The most difficult year of Medical School

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Hello everybody!
I am new here. I am going to start Medical School this August and was just wondering what current medical students think the most difficult year of medical school is. If it makes any difference, the school I am going to has a system based curriculum.

Thank you for your response :-)
Fastidious.

Hmm, a highly debated question....

IMHO, while an MS-I, I thougt first year was hardest. As and MS-II, I thought second year was the hardest. Now, as an MS-III, I think third year is the hardest, but also the most fun. I'm told by people from 4th year students to attendings that 4th year is the best year of your life, and I'm looking forward to it.

It really depends on the the way your school does things. Mine started out slow (about the pace of my O-chem course), and picked up as time went on. I worked as hard in anatomy (1st course, 1st year) as I worked in systemic path (last course, 2nd yr). Systemic path was much more difficult, but I feel that I was "built up" to handle it, and did much better than I did in anatomy.

Good Luck!

who cares
it doesn't matter what's hardest
you have to do your best as much as you can

Finished....commencement this weekend...yaaay...

Looking back...at least for me I would say first year was the toughest. And I say this for several reasons. First, you have to make an adjustment from your previous life, be it college or whatever. This means less money, less social time, etc. Also, there is an increased pace the material is thrown at you compared to college which takes some getting used to. One of the toughest things for me was the minimal clinical exposure you get as a first year, so it gets tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel and you begin to think this wasn't what you expected med school to be like at all.

Here is an analogy given to me at my first year orientation...

MS-1: Like running a 10K. Tough to get through. Have to learn to pace yourself or you'll get burnt towards the end.

MS-2: Running a 5K. A bit more of the same...but now you are in shape and now how to run. Pacing yourself becomes more natural.

MS-3: Marching in a parade. Still takes effort and dedication, but an enjoyable experience.

MS-4: Riding the float in the parade....going along for the ride.

Good Luck!

second year sucked. it was a bit harder than first year, still no clinical fun to be had, and the excitement of actually being in med school had long since worn off. the first year was tough, but at least it was new, and it felt good just to be here.


good luck!

2nd year was the hardest. 3rd year has been disappointing, I've been nothing but slave labor, very little value for me. 4th year, which I start in 3 weeks, I'm gonna go large and have a goodtime.

I didn't think that 1st year was that tough... I was a Bio major in college, so a lot of the courses were review and an attempt to get everyone on the same page. Second year was tough, as there was a lot of rote memorization without true understanding (path and pathophys were separate courses for us). Also, I was pretty burnt out by that point. The lack of clinical exposure the first 2 years is what is the hardest to deal with - ends up feeling like 2 more years of college.

3rd year was hard in the beginning, b/c you are adjusting to the hospital environment and realizing that the first 2 years of med school didn't teach you anything practical (like how to read doctor shorthand). But, at the same time, your learning curve is tremendous 3rd year, and its a LOT of fun. Hard work, but the type that you feel good about.

4th year was awesome! Nuff said.

I think first year is the hardest mostly because of the adjustment, I came from being out of school for several years so it was definitely difficult. It is also difficult because you may need to give up some hobbies or other activities since your time gets pretty tight. My school offers some clinical experiences right from the beginning so it kind of helped but most of the time it was hard to stay focus on embryology when I could not related it to anything ;-)

Reviving and 8 1/2 year old thread???? Why? Do you not have anything better to do?

Lots of zombie threads recently.

Let's revive this thread!
Most difficult year of med school is the one you currently are in! It never gets easy...until you are an Attending, Board Certified, loans paid off ....whew!