Do people over exaggerate the difficulty of medical school? Overthinking vs. act

[bad virus]

​

Seriously guys, this is getting out of control. There have been a few under the table insults thrown here or there, and they just aren't necessary. You know who you are. Look the point of this thread was asking if medical school is as hard as some people make it out to be or is that just an exaggeration. It is probably safe to assume that the OP has been exposed to the classic group of people that make whatever it is they are doing sound like rocket science (if rocket science is even that hard - debatable).

Is it as hard as that group makes it out to sound? The clear and simple answer is no.

Is it easy? The answer to that is no. Since this is all a matter of relativity and it is all subjective (aka objective Truth with a big "T" doesn't exist for this one) then you will get varying degrees of answers. Some people will see it from a perspective of suffering and strife while others will take it from the point of another day another dollar kind of mentality.

Personally, I take the latter and just live my life and consider this just as the required thing that I have to do to move on. Other poeple have their own required thing, it could be work or taking care of kids or both, but this one is mine. I don't let it define me or get to me. I just do what I need to because I know that I want the privelages and career that comes at the end of the road.

Nothing that you do in medical school requires an IQ above 90 and I am dead serious about that. The concepts are seriously trivial. The amount of information you have to consume is horrendous, there is no denying that. Scoring at the top of your class is not an amazing feat and I have no clue what really differentiates those in the top from those not there. It is not smarts. I am lucky to be in the top 10% of my class but I am not any smarter or more driven than any of my other class mates. I just consistently keep on trudging through keeping my things organized and just doing generally what I am told. I go to class about 4 hours a day and study for about 4 hours, interspering that with youtube and other things but the rest of the day is mine. This is amped up on test days but not by much. The only trick i can tell you is consistency. If you keep that up you will do fine.

I guess this ramble can be concluded by saying that people see things in different ways. Some are pessimistic, while others are optimistic. Some need to be validated by others while others don't. The kid that tells everyone how hard s/he has it, just wants people to respect the effort that they are putting into it. There is nothing wrong with that other than it can give a skewed representation of what things are like on the other side. The thing is, it actually might seem that way to that person, so it might not totally be false, and it might seem that way to you when you get there. Or you might see it as just a job or you might even see it as fun.

Our friend "One - Rock" Or Einstein as others call him said it best. All things are relative.

If you are looking for a scale of difficulty.

Med School = working as an engineer = working as a CPA = working as a miner (seen that one done) = working as a janitor (been there done that) = laying down asphalt (done that too) all of which are much greater than undergrad. Undergrad is a joke, end of story.

Each of the above jobs has its own mix of mental/physical stress in the end that equates them together.

Holy crap, I have no freaking clue where I am going with this . . .​

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[MCAT guy]

​

Seriously guys, this is getting out of control. There have been a few under the table insults thrown here or there, and they just aren't necessary. You know who you are. Look the point of this thread was asking if medical school is as hard as some people make it out to be or is that just an exaggeration. It is probably safe to assume that the OP has been exposed to the classic group of people that make whatever it is they are doing sound like rocket science (if rocket science is even that hard - debatable).

Is it as hard as that group makes it out to sound? The clear and simple answer is no.

Is it easy? The answer to that is no. Since this is all a matter of relativity and it is all subjective (aka objective Truth with a big "T" doesn't exist for this one) then you will get varying degrees of answers. Some people will see it from a perspective of suffering and strife while others will take it from the point of another day another dollar kind of mentality.

Personally, I take the latter and just live my life and consider this just as the required thing that I have to do to move on. Other poeple have their own required thing, it could be work or taking care of kids or both, but this one is mine. I don't let it define me or get to me. I just do what I need to because I know that I want the privelages and career that comes at the end of the road.

Nothing that you do in medical school requires an IQ above 90 and I am dead serious about that. The concepts are seriously trivial. The amount of information you have to consume is horrendous, there is no denying that. Scoring at the top of your class is not an amazing feat and I have no clue what really differentiates those in the top from those not there. It is not smarts. I am lucky to be in the top 10% of my class but I am not any smarter or more driven than any of my other class mates. I just consistently keep on trudging through keeping my things organized and just doing generally what I am told. I go to class about 4 hours a day and study for about 4 hours, interspering that with youtube and other things but the rest of the day is mine. This is amped up on test days but not by much. The only trick i can tell you is consistency. If you keep that up you will do fine.

