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For the many high-achieving perfectionists who enter medical school each year, the stakes of their success have never been higher. Becoming a doctor means lives will be in their hands — and failing to make it through med school means they’ll be stuck with an unthinkable amount of debt without a viable way to pay for it. It’s no wonder that medical students suffer greatly from burnout and mental health struggles. But despite an increased awareness of mental health on campuses across the country, there are still barriers keeping many students from accessing the care that they need.

This week on the “First Opinion Podcast,” medical student Amelia Mercado and her professor J. Wesley Boyd talk about the stressors of medical training, privacy concerns within academic institutions, and how high insurance costs affect access to mental health care.

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“The way that you get into medical school, you thrive on being able to push through things,” Mercado said. “After you ask yourself all these questions and [consider] all these opportunities that involve cost, mental and medical care can often fall at the bottom of the priority list.”

The conversation is based on their co-authored First Opinion, “How medical schools are failing students who need mental health care.”

Be sure to sign up for the weekly “First Opinion Podcast” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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