The Med School & Tik Tok Perspective w/ mad.medicine

Welcome to MedKinza Talks, your go to source for bite sized content in becoming future doctors. I'm your host, Kinza Hussain, and I'm a second year medical student helping students navigate the ins and outs of one of the most competitive careers. I will be sharing the lessons I've learned and inviting guest speakers to provide real quality advice to help you get into medical school, succeed as a med student, and prepare you to become a future doctor. Want more free quality advice? Subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Instagram @medkinza, where I post videos and infographics delivering content to you every week. Now sit back, relax and learn something new. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of my latest episodes released every week.

Hey, everyone, welcome. This is Episode three, and it's a very special one because I'm so excited to introduce our guest Farhan many of us know him from his successful tech talk where he has over 375 thousand followers.

He frequently posts the most hilarious videos related to medicine. One of my favorites is a series on the objects that are not meant to be in your body, where he shows x rays of crazy things found in people's bodies other than humorous videos Farhan and also posts informational content for aspiring doctors. Please join me in welcoming Farhan who has taken the time out to answer some very specific questions to not only help me in my journey, but also our listeners.

Hi Farhan, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hey Kinza, thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, of course. So you can go ahead and do a quick introduction. Who are you? Where are you and what year are you in?

So my name is Farhan. I am a medical student in Southern California and I think you, you know, hit the nail on the coffin. You got pretty much everything right. I don't think there's much to add than that.

So Farhan is in his fourth year of medical school, correct?

Yeah.

So what was the very specific driving force that motivated you to become a doctor?

For me, it was my parents, my parents are immigrants who came from Pakistan, and one of the things they wanted was for their kids to be, you know, educated, but at the same time to have opportunities that we didn't have back in our home country. And I'm the youngest of all my siblings and watching them grow up and all of them became physicians. There was a lot of stress on my shoulders, you know, to follow their path.

But at the same time, it was a lot of motivation because I know I wanted to help people. I know I wanted to do something that makes a difference. I just didn't know exactly what I wanted until I got to college. I did some shadowing. I did some premed stuff that everyone does. I fell in love with it even more and it just solidified my path.

I would say it's great to hear. I would say I have kind of a similar story. I don't really know if it was something I wanted versus my parents until I really delved into it and volunteered. So that's great to hear.

No, no, I was just going to say it's like a very common, you know, story that we all a lot of us have to deal with, like our parents ambitions, but also what we want. And balancing the two is up. And it's completely fine if you're someone who doesn't want to be in medicine and you have interests that like are outside of STEM to really embrace that and just stick to it and believe in yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Because you got you got to do what you want to do, because like especially in medicine, it's such a taxing career and such a taxing process to get through medical school, then residency and then work that if you aren't really in it for the long haul and you don't really want to do it if your heart's not there, it's just going to suck like no two ways around it.

Yeah. And the debt that you're going to be in, I like to talk about that, too, because if you don't love it and you have over three or it's just about in debt behind your name, I think it's going to make you hate it more.

Absolutely. You know, that's one of the things in med school and as a premed. Absolutely. That's not discussed enough in my opinion. I think that it's it's so important to discuss finances because people have this idea that, you know, as a physician, you're making an enormous amount and some physicians do. But at the same time, behind that enormous amount is an enormous amount of debt just for school.

One hundred percent. Yeah.

You know, so it's it's really important to shed light for students and for people to write.

So as a medical student, what would you say is the number one most challenging part of being a med student?

I would honestly say it is balancing everything together, like for me that it's not the content that's hard because after a certain point, I and I'm sure you can relate to that after a certain point in education, all the content you're learning is, you know, the same level of difficulty. It's balancing the copious amount of information you need to know as a physician, remembering it and then being able to apply it. That's hard. But but after that, you know, that's just one aspect for me, though, is balancing my life like I'm married. My wife isn’t in medicine. She does something completely different. And then like, you know, my family lives nearby. That's another thing. I want to see my parents. I want to see my siblings. And then at the same time, I want to have like a life and see my friends. So all these things and all balancing medical school forgot about that. All of these things is so difficult sometimes that I'm like often picking and choosing between medical school. I can't pick and choose between. That's a that's a staple that's a constant in my life right now.

Right.

