Self-esteem and Failure

Lara Nassar
Jan 18, 2022
2 min read

What is Self-esteem?

Self-esteem is one’s perception of themselves and their self-worth. It is how they think and feel about themselves and how much they ‘like’ themselves. Having low self-esteem can make one feel inferior to others, and essentially feel like a failure.

As medical students, many of us were amongst the best achievers in school or college and our self-worth can be highly linked to our accomplishments, which helped us enter medical school in the first place. This could be ingrained in us from childhood, where parents or teachers would only praise us when performing our best.

Medical school itself can be a concentrated environment

of high achievers, making some of us feel inferior.

Knowledge and clinical skills content in medical school is extensive and much more demanding to learn compared to what we were used to in previous education. Being top of the year in this context is a much greater challenge.

Failing exams in medical schools can be a terrifying and unexpected reality for some students. The different nature of exams means that students who have never failed in the past can struggle and fail in medical school. Failing can trigger or exacerbate feelings of failure and low self-esteem and could sow seeds of self-doubt and what is known as imposter syndrome.

What is imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome in medical school can make one feel like they do not belong or do not deserve to be there.

Low self-esteem and failure can leave us with low motivation to succeed, try new thing and socialise. It can even lead to mental health problems including depression and anxiety. The section below outlines some self-help techniques as well as signposts to further help such as counselling services and some useful links.