I guess this ramble can be concluded by saying that people see things in different ways. Some are pessimistic, while others are optimistic. Some need to be validated by others while others don't. The kid that tells everyone how hard s/he has it, just wants people to respect the effort that they are putting into it. There is nothing wrong with that other than it can give a skewed representation of what things are like on the other side. The thing is, it actually might seem that way to that person, so it might not totally be false, and it might seem that way to you when you get there. Or you might see it as just a job or you might even see it as fun.

Our friend "One - Rock" Or Einstein as others call him said it best. All things are relative.

If you are looking for a scale of difficulty.

Med School = working as an engineer = working as a CPA = working as a miner (seen that one done) = working as a janitor (been there done that) = laying down asphalt (done that too) all of which are much greater than undergrad. Undergrad is a joke, end of story.

Each of the above jobs has its own mix of mental/physical stress in the end that equates them together.

Holy crap, I have no freaking clue where I am going with this . . . ​

Aren't penguins adorable?

 

[MCAT guy]

I'm sorry Nasrudin, but I need another bottle of Oxycontin before I understand what you just said. So, I guess my only reply can be "whatever, man, its kewl".

 

[EdLongshanks]

There have been a few under the table insults thrown here or there, and they just aren't necessary. You know who you are..

Bless me, virus, for I have sinned.

 

[Law2Doc]

...

I know that a manual discompaction is bad, but - when I had to remove apples from a porta-potty with a rubber glove - I also had to remove my watch.

Sure, but you didn't have to obtain a professional degree and run up $250k in debt for the privilege of cleaning a porta potty. Nor did you have to do it at 3am after a series of similar tasks.

My point is that medicine has its own indignities that certainly rival pretty much anything out there. You can't really say "at least I'm not doing heavy labor" with a straight face and feel good about yourself when you instead get to do a manual disimpaction.

You will work hard in med school, harder as a resident, and probably never get to let up a whole lot as an attending. It's not heavy lifting, but it is emotionally draining and physically exhausting nonetheless. It has its rewards, most of which are not shared by the more blue collar jobs described here, and for this folks can certainly feel lucky, but I think there are too many folks who want the sterile clean job they see on TV rather than the other extreme they are going to come across in most hospitals. Medicine is not a clean job. It's a roll up your sleeves and get dirty (bloody, vommitty, etc) job. That's why we wear scrubs. It's a career you spend years studying for, but arming your mind is only half the battle -- there's a squeamishness component that you have to prepare for as well. It can be fun, but you have to go into it with the expectation that you might have to change your clothes and get your hands dirty every now and then.

 

[spiderpete]

Chill is good.

Impaction...can't say I am looking forward to it, but I have manually cleared a sewer, the advantage being it was stationary and the consequences of failure less severe.

Ahhh... For the beauty of soldering NAND gates again

 

[EdLongshanks]

Chill is good.

Impaction...can't say I am looking forward to it, but I have manually cleared a sewer, the advantage being it was stationary and the consequences of failure less severe.

Ahhh... For the beauty of soldering NAND gates again

You had soldering irons.....?

 

[bad virus]

You had soldering irons.....?

It's called a zippo lighter and some untreated aluminum foil

How do you think surgeons develop their steady hands.

 

[globalmobile]

Honestly? It's a fear of mine. That said, I have a genuine interest in psychiatry. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't become my generation's derm.

haha i am genuinely, truly interested in psych as well, and hoping it stays a noncompetitive residency!!

 

[235750]

It's pretty damn hard. It's take a lot more time and effort than a 40 hr./wk. job like the one I had before entering med school. Additionally, it takes a lot more effort than any semester I spent in college

I didn't read past the first page, so forgive me if this has already been said

I believe the key difference between medical school and a 70/80 hr/week job is that medical school involves very little thinking.

My previous job was directing research. You not only have to be knowledgeable of the field you're in, you also have to think critically. To be creative for 70 hrs a week was (and still is) the most demanding career I've ever had.

