Med Student Lifestyle: Information for Students by Students

Empi said:

Thanks for responding to my question.

When the time comes, I might hire a college student to schlep the younger teenagers around part time, I can't think of any better alternative. There seem to be no programs for middle school and older kids. I know they're more independent, but we live in the 'burbs and must drive to places like the Y.

I think I'll be looking for shadowing opportunities in order to make my decision about PA-vs-DO.

As far as field goes, I'm interested in Family Medicine. I am interested in holistic health, which makes DO more attractive than MD.

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Empi, sorry I didn't see your post sooner. I thought I would also contribute to the answers since my children are about the age your child will be.

You asked what to do with older kids who still need some sort of responsible adult around. We have been using a teenage sitter for about 5 months now and it has worked beautifully for us. She's about to be a Senior in HS and our kids are in middle school and junior high. It works well because she is able to take them to the pool, drive them to the library or the movies, and she's there if there is any kind of emergency or to mediate arguments, etc.

My kids are too old for daycare (usually stops at 5-6th grade, and often isn't ideal for that older age group anyway) but my husband and I are not comfortable with being a 30-45 minute drive away from them if anything should happen. Also, without the sitter they wouldn't be able to leave the house, have friends over and all that important social stuff. Oh yes, and the teenager can help with homework!

As for the DO/PA decision, I agree with the others, you need to make that decision independant of the childcare issue. Childcare will have to be addressed either way and it won't change the outcome much. You'll essentially be a working parent whether you go the PA or the DO route.

Good luck!

LilMiss108 said:

Hello,
I am a beginning 1st year, and while I know I have a lot on my plate already with class, I was wondering if any of you had any tips on getting to know faculty. If there has been a recent post on this, please direct me to it. Otherwise, any tips would be appreciated! I figure I may as well start early if I have the opportunity!

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It really isn't tough to get to know the faculty at your school, although some schools are known to have friendlier faculty than others. Many professors are quite friendly and love talking to students after lecture or during office hours (especially about their research... no matter how boring it is, professors can talk for hours about their research). Go up there, introduce yourself, and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Another thing you can do in the beginning of the year is look up the faculty bios online. Find someone with some research of clinical focus that interests you and send them an email introducing yourself. Introduce yourself and tell them why you're emailing them. I just wouldn't write them a 10 page intro to your life as the first email--some of them can be quite busy. Keep your email to no more than a couple of paragraphs.

Good Luck!!

MSmentor003 said:

It really isn't tough to get to know the faculty at your school, although some schools are known to have friendlier faculty than others. Many professors are quite friendly and love talking to students after lecture or during office hours (especially about their research... no matter how boring it is, professors can talk for hours about their research). Go up there, introduce yourself, and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Another thing you can do in the beginning of the year is look up the faculty bios online. Find someone with some research of clinical focus that interests you and send them an email introducing yourself. Introduce yourself and tell them why you're emailing them. I just wouldn't write them a 10 page intro to your life as the first email--some of them can be quite busy. Keep your email to no more than a couple of paragraphs.

Good Luck!!

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Just to add a little bit, I had good luck meeting faculty during 1st and 2nd year by getting involved with specialty interest groups. I took advantage of a few opportunities to shadow and learned a little bit about what I did and didn't want in a field. My school has a summer research program that I participated in during the summer between first and second year. This gave me a chance to get to know a field and some faculty even better. I worked hard and as a result they seemed to like me, I learned a lot (that has helped me during clerkships so far!) and I have a great letter that will be incorporated into my dean's letter come residency application time. With a little extra effort I was able to get my work in as an abstract at a regional conference and I'm currently revising it in hopes of publishing.

with medical school!

Hello all, I'm here to help out from an IMG perspective - I'm a US citizen, studying in the UK, hoping to pass my USMLEs and match (read: scramble) into a spot back here in the US. I'm a young guy (19 y/o today), single, going to be entering my 3rd of 3 preclinical years (followed by 3 clinical years) in September (systems-based).

I probably won't be too much of a help, but I'll see what I can do. I do a lot of shadowing (IM/Hospitalists & ER) during my summers here at the local hospital, so I've got a little bit of clinical experience right now).

