Every fall, a new application cycle begins. The leaves change, university campuses fill back up, and thousands of pre-medical students assemble themselves into personal statements, activity lists, transcripts, reference requests, and interview prep. Four years ago, I was one of them: applying to medical school in the fall.
This year, I am applying again for residency. The stakes feel different, but the season feels familiar. I am still checking deadlines, revising documents, wondering whether I have done enough, and trying to imagine the next chapter before I have fully finished the one I am in.
As it often does, application season has arrived alongside my birthday season. There is a temptation during high-pressure periods to postpone joy: to tell myself that I should not celebrate until my applications are submitted, until the interview is over, or until the offer comes through.
Recently, during a stressful day, I was scrubbing into a surgical case alongside a senior resident. She cheerfully asked me to look at the sunset outside the window. “Isn’t it pretty?” she asked. When I turned to look at the window, I gasped. I saw spiders—actual spiders, several of them crawling along the outside of the window.
I asked why she was showing me spiders. Confusion, then recognition, swept across her face as she looked back at the window. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t notice the spiders.”
Neither of us was wrong. We were looking at the same window, but we saw different things. Eventually, my eyes shifted from the spiders and I noticed the sunset too: hues of orange, blue, and purple dancing across the sky.
The spiders were real; I was not imagining them. They were crawling on that glass window just as the pressures and deadlines of application season crawl around the edges of my mind, bringing uncertainty with them.
The resident’s invitation was simple, but it stayed with me. Looking at the sunset did not make the spiders disappear. It did not make the deadlines less real or guarantee a particular outcome. But it reminded me that fear should not be the only thing I notice.
To the parents of pre-medical students: your child may be surrounded by spiders this season. They may be stressed, discouraged, quiet, irritable, or convinced that one imperfect grade or one unanswered email has defined their future. You cannot always remove those worries for them. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is help them notice the sunset too.
That might mean reminding them that they are more than a GPA, a CV, or a carefully polished answer to “Why medicine?” as they prepare for interviews. It might mean celebrating the effort it took to make it through organic chemistry, work a job while studying, volunteer consistently, care for family, or simply keep trying after disappointment.
It might mean bringing them food; asking how they are doing without immediately asking whether they have heard back; and encouraging them to enjoy the holiday festivities, see friends, sleep, laugh, and be a person. It might also mean letting them be disappointed. If this cycle does not go the way they hope, it is not proof that they are not capable or that their dream was foolish.
This is something I have had to remind myself of as I turn 27 while applying for residency. At first, I did not want to do much for my birthday. I thought I should let the stress consume the whole month and return to celebration later. But part of noticing the sunset is allowing yourself to celebrate where you are, even when you do not know exactly where you will land.
As I look back, four years ago, I was applying to medical school. In between, there have been long days, hard exams, new cities, new friendships, mistakes, unexpected wins, and countless small moments that once felt impossible to reach. The version of me who was applying to medical school could not fully picture this one. She was too busy looking at the spiders when she turned 23.
Your pre-med child is in that in-between space now. They may be so focused on what comes next that they miss the good things unfolding around them: the friends they have made, the communities and clubs that have become part of their life, the mentors who have encouraged them, and the small moments of joy that have carried them through.
Whether they enter medical school this year, next year, or find a different route toward a meaningful life, their life is happening now, and they are still becoming someone. So yes, help them proofread the essay. Practise interview questions with them if you can. Celebrate the acceptance when it comes, and sit with them if it does not.
But also, in the middle of this application cycle the spiralling and the endless talk of “what’s next” ask them to look up.The spiders may still be there. But so is the sunset.
From a Medical Student Who’s Been There
Adesua Egbase
Storytelling & Content Writer | Healthcaring Differently
Senior Editor: Dr. Onye Nnorom
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