I am an MS2, and up to this point any person good at memorization would have excelled at every exam. You don't write papers or have to think critically at all. The cases that we do in problem based learning involve regurgitating facts that we committed to memory.

That's not to say that the preclinicals years aren't necessary. It forms the basis of clinical practice and it's part of the delayed gratification that we've become accustomed to by now.

Coming from a non-trad who worked for years before going to med school, I'd say in terms of actual time committed, it's around 70-80 hr of work/week depending if there's an exam coming up. There do exist much smarter people who can pull it off in less hours. I always feel like I have one nostril above water, so it really depends on your aptitude for memorization. I'm just a regular guy who works hard

I still do research whilst in medical school. I get an abstract published every 3 months or so, and have a manuscript accepted every 5.

 

[avatarftw]

Amen. Its a lot of fun going out and running 10 miles at 6:30/mile (fairly low intensity), biking 7-10 miles, then lifting weights. Or doing a simulated version of the West Point Physical Examination. (The basketball throw is pretty hard)

However, studying and thinking can get lame....

Mental stress is far more taxing than physical stress.

 

[avatarftw]

Sorry, but I disagree with the idea that "everything is equal." I had some backups that I wanted to do instead of med school that would have entailed much less work, much more free time, and little sacrifice. They also would have given much less money than medicine.

Some things are much harder than others, plain and simple. I liked it when my engineering friend got his MA in one year instead of two. The admissions representative said, "Only a few people have ever done it in one year."

He replied, "I can take it. I'm an engineer." It was fairly easy for him to do the two year masters in one year.

​

Seriously guys, this is getting out of control. There have been a few under the table insults thrown here or there, and they just aren't necessary. You know who you are. Look the point of this thread was asking if medical school is as hard as some people make it out to be or is that just an exaggeration. It is probably safe to assume that the OP has been exposed to the classic group of people that make whatever it is they are doing sound like rocket science (if rocket science is even that hard - debatable).

Is it as hard as that group makes it out to sound? The clear and simple answer is no.

Is it easy? The answer to that is no. Since this is all a matter of relativity and it is all subjective (aka objective Truth with a big "T" doesn't exist for this one) then you will get varying degrees of answers. Some people will see it from a perspective of suffering and strife while others will take it from the point of another day another dollar kind of mentality.

Personally, I take the latter and just live my life and consider this just as the required thing that I have to do to move on. Other poeple have their own required thing, it could be work or taking care of kids or both, but this one is mine. I don't let it define me or get to me. I just do what I need to because I know that I want the privelages and career that comes at the end of the road.

Nothing that you do in medical school requires an IQ above 90 and I am dead serious about that. The concepts are seriously trivial. The amount of information you have to consume is horrendous, there is no denying that. Scoring at the top of your class is not an amazing feat and I have no clue what really differentiates those in the top from those not there. It is not smarts. I am lucky to be in the top 10% of my class but I am not any smarter or more driven than any of my other class mates. I just consistently keep on trudging through keeping my things organized and just doing generally what I am told. I go to class about 4 hours a day and study for about 4 hours, interspering that with youtube and other things but the rest of the day is mine. This is amped up on test days but not by much. The only trick i can tell you is consistency. If you keep that up you will do fine.

I guess this ramble can be concluded by saying that people see things in different ways. Some are pessimistic, while others are optimistic. Some need to be validated by others while others don't. The kid that tells everyone how hard s/he has it, just wants people to respect the effort that they are putting into it. There is nothing wrong with that other than it can give a skewed representation of what things are like on the other side. The thing is, it actually might seem that way to that person, so it might not totally be false, and it might seem that way to you when you get there. Or you might see it as just a job or you might even see it as fun.

Our friend "One - Rock" Or Einstein as others call him said it best. All things are relative.

If you are looking for a scale of difficulty.

Med School = working as an engineer = working as a CPA = working as a miner (seen that one done) = working as a janitor (been there done that) = laying down asphalt (done that too) all of which are much greater than undergrad. Undergrad is a joke, end of story.

Each of the above jobs has its own mix of mental/physical stress in the end that equates them together.