So yeah, I'll try and answer as best I can, so ask away!

mmcnam said:

Hi,

I'm a pre-med student applying now and I've just finished my undergrad. I'm wondering - what experience do any of you have with being married in medical school? I'm in a tricky situation because my fiance is attending graduate school and I've very much like to attend medical school there as well. It's a competitive school and I'm a competitive applicant, but what's the most tactful way to tell an interviewer about this situation? Does it warrant extra consideration at all?

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Most schools want to know two things about you when you apply: 1) Are you a good candidate and 2) What is the likelihood you'll come to their school if accepted. Having your fiance attending that school is a strong #2. I think it is something worth mentioning in your secondary or in an LOI along with the other factors that are making you consider their school strongly. If they ask you why their school in the interview, that's something you wan to mention amongst other things as a draw for you to the school. That's my 2 cents, but you might also want to make an inquiry on the "Special Admission Circumstances" thread.

As for being married in med school, I'm personally not, but I'd say about 60% or more of my class is. Once you get into that mid-20's+ age range a lot of people are married, so you'll find that many of your classmates will have that in common with you. At my school they even started a spouses support group.

Good luck!

zest said:

I am a 28y/o F, married and starting 1st year DO program in august this year. My concern is time managment with hour and 15 mins commute I have each way. I want to be able to commute, spend time with my husband and be able to study efficiently.
My questions are: what is the ideal amount of time to spend studying everyday on exam weeks/ non exam weeks? What should my study strategy be?
How/when can I get some workout time in since I like to work out for an hour or so. I am not a very morning person but need to be at school at 8 in the mornings.
Eat healthy- My husband can shoulder this but I still need to do few things.

I am really concerned too since I want to have a baby and not sure if 1st year or second year would be better to be pregnant- the pros/cons.

I do better with having a plan and puts me at great ease. I would appreciate your feedback or anyothers who have some experience in my situation. I have to say I admire all of you and are heroes for being able to handel the almost impossible so well.

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How much time you'll have to study will vary by program, some have 8 hrs of lecture a day others have less. In medical school they give you more material than is humanly possible to cover, so you have to become efficient at cutting through the extraneous material and getting to the point, which will cut down on your study time. This skill will take some time to develop. At schools that are lecture intensive, many will skip lecture and study off the notes during that time.

As for spending time with the family, your time will be very tight. Many of the students who have families will stay on campus until they finish studying and then go home. You'll have to enjoy what precious time you have when you can.

I'm not sure about pregnancy. I've heard it's better to have a child after the second year b/c you can take a leave of absence then and re-schedule your rotations for the next year. However, I believe that there is Women's forum somewhere on SDN that tackles these types of question, that you may want to visit for better answer.

CarolinaGirl said:

I all but about five med schools have prereqs. What I want to know is how much do those classes come into play in first and second year. If someone was to get in (to a schooll that does not require prereqs) how much more difficult could first year be. Did you find that your gen. chem, o. chem, and physics classes made school easier? Do the first and second year classes really use info from gen. chem and physics? If so what stuff-I would not expect to learn about electrons, atoms, and kinetics in med school-but honestly what do I know. Do you really need to know how to calculate molar mass, or o. chem formulas etc. to do well? When topics on these subjects are presented is it in a more indepth manor than previously studied or in a general way? Even if it had been ten years since students took these classes imagine they would not remember the information unless they used it on a daily basis. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opinions on this.

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Hi there, you ask some pretty good questions. I like to think of the prerequisites as training your mind to think about problems. More often though, they are meant to dissuade people from pursuing medicine.

I found that physics, gen chem, and o. chem didn't directly apply to medical school but I often found things popping up. It's hard to understand the vectors for an EKG if you haven't taken calculus or physics. Similarly, knowing the charge of different biologically required minerals helps in a variety of classes. Also, professors in medical school won't explain things they assume you already know and understand.


While someone who has taken the class 10 years ago won't "remember" everything, the material isn't entirely lost. Basically, by forcing you to learn how to learn it once it ensures you'll know how to relearn it faster and where to look when you need it. Hope this helps!

Hello Everyone,
I am a new mentor and just wanted to introduce myself. I am a 27 year old married female with a 15 month old daughter. I just started my first year at an osteopathic school. I am nontraditional in that, I first got my masters before applying to medical school as well as getting married and having a child.

I am willing to answer most any question although my "specialties" include student with child, married student, financial concerns as a parent, and questions about osteopathic schools.