But everyone else kind of has to go on the backburner. And I'm glad I'm really grateful that, you know, my wife understands she's her family is also in medicine. So she knows she knew what she was getting into. So I have that support. My parents know because, you know, my siblings went through it and obviously my siblings and my friends are in medical school. So we all understand. But you still have that feeling that I'm not doing enough. I need to go see my friends. I need to see my my family. I feel like I'm a terrible son sometimes, even though everyone understands. So just that balancing act in my life.

I completely agree with you, but I'm really glad that you value, you know, everyone else in your life. And I'm sure you take the time out to see them because you learn how to balance things over time. And I'm really glad that you tell yourself like medical school is important. But you know what? So is my family.

Yeah. It's not you know, that's one thing that like it's so important for medical students to realize because it's burnout is real. Like I felt it in, in my second year actually at the end of my first year of medical school, I felt burnt out. I was tired, I was exhausted. I hated what we were learning, not because I, I didn't like helping people. I was just burnt out. And that took away my motivation to study. So if you don't take a step away from med school, from your life, your medical life and enjoy everything else, it's so much harder.

And for me, it was realizing that, oh, I don't need to study eight hours for this class. I can study maybe four or five and I'll be OK. I will pass the exam. I'll be OK.

Yeah.

So what was the number one best part then of being in med school or as a student?

I would honestly say, like the number one best part is like the relations that I've been able to make like over time, not just with my colleagues, with my medical students, you know, fellow medical students, but also with like the attendings and the doctors we work with and the patients like just the other day I saw a patient who I treated them when they were pregnant.I was going through I will be going home and the lady was pregnant. I took care of her then. We did like her regular checkups. I was the first person she'd see and I would do the work. And then a little while back, I was on a I was working in the neonatal unit when, like, the newborn babies are born for those of you don't know. So I was on the newborn service and it just turned out that she had her baby. And I got to take care of the mother when she was pregnant and then the baby right when I was born. And like she was so grateful because she felt so comfortable with that report.

Yeah.

That she was so, like, calm when she saw me. Obviously, she was scared. First time, mother, a lot of things are happening around her to her. She's in the hospital. Even though everything was fine, she's just scared. And just to be able to talk to her and be like, hey, you're doing great. You're going to be fine. You're going to be a great mother. It just felt good. So these types of relationships, I think, is the best part of medicine. You get to learn a lot. You get to learn a lot about the human body, about things that are going to happen to, you know, your family members and how are you going to treat it. But, man, those relationships, I think, is the most rewarding part of it all.

You're getting me excited because like with covid and all, we haven't been able to do any clinical stuff so far as I'm feeling excited now to start hopefully soon going into the hospital again. It's a lot of fun once you guys get you’re in your second year, right?

Yeah, I just started my second year. Yeah. So your third year is going to be a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the clinical work more than the, you know, the classwork. So just remember there's a light at the end of the tunnel anyway.

Yeah, I keep that in mind. So my next question is something I really wanted to ask. So being in the content creation space. How do you specifically manage your time to be a medical student and a content creator? Some people who aren't in the social media creative space may not realize the hours that go into filming, editing, and posting. So how do you keep track of consistently posting, almost every single day and editing that content with your busy schedule?

That's a great question. So I'm going to try to break it down. Okay for me like the truth is I wouldn't do this if I did have an interest in it and when I mean by interest is not like, you know, getting the attention or getting like, you know, the accolades of having so many followers or whatever. Yeah, obviously that that's just a sign of like, I guess you could say clout but realistically it's not about the clout it's not about that what I really enjoy about content creation is the process and I've always been like that. I always like making videos and you know working with cameras. That was that's a hobby. I've had since high school I would say and it was really difficult for me in college too kind of mesh my two Hobbies together. Yeah. I was trying to find ways of like doing things I like in like the medical sphere and it wasn't until recently that I started realizing, you know, this is a way for me to decompress so that one

It's so important to have a hobby no matter what you do no matter what career path you choose in life. If it's something if it's a career that's going to take up a lot of your time. You need to have something that allows you to decompress and I use social media, but I use content creation and making videos as my hobby. Yeah, and you know, that's something that has allowed me to stay sane during certain rotations because I would come home and I'd be like, all right, you know what, let's you know, my wife still has a little bit of work she needs to complete

I'm going to do a little bit of editing and it would just help me Decompress. That was one of the things the other thing is in the beginning. It's really hard for sure. It's really hard but I think of it as like a roller coaster, right right, like the very first roller coaster, you know, like majority the roller coasters have a huge dip early on right before the tip there's a whole wrap up and social media, in my opinion, is very similar to that when you are getting started. It's a lot of upfront work. You need to put in a you have To put in the work upfront because that will prepare you for later on and now I'm at this point where you know, it's great that I have, you know, a huge number behind me of supporters who want to see my content will like what I'm posting but they've actually made it so much easier because I have flushed out all the Kinks in my process. So I know now how to effectively post a, you know, making a video on Tik-Tok or on Instagram or even on YouTube without it eating too much into my day without it, you know taking up too much time.