Holy crap, I have no freaking clue where I am going with this . . .​

 

[J0HNS0N]

Does anyone care to explain to me why it has to be manual? Isn't there some sort of stick that can be manufactured? I mean, I really have to stick my finger in some guy's ******* and dig his **** out? Really?! No curved stick or anything?! We're sending satellites to distant galaxies and I have to put my index finger in someone else's butthole to remove something. That makes no sense whatsoever.

LOL, I dropped my iPad reading this

 

[EdLongshanks]

LOL, I dropped my iPad reading this

Wow, I'm avoiding catching up on my homework by browsing through the forum and I discover this resurrection of an old thread. I'm embarrassed to read that I made many stupid comments in it.

Ok, I'm an MS1 now and I can tell you what I learned. Medical school is a full time 80/hour week job. If a person previews the lessons, attends the lectures, makes personal notes (or flashcards, like me) and reviews his notes at least 1 to 2 hours each day, then he can ace every test. Unfortunately, one cannot skip even one day of your schedule, because once you fall behind, you cannot catch up.

Everyone falls behind.

I suppose Mother Theresa the Saint of Medical Students may have the will power to not skip a single night of studying, but she isn't one of my classmates. And once you fall behind, you are always on the edge of failure. You skip a couple of nights of studying for Neuro because there is a Physiology test in 2 days. Then you have to skip Physiology because you've got to catch up for the neuro test. You haven't looked at the viruses in Micro for 2 weeks, the test is tomorrow. So you use last years student notes and mnemonics and hope that you can bluff your way through it. You can't. You make a 66% and hope that you can make it up on the bacteriology exam in two weeks. Except now you have to cram for the Clinical Skills mid-term practical, which you have been ignoring since the beginning of the semester, since it should be a blow off class. And it would be a blow-off class, if you had spent a couple of hours a week on it, like you promised yourself you would.

The difference between this and a normal 80 hour/week job, is that the job has slow times. Maybe you're driving between work sites, or doodling through program ideas, or sitting in a boring meeting. You are not "on" all the time. The 80 hour weeks I'm talking about are "on" times. And there is a limit to how much information you can stuff in your brain without off-line processing. The last 30 minutes of each class is usually a waste for me. I might as well just keep the recorder going and stop listening, because nothing is getting through. The esophagus of the brain is now full and digestion must occur before further input occurs.

 

[Law2Doc]

Wow, I'm avoiding catching up on my homework by browsing through the forum and I discover this resurrection of an old thread. I'm embarrassed to read that I made many stupid comments in it.

Ok, I'm an MS1 now and I can tell you what I learned. Medical school is a full time 80/hour week job. If a person previews the lessons, attends the lectures, makes personal notes (or flashcards, like me) and reviews his notes at least 1 to 2 hours each day, then he can ace every test. Unfortunately, one cannot skip even one day of your schedule, because once you fall behind, you cannot catch up.

Everyone falls behind.

I suppose Mother Theresa the Saint of Medical Students may have the will power to not skip a single night of studying, but she isn't one of my classmates. And once you fall behind, you are always on the edge of failure. You skip a couple of nights of studying for Neuro because there is a Physiology test in 2 days. Then you have to skip Physiology because you've got to catch up for the neuro test. You haven't looked at the viruses in Micro for 2 weeks, the test is tomorrow. So you use last years student notes and mnemonics and hope that you can bluff your way through it. You can't. You make a 66% and hope that you can make it up on the bacteriology exam in two weeks. Except now you have to cram for the Clinical Skills mid-term practical, which you have been ignoring since the beginning of the semester, since it should be a blow off class. And it would be a blow-off class, if you had spent a couple of hours a week on it, like you promised yourself you would.

The difference between this and a normal 80 hour/week job, is that the job has slow times. Maybe you're driving between work sites, or doodling through program ideas, or sitting in a boring meeting. You are not "on" all the time. The 80 hour weeks I'm talking about are "on" times. And there is a limit to how much information you can stuff in your brain without off-line processing. The last 30 minutes of each class is usually a waste for me. I might as well just keep the recorder going and stop listening, because nothing is getting through. The esophagus of the brain is now full and digestion must occur before further input occurs.

