Yea. I've also said I'm not the model student, but I get by. My main sport is rowing. When I first came here and was exempt from biochem, I did two sports - did the rowing training (10+ sessions or more a week), and rugby training. My 2nd year here, after some injury through rugby, I only concentrated on rowing, and also became part of the committee. I was a bit more involved so spent 20+ hours a week doing club things and training. Training itself is about 15 hours a week, not including travel/shower/eating time.
How it impacted clinical years - when I have early morning training (6:30 - 8:00), the earliest I can get to hospital is 9 am. So if I'm on a surgery rotation where ward rounds start at 7 am, I'll miss those. If I'm placed in Tallaght then the earliest I can get there is 10 am. But it's only two days a week and no one goes to all the ward rounds anyway cuz eventually, it starts being a waste of time. I rarely stay in until 5 either, because on days where we do two training sessions, I'd need time enough to get the second training session in during some point where I'd have the maximum energy. That means I also have to pay attention to what time I eat. I'm a little narcoleptic, so I always need a nap too
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This year, I'm captain of the boat club, and this will be my last year rowing competitively for a while. We'll see how this plays out with clinicals, because I think attendance is a bit more important this year. But I think it'll work out fine - there's also a little less studying to do this year so it'll balance out. Although not for the moment because I'm doing boards in december
. And unfortunately, I've signed up to doing a lot of other extracurriculars as well. Might as well do it while I can!
Anyway, so I don't put in as much time as I could, but then again I don't hang around wasting my time either. If I sense that I could be using my time more fruitfully, I will just leave unless something REALLY important is happening (rarely). I also started being on various other committees involving the department of sport and the national union, so when meetings came up then I'd leave early to go to those...or just not go in. Usually they don't mind it. If they do, oh well.
So it sort of sounds like I'm a dosser, but I'm not really. I've done well enough to get this far and avoided supplementals. I could know more, but eh..no matter how smart you are, you could always know more. I'm not as dedicated as I could be, but I figure that I have my entire lifetime to get to know medicine really well. But I don't have all my life to be doing sport and these activities at a high level. Some things I'll never be able to do ever again, and that's my approach. Hope this long-winded spiel has helped
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