the blog. I could work on content. I could reorganize things. I could start preparing for what came next. Apparently, after months of academic productivity, my brain's first suggestion for recovery was simply a different genre of productivity.

Absolutely not.

So I took a break.

A real one.

For a couple of weeks, I let myself step away from the blog and from the pressure to immediately turn finishing T4 into my next project. I rested. I did things I enjoyed. I let my days be a little slower, and I stopped feeling like every hour needed to produce something measurable.

At first, that felt almost uncomfortable. I think when you have been pushing yourself for a long time, slowing down can feel strangely similar to doing something wrong. There is this little voice telling you that you could be getting ahead, that you should be using the time wisely, that surely there is something productive you could be doing.

But rest was what I needed.

Not because I had completely fallen apart or reached some dramatic breaking point. I was simply tired. I had worked hard for months, reached the finish line, and needed a little time to let my mind and body catch up with the fact that I had actually made it there.

And I think I am learning that rest does not have to be justified by complete exhaustion.

You do not have to run yourself into the ground before you are allowed to stop.

Sometimes you can rest simply because you finished something difficult.

Sometimes you can celebrate without immediately asking what comes next.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do after pushing yourself for months is absolutely nothing productive at all.

So that is what I gave myself.

And now, a couple of weeks later, I am sitting here writing again, not because I forced myself back on some arbitrary timeline, but because I actually wanted to come back.

I missed this.

I missed sitting down and turning all the messy little thoughts in my head into something I could share with you. I missed this quiet corner of my life that has absolutely nothing to do with an exam score.

And maybe that is how I know the break did exactly what it was supposed to do.

I did not come back because I felt guilty for resting.

I came back because I finally felt rested enough to miss the things I love.

If You Are Still in the Middle of It

If you are reading this while you are somewhere in the middle of your own difficult season, I want to sit with you here for a minute.

Maybe you are working toward something you have wanted for years and you are starting to wonder whether you are actually capable of reaching it. Maybe you are doing everything you know how to do and still have not seen the payoff. Maybe you are tired, discouraged, or looking around at everyone else and wondering why their journey seems so much easier than yours.

Or maybe you are simply having one of those weeks where everything feels like a little too much.

I know how tempting it is to look at where you are right now and assume this is where you are going to stay.

When you are in the middle of something hard, you do not have the privilege of hindsight yet. You cannot see how the pieces will eventually fit together. You do not know which ordinary day will become the turning point or which tiny decision to keep going will matter more than you realize.

You only know how today feels.

And sometimes today feels terrible.

Sometimes you are exhausted. Sometimes you doubt yourself. Sometimes you stare at the same material for twenty minutes before realizing you have not absorbed a single word. Sometimes you cry, eat something, regroup, and unfortunately discover that the exam remains scheduled exactly where it was before your emotional crisis.

Rude, honestly.

But something I have learned from this term is that the way you feel in the middle of your story is not necessarily evidence of how that story will end.

There were so many moments during T4 when I could not see the progress I was making. I did not know there was a High Pass waiting for me at the end. I did not realize other people were noticing qualities in me that I was struggling to recognize in myself. Most days, I was not thinking about personal growth or resilience or becoming a stronger version of myself.

I was just trying to get through Tuesday.

And maybe that is what someone reading this needs to hear.

You do not have to feel inspired every day for your effort to matter. You do not have to wake up believing in yourself with absolute certainty. You do not need to turn every difficult moment into some beautiful lesson while you are still living it.

Sometimes your job is simply to make it through Tuesday.

Then Wednesday.

Then whatever comes next.

The middle of the story is a terrible place to decide how the story ends.

So if things feel heavy right now, do not mistake exhaustion for failure. Do not assume that because you cannot see your growth yet, it is not happening. And please do not use someone else's highlight reel as evidence that you are somehow falling behind.

Keep doing the next thing you can do.

Ask for help when you need it. Rest when your body is asking you to. Let people show up for you. Celebrate the tiny victories, even when they do not feel particularly impressive yet. And on the days when your confidence disappears completely, remember that you do not have to feel confident to keep moving forward.

There may be things growing in your life right now that you simply are not far enough away from to see yet.

One day, you may look back at the version of yourself who is struggling through this moment and realize she was doing so much better than she thought she was.

You may realize that while you were worried about whether you were strong enough, you were becoming stronger.

That while you were questioning whether you were capable, you were building evidence that you were.