My interests include critical care and emergency medicine and will most likely go into emergency care.

Hope that I can be helpful to all the future medical students.

Hey guys,
I'm a new med student (1st day of anatomy today!) at a pass/fail all 4 years school. I'll know more about lifestyle as things go on, but so far it's been a whirlwind.

A bit of background: I went to the same school I went to for undergrad (and truth be told, I hung around the med school more). I'm a CS major, but bioinformatics/genomics isn't the only med school techie haunt. For example, my research has been mainly focused on medical imaging and image processing. That said, I can't speak about bioengineering/bioinformatics very specifically.
There are a couple of other techies in my class, so I don't feel alone .

Feel free to ask questions, I'll answer within a week at absolute most.

Hi there. I am a new mentor on SDN.

I am an MS1, female, nontraditional student; medicine will be my second career.

I am happy to answer questions about applying to medical school, in general, or as a nontraditional student.

As I am still a newbie, I am not sure how much insight I can offer into medical school just yet. But, as I continue through school and training, I will also be happy to answer questions about lifestyle, academics, concerns, and other thoughts related to medical training.

Iluvdocs said:

Hi there I just saw your post. Can you tell me about your child care experiences? Are you married? I am 28 years old. I have a 3 year old and I'm not in the greatest marriage. I have no family. I am dying to start my first steps toward this career but I am petrified for my son. I don't want to neglect him. I feel if I had just one family member to help out I would be all set, but I don't so I know I will have to leave him with strangers. I would love to hear your story

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If you look earlier in the thread in this post, MSMentor004 wrote about her childcare experiences.

SoCuteMD said:

If you look earlier in the thread in this post, MSMentor004 wrote about her childcare experiences.

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SoCute, thanks for catching this post for me.

Iluvdocs, if there are other questions not answered in my previous posts, I'd be happy to answer them for you.

aaj117 said:

I am 22, I have been out at different levels since age 16, and very out in the application process. I decided to include all of my LGBT activities on my AMCAS because they involved a lot of my time, included a lot of leadership experiences, and I figured i wouldn't be comfortable at a school who wasn't comfortable with me. I was different levels of out on different applications though, writing about experiences with gay and transgendered patients telling me times they had been refused care, and discussing the LGBT community as an underserved one for some schools with missions to bring medicine to underserved communities. I think this has gone over well, as I have interviews at all of the schools i wrote about this at, and 8 schools altogether. I was just wondering if you've found certain schools are more comfortable to be at, if having an LGBT student group is a good indication of that, if the HBCUs or religious schools (specifically georgetown) are more homophobic, and just in general any problems you have encountered with these issues throughout your studies? my undergrad institution was so open and accepting that I am not totally sure that i know exactly what problems i may encounter in the future, and when it may be best to keep quiet. thanks!

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Hi aaj,
Probably one of the reasons why it took a few days to get a response to this question is because most of us only have actual experience with one medical school-- our own. I'm glad to hear that your LGBT activity has been received positively throughout your interview process, since it's been a big investment of your time and energy.

For what it's worth, I think that most medical student populations will be fairly comfortable with LGBT students, since we're in the era now where current medical students went to college during a period when that community was active almost everywhere. For me personally I've found the students active in that group at my institution to be valuable resources for finding out more about that underserved population. At risk of perpetuating stereotypes, the place where you might run into trouble along the way is with some of the "old school" physicians, who tend to be much more conservative than younger physicians. Hopefully this won't be an issue with interviews, but it's certainly a pitfall to watch for.

As far as which institutions as a whole are more accepting, that seems like it would be difficult to tell. If you are interested in continuing activity along the lines of what you've been doing, usually interview days give you a chance to talk to current students; you can just ask if their LGBT group is active. If you're really ambitious and don't mind some legwork, you could even bring life into a group that isn't terribly active.

I hope this answers your questions. Other mentors may mention if they know of a school that is NOT supportive of the LGBT community or where there have been problems in the past, but I would guess that by default most will be at varying levels of accepting.

Good luck interviewing!

