I've officially turned into a gatekeeper.

When I was in school, 11th and 12th standard and even MBBS, I never hid what I would study from my peers and friends, even though they weren't close to me. People used to think I was lying but I was actually studying less back then. I studied more in PG.

Cut to PG and post PG- I had bad experiences with people, experienced extreme politics. I knew cunning people in MBBS as well, but since I was a localite, it didn't affect me too much. Residency truly opened my eyes. I used to initially share a lot with my colleagues, even though some of them weren't my friends. None of them reciprocated and I felt betrayed by many of them. I formed a close circle where we were just 3 of us and told each other everything. We even studied together and did reasonably well in our MS exams.

Now even in fellowship, I don't voluntarily feel like helping my juniors if I get cunning vibes from them. If they are nice, only then I feel like helping. This was because in PG, our HoD used to favour our juniors more than our batch. He would give them more cutting than our batch because they would butter him up and we wouldn't. I don't want to look poor compared to my juniors even in fellowship because I feel I'll lose out on cutting. Maybe I'm traumatized by my PG.

I feel sad and I feel I'm not as pure of a soul as I was when I was a teen or when I was in my early 20s.

I understand why majority of the people in our field gatekeep now. During MBBS, I used to wonder why people only help their close friends and not everyone else. Now I know!

Thoughts?