Together we go far experience from a study group
three years ago
i had a health issue that needed further
examination
having medical problems in a foreign
country is not
easy especially for someone like me at
that time
a freshman at medical school who didn’t
have
medical knowledge but was a
hypochondriac
who saw any vague symptoms as a sign
of a serious disease believe it or not
at that time due to the lack of
knowledge and misinterpretation
of the leather written in japanese i
diagnosed myself
even with cancer
i still remember that terrible one month
when i almost lost my mind i thought
there was no hope left for me
but fortunately at that time there were
so many people around
who helped me a lot not only by going to
the doctor’s appointments with me
but also by constantly providing me
with a lot of mental support
eventually i got to check up results
back and it turned out that
i was just overthinking and it wasn’t as
serious
as i thought however
looking back at that time i cannot
imagine
how i would have overcome it without the
support of other people
i realized that i had received a lot
from others
and that i should do something to repay
for all the help
that had been given to me and i had a
constant thought that
i should do it quickly because i didn’t
know
what would happen tomorrow what i was
looking for
was an opportunity to do something
now after that an opportunity came
i still remember it it was at the end of
the second trimester
of the first year at that time we were
studying
many basic sciences such as physiology
biochemistry and immunology
all of them were interesting but
challenging at the same time
besides the intricacies of basic
sciences the main challenges
were to study all of them in english
which isn’t
my mother tongue nor the mother tongue
of most of my japanese friends
in december the results were released
and
unfortunately some of my friends had to
retake
more than two subjects and another
challenge was that
the reason were scheduled to be right
after the winter vacation
would mean they had only a little more
than one week
to prepare rather than enjoying the
winter vacation
they had to acquire a large amount of
knowledge
in just a short period and some of them
might have been just as stressed as i
was during the most difficult point
of my life as i mentioned at the
beginning
and first i wondered what could i do
to help them through studying for the
test
myself i realized that to study
and understand a new concept in a
limited amount of time
rather than reading through the textbook
from the beginning
it would be much more time saving to
have it
explained to you from someone who has
studied
before given this i came up with an idea
of creating a group where we were going
to teach
the examiner takers about the important
points
and the points that are likely to be in
the exams
fortunately some of my other friends
offered to help
as well and during the winter vacation
we did our best study together which
resulted
in a positive outcome although we didn’t
have much time to rest
it was still one of the most memorable
and rewarding
winter vacation ever
in retrospect it occurred to me that
although i passed the exams i barely
remember
anything because most of the time i was
just
cramming on a textbook and class
materials at the very
last minute very typical procrastinator
right
but for the study group besides careful
review and preparation we also
had have to use our brains to think our
mouths to talk
and our hands to write in order to
convey the concepts
to the group members moreover
since everyone had their own way of
thinking and studying
by explaining what we understand to the
others we also
able to find out the whole inaudible
our understanding and fill them
with the knowledge of other people
someone said that after two weeks we
tend to remember
just ten percent of what we read is
twenty percent
of what we hear but seventy percent of
what we say
indeed thanks to the study group by
explaining what we’re understanding
to the others we are able to have a
deeper understanding
and remember the knowledge longer
it was such a wow moment for me to
realize the
power of learning by teaching each other
and i was so excited
to continue the study group
at that time after finishing the basic
sciences
we had progressed to the clinical
medicines such as
cardiology pulmonary medicines and
gastroenterology
with another huge amount of knowledge to
acquire
and first i wondered why don’t we study
together
not after someone failed an exam but
before
we take it discussing it with some of my
friends
we thought that studying alone has its
own pros
and studying by ourselves
we have control over study environment
studying scheduled
and we can proceed at our own pace
before a study group we have to adjust
our pace to meet
with the others not to mention the
difficulties
of finding a place and time that will
suit the most people
however even all the benefit of learning
by teaching each other mentioned before
we all agreed that the study group was
worth
a try each person was going to be in
charge
of summarizing several topics
summarizing the points that were
emphasized by the professions
and explaining them to the other group
members using the whiteboard
and gradually more and more friends with
diverse backgrounds
joined us among them there were someone
in their early 20s like me who were
enthusiastic but like life experience
there was someone in their 30s
who had graduated from college with
totally different majors
before something happened and drive them
to enter
a medical school and they were also
someone
even in their 40s and were already
parents but managed to be a student
at the same time during the study group
besides the main purpose
of learning about medicine we got great
opportunities
to listen to the experience of the
others
let me give you some examples
i still remember one time when we
studied about a disease
and a friend taught us what it was like
when she developed that disease
how she managed to overcome it and how
the disease
disease shaped her way of thinking later
on
or another time when we study about
pediatrics
and a friend shared the experience as
well as challenges
a parenthood with us
or another time when we studied about
geriatrics
and a friend who were in his 40s shared
with us
the knowledge about insurance and
service for the elderly
as he experienced through caring for his
parents himself
gradually the social aspects were
brought
into our study through listening to
various experiences
and diverse perspectives we became more
open-minded
more compassionate and more mature
indeed thanks to the study group we got
great opportunities
to cultivate not only knowledge but also
humanity which is essential to become
physicians
however maintaining a study group and
make it work
beneficially for everyone has never been
easy
at some point it were almost impossible
and overwhelming especially when we
became third years and had to study
everything in japanese
which was extremely challenging
especially for international
students like us but somehow
thanks to the mutual support of the
group members we managed
to keep going together until now
and again i wondered what drove us
to move forward together and kept us
going together
until now is it the amazing effect
of learning by teaching each other
or is it the great opportunities to
listen to diverse experience
of course those still do count but then
i realized that there was another factor
that much more important
looking back at the beginning as the
original purpose of the study group
was to give back what i had received
from the
other people when i was in the most
difficult point of my life three years
ago
i was so happy to be able to help
friends who were in need
no matter how challenging it is how much
time it took
and how much effort i had to put in as
long as
i was able to help someone i felt worthy
and satisfied and then my friends
experienced the same feelings of
worthiness and satisfaction
when they in turn offering me a lot of
help
to overcome the language barrier and
carry on the study group
and i realized that in giving
that actually i’m receiving a lot and
giving and receiving is such an amazing
cycle
from which we can get true happiness
and that happiness is the motivation
that drove us
to move forward together
in summary i think all the things i have
said can be best summarized in an
african
proverb if you want to go
fast go alone but if
you want to go far go together
my friends and i together we have
embarked on this long journey to become
physicians
and through the study group by helping
and teaching each other
we will be able to cultivate not only
knowledge
but also find happiness and motivation
to overcome challenges
and move forward to become the best
version
of physicians we can be and make this
world a better place
through improving health and welfare of
our world
community thank you very much