Agreed. And though you will get more efficient by second year, the density of high yield information increases, and Step 1 starts looming, so it doesn't really end. And then you reach third year and you cease to have any control over your schedule whatsoever, and the 80 hour week in eg your surgery, IM or OB rotation may mean you have to show up at 5 am to pre round, won't get out until 7 pm, may be on call in the hospital one or more overnights or weekend days each week, and you still have a shelf exam to study for in your "spare" time. Fourth year is lighter by comparison -- you can take electives that are easier, and have some vacation time, but until early February, you'll have the pressure of lining up a residency, and for some, traveling for interviews and preparing for and taking Step 2 (two parts) can fill up much if your downtime. So yeah it's a pretty frenetic pace from first year until match day. And then after. Short respite, intern year starts, and you realize you had it really good in med school.

 

[ADominGu3z]

to those of you that are in med school, you say treat it like a 60+ hour job....do you guys work? and if not how do you guys survive?

 

[mauberley]

to those of you that are in med school, you say treat it like a 60+ hour job....do you guys work? and if not how do you guys survive?

Define "survive."

For myself, I don't work. Studying and extracurriculars account for nearly all of my waking hours.

 

[DrMidlife]

to those of you that are in med school, you say treat it like a 60+ hour job....do you guys work? and if not how do you guys survive?

Financially? Cost of attendance is covered by student loans, including living expenses. You just have to live simply.

 

[JellyVoodoo]

This thread has given me a good idea of what a day in the life of a med student is really like, and I feel less nervous about it. I hope it's resurrected soon and more people share how their days go as far as time management.

 

[Goro]

I know it's a necrobump, the but the cliché of "drinking from a fire hose" is more accutrate when written as "drinking from a fire hose while running after the fire truck"!

This thread has given me a good idea of what a day in the life of a med student is really like, and I feel less nervous about it. I hope it's resurrected soon and more people share how their days go as far as time management.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I know it's a necrobump, the but the cliché of "drinking from a fire hose" is more accutrate when written as "drinking from a fire hose while running after the fire truck"!

Admittedly, not a med student yet, but I'm kinda partial to the pancake one

https://rumorsweretrue.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/pancakes-every-morning/

 

[Crayola227]

medical school has nothing on intern year.

it only gets worse, not better.

 

[Zyra]

I'm not in med school, but I know a lot of med students and they tell me that many, if not most, med schools are pass/fail. I can't see how bad it can be if your classes are pass/fail and you aren't gunning for dermatology....

I think school hands down is easier and more enjoyable than working a lot of jobs. I'm a lawyer and we consistently work 60-80 hour weeks at firms. I could see med school itself being a nice break from working life for a lot of people - residency (depending on the type) probably sucks though.

When I was in law school, a lot of people complained about how much reading law school has - the thing is, you don't actually have to read everything to do well. However, unlike med school, the rank of your law school and your grades matter A LOT in getting a job. And since most JDs are unemployed or underemployed, you are under much higher pressure to get good grades and all of your classes are curved.

But yeah, you don't have to go to every class in med school to do well. Just self-study at home and pass those pass/fail classes and you'll save a lot of time.

 

[JellyVoodoo]

Admittedly, not a med student yet, but I'm kinda partial to the pancake one

https://rumorsweretrue.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/pancakes-every-morning/

I love this!

 

[Nasrudin]

There's something interesting i've noticed over the years on sdn. There are a few distinct case studies i've done on long term users who adopt a bellicose, anti-whiner, tough guy/girl thing..... And then...they go belly up, disappear, or worse end up being frauds.

I don't know if it means anything. but it's interesting.

If anyone is an mma fan.... it's kind of like the difference between the diaz brothers who are gut-ugly-honest about all the underbelly things in the fight game. How it's basically 2 people going in there to knock each others heads off for entertainment. how it's a f'd up way to make a living. And so on. complaining in some sense.

And yet round for round, nobody can take nor dish out so much punishment.

As opposed to a braggadocious, perfectly scripted type fighter who doesn't perform at that level or gives up under the pressure of their own fraudulence.

Or like Ghost dog. who meditated on his own violent death daily. but then faced his own with grace and ease.

There's a interesting paradox here.

anyone still with me.....

nope.


ok.

 

[Nasrudin]

This should clear everything up. You're welcome.

 

[JellyVoodoo]

anyone still with me.....

nope.


ok.