But at the same time I want to be able to do it if I had to put into work early in the beginning. I was spending like I kid you not maybe two to three hours a day trying to figure out what works what doesn't work. And that's what I think everyone needs to remember is once you figure that out. Once you have your little niche and you know how you're going to do your, you know your posts and yeah, it makes it so much easier and it's more tolerable and manageable across the board, right?

Yeah you’ve doing this you said you've had an interest in this since high school. So you had years of some experience even if you weren't doing it every day, like you all know you at least had some knowledge like oh, this is like what a good camera is or this is how you make a video like just today I learned how to turn on a Canon because I'm borrowing my roommates Canon in because I still film on my iPhone, you know. Yeah, my camera just did something. Oh well, but I will film on my iPhone and I'm still trying to figure out lighting and I've only been in the video creation space for a year and like lighting is my worst enemy. So then figure out a ring light, but then the ring let you know everything comes with its own problems. I really relate to that. Thank you for speaking to that.

Yeah, and enjoy the process of the like learning because once you there like, you know, I know I know exactly how it feels you never know which ring like to choose which is a good angle. But once you you don't get through you're gonna look back at your videos and be like man, like look how far I've come, you know, That's exciting. So yeah, it's a fun process.

Yeah, I would say it for me editing is like super fun. I love being creative what the what the means it overlays. So my last question for you is what's one very specific piece of advice. You would leave our listeners with today. It could be related to medicine or completely unrelated. But some piece of advice that has made a significant positive contribution to your life.

The number one advice I can give is don't like second guess yourself, right because especially in like the medical sphere especially in being a pre-med. It's very easy to second-guess yourself to second-guess your abilities to second-guess your knowledge. And that's that's kind of a bad thing to have if you constantly do it because then you're never going to take those steps to do something. You really want case in point when I first started my Tik-Tok, I was constantly second-guessing. Hey, should I do this? Should I I do this maybe you know, like I had doubts about myself. I had doubts about my abilities and I kept wondering to people even want to see me. I do people even care and if I had gotten stuck in that process, I would have never seen like, you know, the things I'm seeing now, I would have never made the connections. I've been so blessed to me with people as amazing as you I've been getting got I've had the ability to meet people like Magnolia Prince who's also shows anesthesiologist.

Balance and CJ. Yeah. Yeah and like just crazy people who I would have been like. Wow. These are such big names, but for me, I've just been interacting with them over time that it's so normal. So that's like the number one thing I believe in yourself. Make sure you don't let anyone put you down and it's so easy, especially as a premed my God. Yeah, as always exactly. Yeah use really do like we have this whole thing in the pre-med culture, so, don't you No, don't doubt yourself believe in yourself and don't ever second guess yourseld. It's just you guys got what it takes whatever it takes to be successful not just in medicine, but whatever you want to do. You can you know be successful if you just believe in yourself and you work hard those two things everything will come together after that.

It was amazing advice and I really hit home because it took a lot for me to reach out to you and other creators in the space because I had those same exact thoughts like am I even good enough? And again going to even give me their time like I my big enough so that really hit home even for me. So thank you so much for sharing that and I'm so glad you got a chance to connect.

Absolutely. I'm really happy too because I think we've been following each other for a little while now, but it's always good to do a project together because you know, that just means that now next time you want to do anything. I'm always available. You know, I'm always open to it. It just makes it easier than you know, that's how you make connections in general. So, this is what you're doing is great. Thank you. So, thank you so much you guys for listening. Make sure you follow Farhan’s Tik Tok and Instagram because handle is at @mad.medicine. Also, if you've learnt one little thing from this show, I would really appreciate it. If you could leave a rating and review it means a lot to me and I read them all if you've enjoyed the podcast make sure you hit subscribe. So you don't miss any new episodes released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. See you in the next one.