That while you were desperately looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, you were already moving toward it.

So keep going.

Not perfectly. Not fearlessly. Not without days when you need to stop and cry about it for a little while.

Just keep going in whatever way you are able to today.

You may be much closer to the other side than you think.

Maybe Growth Looks Like This

When I started T4, I knew it would challenge me. I expected the long study days, difficult exams, and moments when medicine would once again remind me just how much there is left to learn. What I did not expect was how much of the challenge, and the growth, would happen outside of my notes.

I did not know how often I would question myself or how many times I would wonder whether everything I was doing was enough. I did not know there would be moments when I would need other people, or moments when other people would need me. And I definitely did not know that somewhere between the practice questions, long study days, difficult conversations, self-doubt, and occasional I genuinely cannot look at this lecture for one more second moment, I would slowly become a different version of myself.

The funny thing is, I did not notice it happening.

I think I expected growth to feel much more dramatic. I thought becoming more confident would mean I stopped questioning myself, becoming stronger would mean difficult things stopped feeling difficult, and succeeding would eventually come with this overwhelming sense that I finally knew exactly what I was doing.

Instead, growth was quiet.

It was opening my notes again after a difficult day. It was getting something wrong and deciding it meant I needed to learn, not that I did not belong. It was allowing someone else to lean on me while learning that I was allowed to lean on people too. It was trusting myself a little more than I had the week before and finding my footing a little faster every time something knocked me off balance.

And eventually, it was opening my final grade and seeing High Pass staring back at me.

I am allowing myself to say that I am proud of that without immediately minimizing it. I worked incredibly hard for this term, and seeing that work pay off was an incredible feeling. But after having a few weeks to rest and look back, I have realized that the grade is not the only thing I am proud of.

I am proud of the person who earned it.

I am proud of the girl who doubted herself and kept going anyway. The one who worked hard without knowing exactly how everything would turn out. The one who still found room in an incredibly demanding season to notice when someone else needed her. The one who discovered that other people could see strength in her long before she was ready to recognize it herself.

Maybe that is why looking back feels so different from living through it. When you are in the middle, it is so easy to focus on how far you still have to go that you forget to notice how far you have already come.

And that is what I want to carry with me into whatever comes next.

There will be more difficult seasons, more exams that make me question every answer I have ever given, and undoubtedly plenty of moments when I wonder whether I am capable of whatever is in front of me. I do not expect the self-doubt to magically disappear.

But now I have evidence.

Evidence that I can do difficult things while still being scared of them. Evidence that uncertainty does not automatically mean I am incapable. Evidence that I can work incredibly hard without losing the part of myself that cares deeply about the people around me. And evidence that sometimes the person I am working so hard to become is already quietly taking shape.

I just have to remember to look back every once in a while so I can see her.

And if you are somewhere in the middle of your own hard season right now, I hope you will remember to do the same. You do not need to have everything figured out. You do not need to feel confident every day, and you do not need to see exactly how everything is going to work out before you take the next step.

Sometimes growth is happening in ways you will not recognize until much later.

So give yourself credit for the quiet things. For trying again. For asking for help. For getting through the day that felt impossible. For offering kindness to someone else when you had enough to give. For continuing to show up even when you were not entirely sure where all of that effort was leading.

One day, you may look back at the person you are right now and realize she was doing so much better than she thought she was.

Thank you so much for joining me for another week here at Forensic Fashionista, and especially for coming back after my little post-T4 disappearing act. Taking a few weeks away to rest was exactly what I needed, but it feels so good to be sitting here writing to you again. I hope you enjoyed this week's post and maybe found a small piece of yourself somewhere in it. Whether you are navigating medical school, chasing a completely different dream, or simply making your way through a season that feels a little heavier than you expected, I hope you leave this little corner of the internet with a little more hope than you arrived with.

I hope you have the most wonderful week ahead. Be gentle with yourself, celebrate the little wins, and give yourself credit for how far you have already come. You do not have to feel confident every day or have the entire path figured out. Just keep taking the next step in front of you.

Keep going. Keep showing up. Keep becoming.

And if you cannot see your growth quite yet, that is okay.

One day, you will look back and realize it was happening all along.

Thank you, truly, for spending another little piece of your week with me.

I will see you next week. 💗

XOXO,

Kenzie

The Forensic Fashionista

bc we can absolutely be a fashionable doc