You're still around! I'm pleased. Your posts are kind of poetic. Anything to add now that it's been a few years and you're a resident?

 

[Nasrudin]

You're still around! I'm pleased. Your posts are kind of poetic. Anything to add now that it's been a few years and you're a resident?

hmmm. Well. The discussion is a good one. Overthinking vs Act--in the subtitle. I hadn't noticed that before. I think there's something to that. It's sometimes easier just to do stuff. It you can keep your balance and can sense where you're wasting energy, that might be ideal.

But at other times. hearing yourself complain is a good signal that you need to balance yourself. More exercise. better diet. distressing activities.

There are certainly really tough points. Pre-step 1. Intern year. Surgery rotation. etc.

And I feel really, really strongly that the price of sitting all day/night studying is terrible for your health. In other words if you knew of a recreational drug that made people age, get weak, become fat and deconditioned, become inflexible and stiff, and loaded their sedentary system with stress hormones you would have detox/rehab units all over the place getting people off the stuff.

So in that sense. People don't complain enough.




But in the end. Managing your life and your motivation and you well-being and your perception and outlook is .... THE LIFE SKILL.

So you see some people..... myself included....trying to figure it out in this thread.

I guess all I have to add is... keep at it. Find out what's really important to you and then don't loose sight of it.

 

[JellyVoodoo]

And I feel really, really strongly that the price of sitting all day/night studying is terrible for your health. In other words if you knew of a recreational drug that made people age, get weak, become fat and deconditioned, become inflexible and stiff, and loaded their sedentary system with stress hormones you would have detox/rehab units all over the place getting people off the stuff.

So in that sense. People don't complain enough.




But in the end. Managing your life and your motivation and you well-being and your perception and outlook is .... THE LIFE SKILL.

So you see some people..... myself included....trying to figure it out in this thread.

I guess all I have to add is... keep at it. Find out what's really important to you and then don't loose sight of it.

Yeeees. So much yes. Premed is such a long road by itself that I feel like it's easy for people to get distracted, put it on the back burner, then just kind of give up. On top of the constant discouragement coming in from the outside. I've told only two people that I'm premed, simply because everyone's so full of "That's so hard, you'll never be able to do that." Because all anyone ever hears about med school is how hard it is and how only super geniuses can become doctors.

The sitting around studying thing, I'm feeling the consequences of that from getting a nursing degree! I gained 18 pounds in two years. I just graduated though so it'll come back off, but I have got to figure out how to balance the mind and body thing for the rest of my time in school. Listen to lecture while I run? I don't know yet.

Is step 2 not as big a deal as step 1?

 

[LUCPM]

Overall, my own medical school experience was totally doable, especially if you know your limit, go with the flow, or even take the path of least resistance. And being happy with outcomes knowing that you have done your best was important for my own personal well-being and happiness.

So, I wouldn't exaggerate anything and I would even say it all depends on your goal and your priorities.

Sent from my SM-G935R4 using Tapatalk

 

[Nasrudin]

I think workout routines that lengthen the psoas and quads and activate the posterior chain is important corrective exercise. "Exercise" is kind of like saying "medications" or "food." It's important in and of itself. But it's odd that, for the most part, we're still, culturally, at *****ic level of consumption of it. More! Faster! Make me sexy! well.... ok.... i get that last one. but you see what i mean.

When I can afford it, i'm getting a first rate physical trainer. Someone who thinks of movement as medicine and can see how my body moves and train it's weaknesses and correct it's imbalance.

Step 2 is not typically a big deal. But... this is a premed forum. it's pointless to think about that.

i like LUCPM's point of view. s/he put it more elegantly than me.

 

[Nasrudin]

you know what's funny though...

Balance, contentment, well-being...

The thing that makes us competitive, intense, driven....so much so that we can't see ourselves not making huge sacrifice and effort...runs in the opposite direction.

So...

idk. maybe there's a secret to health, style, creativity, and performance awesomeness. maybe like this lady does it:

 

[Nasrudin]

The trouble with medical school, is that the goal, was so unlike my natural tastes: mass consuming information and trying to discharge it for the win. Just...not that groovy to me.

whereas, ever since, i've been getting closer to the venue for creativity and self-expression that I love. such that... i have complained less and less. And started becoming more and more enthusiastic about what I'm doing.

