What Can I Say to a Weeping Medical Student

While I was at the nurse station the other day, a medical student came up to me, with her joyful and smiling face as usual. I started talking to her, and very soon into the conversation she expressed to me that she's feeling stressed as a 3rd year student and asked for my advice because I always look so relaxed despite all the stress as an intern. Apparently she's feeling the competition with the students rotating with her.

Her eyes started turning red. I told her the most important thing is to not take anything seriously, and that sometimes these seemingly competitive students are not directly against a specific person. Now her eyes started tearing. I walked to the other side of the station and was going to guide her away from the patient floor and find out what exactly happened, but suddenly a nurse came up to me with a patient chart and so the student broke away and left. I hope she's doing ok as I hadn't seen her again that day.

What I wanted to say to her is that I do have stress but I usually don't show it on my face. I think I can handle stress well in general because I tend to take things very lightly. Those who know me know that I don't get angry easily. When something doesn't go the way as planned, I usually let it go instead of getting all upset about it. Now how can I tell her not to worry about being competitive in the hospital, when the 2 clinical years seem to be all about competitiveness and showing your best? I don't know. When I was a student in the hospital, I never tried to act competitive because I know I will never be "the top of the crop." Some may say I am an underachiever but again, why should I be all tensed to be the best?

"Whatever rocks your boat," I'd say. Do anything that makes you happy - life is too short to be stressed out everyday.