"Room to Grow" by MSIH first year blogger Jon Rom

My face is itchy. Its sensitive surface is repeatedly molested by tiny hairs that are aggressively tickling and torturing it. With each sensation I am filled with regret. Not enough regret to shave the offending culprits, mind you, but regret all the same. I have once again joined the proud lineage of men growing a beard and being absolutely miserable about it.

I am not the first medical student to tread this well-worn path, of course. Lots of my brethren have opted to add to their mental burden by adding weight to their once-smooth faces. My only differentiating feature is that while they do so in admirably stoic silence, I am an eternal grump with a keyboard. As such, you are lucky enough to be graced by some lazy comparison to my education while I rationalize my voluntary agony.

So why am I doing this to myself? Is this my (not-quite) mid 20’s crisis? Is this the crossroads where I recklessly abandon the graceful contours of my baby-face for the unexplored auspicious look of an adult man? Am I growing up?

No. Shame on you for even suggesting such a thing. I love still looking like a kid, despite my many adult responsibilities. It lets me get away with all sorts of childish shenanigans that my friends and loved ones would otherwise deem intolerable. I dance through life as an eternal scamp and sacrificing that has been a very difficult decision for me.

I am doing this because there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where I have to tell a patient some news. Good or bad, if I were them I would be partial to anybody other than an infant serving as a messenger. Despite what my driver’s license may protest my young face will give them pause because, for all its cuteness, it is not a serious face.

Like I said, I’m not the first man of the lab coat to hop onto this particular bandwagon. My reason may be easier to articulate, but the journey to cultivate this face accessory is not lonely. This is not a coincidence. Studying generates the urge to grow facial hair, a fact I can expertly conclude from my sample of one.

Although this won’t be a very scientific argument, my logic is sound. Place yourself in my comically wide shoes, faced with the torrent of medical school facts you are expected to put into your naive brain meat. You are now at war with yourself. At war against the boredom and restlessness your mind generates in its daring attempts to gain freedom from its captivity. So like any good soldier that is equipped with a good (enough) reason to skip shaving and too little energy to care about looking good, I am allowing my face to return to nature.

I may be romanticizing the ordeal, but I’ll attest to anybody how often I witness unchecked hair growth in the student population around this time of year. It always seems to happen right around the time their education begins to feel like they’re walking uphill in a snow storm. For those of us who don’t quit, life becomes all about prioritizing time and conserving energy.

The fur we adorn is a manifestation of the internal growth cycle of the student. Parties and liquor are for the shaven, with their free time and optimistic illusions of the future. Hairy beasts know the work they must do and what they must sacrifice to do it well. Only through the heat of summer can we forget these lessons so that they may be relearned through the next cycle.

So now it is my turn to choose which indulgences winter-Jon must sacrifice. I’m not going to quit eating or exercising, and I have to go to class and study, so where should my time be freed from? Less creative writing and YouTube watching, maybe? Once against, I must shame you for your ridiculous suggestions. Despite how I physically appear at the moment, I am not an animal who will shut himself off from the world and its funny videos.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must begin storing acorns and beard lotions in my apartment’s various hiding holes in preparation for the exam-rich winter to come. Good day.