SQUmedic said:

Hi everyone, I am a new (2nd year) med student on this forum. I had few questions to ask:
Ive been able to maintain my GPA but now I feel I cant anymore. Last semester I got 3.78 and now its 3.53. I wanted to ask how do the other medical students stay motivated. One of my problems is that even a small obstacle can upset me badly and then I dont really concentrate on my books. so basically what motivates other medical students?
I usually study late night till 4 am .. im so used to it, I cant change it now.. and then I have lectures in the morning at 7 am. Sometimes when exams are around I dont get sleep before the exam and this reduces my performance. What do i do about it?
I also need some tips on organizing myself so that I can workout as well. I used to and now ive dropped it and i feel guilty about it.

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I assume you mean you are a premed? or does your medical school have grades?

To answer your question, I will first say that at my med school motivation is all you have, since almost the entire grade is based on the final but still one cannot afford to fall behind mid-quarter. Motivation is a huge problem and is only gained by realizing that the training you receive in med school will be invaluable to what you do in the future.
The same thing cannot be said of all premedical courses however, so the motivation lies in getting the best grade you can...because it helps you get into medical school. In my case, I did another major that I was really interested in and that I knew I would use in later life.
Your sleeping habits do need to change. An easy way is to have a cutoff point, say 12 am, if you have class at 7 am. For the first few days, you may have trouble sleeping, but stick with it and your body will adjust. I guarantee you will feel better.
As far as anxiety before exams, you need to figure out what causes your anxiety. In most cases, identifying the cause of anxiety relieves that anxiety, especially if you work to alleviate it. Grades do matter, but they are not worth your sanity. If it is affecting your life severely, try talking to a counselor.
I shouldn't be talking about working out because I have trouble with that myself .

If anybody else has another opinion, feel free .

SQUmedic said:

Thankyou so much for replying. Im a premed but in my med school, you are called a "medical" student right from year 1 till 7, when you receive your M.D
Well I did change my sleeping habits as you said and yes it has worked, i feel fresher now, attending lectures is easy. I have not mentioned this in my earlier post , im looking for tips to study for specific subjects.. specially the system courses..
If any one can tell me some ideas to study efficiently for Histology, anatomy, biochemistry, system courses like Alimentary system, locomoter system, nervous system..?
And how do you all organize yourself so there is some space for social life and some gymming sessions..
Anything else you would like to advice?
Any recommended books a med student must have?
Help me out, I would really appreciate your help

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It's hard for one person to give another advice about how to study for specific courses, because there's just far too much variability in the ways people learn, and the structure of classes themselves among institutions. In general, I'd suggest talking to your friends, getting some ideas about what they do to study. Try a few out, find one that works, and stick with it.

As for social life and gym, I can do a little more for you with that. Gym time needs to be scheduled in first and second year. The way I see it, you could literally spend your entire time through medical school studying in your free time, but this would make you absolutely miserable, it would have diminishing returns with greater time investment, and after a certain point everyone just starts to lose focus. My approach during study-dense times was to set aside a block for non-work (gym, errands, cooking, etc.), usually something like 6-8. That way, I could get some studying done right after class, take a break to do some things I needed/wanted to do, and then have enough time left to finish up.

I'll leave your other questions to other mentors, if they want to answer them. They're not exactly lifestyle questions, and as one of the dinces of my class, I'm probably the wrong one to ask about course materials and study aids.

kambee said:

I have been out of school for many years and recently went to mortuary science school, it is only a year long, and realized that I should be doing what I have always wanted to do and that is go to med school. I haven't started applying, I still have a couple of classes that I need to take first. I was wondering if you were worried/feelings about not getting accepted to med school since you had been out for so long.

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There are many students who apply to med school well after their undergraduate studies. I applied to med school a full 11 years after I received my BA. (Of course, I took pre-req courses much closer to application time.) I was worried about being "old" when applying to med school, but it turned out not to be an issue for me. Just prove that you can still do the work by doing very well in your current courses.

Bump, this is a wonderful thread!

Hi MSmentor008,

When you first started medical school, were you out right away to your classmates and professors? If not, when/how do you decide whether or not to?

Have you experienced any issues, especially with older and/or more conservative professors/doctors, as a result of being out with them? Especially for an adviser who should know you very well as a person, it seems natural to be out to him/her. Yet is it a worry that the adviser may respond negatively and, in turn, will negatively affect his/her recommendation letter for your residency applications?

Do you plan on revealing yourself in the residency application process?

Thanks very much for volunteering to mentor. Much appreciated.