It's not that it's not difficult. It is. But i'm just so involved in working to overcome the difficulties, and enjoying that richness of experience that ... complaining wouldn't occur to me most times.

unless i'm thinking about corporate style bureaucracies dictating how i should do things. but...even that..i have less time for...and less patience for hearing myself talk pointlessly about something i can't change outside of what i can create on my own.

So now... i am not overthinking and doing more doing.


Sorry... i'm just working out my ideas.

i'm very interested in motivation, peak performance, and the like.

 

[Nasrudin]

For example. Let's say your goal is to be as sexy as F roller skater. and to make it art out of it. Like this:




beautiful. Hypnotic. Intriguing to put it mildly.

Also...probably super fun for those ladies to work on something that they love. Not easy. But they probably didn't complain about the hours put in to move well on 4-wheeled shoes.

I think the problem with medicine, is. It's preparation and execution has drifted far afield from natural human motivators.

Some are still there.

One has to be lucky or resourceful or particularly drawn to the modes of satisfaction that are there to find a way to rescue naturally motivating careers in it.

I've been racking my brain on this problem.

i'm starting to imagine possibilities. but couldn't picture doing it in anything but the shrink game. If you're lucky you'll find that. And the complainy noise coming out of your body and mind will quiet down.

But medical school is tedious. so...if you've already bought the farm. there's still hope.

 

[JellyVoodoo]

But medical school is tedious. so...if you've already bought the farm. there's still hope.

I think I found my fitness motivator: All the other girls on my campus being super fit, and fashion magazines.

Maybe during my experiences shadowing, I'll find the specialty that lights my fire and makes me desperate to push so that I can get there, but until then, I love tedium.

 

[Law2Doc]

I'm not in med school, but I know a lot of med students and they tell me that many, if not most, med schools are pass/fail. I can't see how bad it can be if your classes are pass/fail and you aren't gunning for dermatology....

I think school hands down is easier and more enjoyable than working a lot of jobs. I'm a lawyer and we consistently work 60-80 hour weeks at firms. I could see med school itself being a nice break from working life for a lot of people - residency (depending on the type) probably sucks though.

When I was in law school, a lot of people complained about how much reading law school has - the thing is, you don't actually have to read everything to do well. However, unlike med school, the rank of your law school and your grades matter A LOT in getting a job. And since most JDs are unemployed or underemployed, you are under much higher pressure to get good grades and all of your classes are curved.

But yeah, you don't have to go to every class in med school to do well. Just self-study at home and pass those pass/fail classes and you'll save a lot of time.

Just to clarify,
(1) although many med schools are "pass fail" especially in the first year, that doesn't always mean you aren't ranked.
(2) just because it's pass fail doesn't mean people don't sometimes fail a test, a course, even a year (remember you are competing against people who only got As in college now). If you don't act like you are gunning for Derm, and try to coast, you might find the number of specialties open to you and your choice of residencies within those specialties will suddenly be quite limited.
(3) you are heavily evaluated for residency based on your Step 1 score, for which the first two years of med school is strong foundation, so yeah you want to study the material hard and get that foundation even though you are "passing". Having a strong foundation also creeps up in clinical years and residency. You need to "know stuff" even beyond the med school tests.
(4) your "grades" might not matter in terms of getting your residency like they did in law (although my own experience was that law was actually less number focused) but your step 1 score and evaluations sure will matter. So again having that strong foundation matters. Study in the basic science years or risk that attending in the clinical years unearthing your dearth of knowledge during pimping sessions.
(5) that being said if you put in the kind of hours studying as those who work long houred law jobs do, you'll likely do fine. But yeah again that's a lot more than you'd need to do in college.
(6) as for your last sentence, it's troubling that someone "not in med school" is advising people how to pass the classes and save time... Just saying.

 

[surfguy84]

People tend to exaggerate the difficulty, danger, etc. of many things they've accomplished in their lives.

From organic chem being impossibly hard and the weed out to neuroanatomy being the single hardest part of pre-clinical and the course many fail, everything to this point has been overstated. As a college freshmen, if you told me I would ace ochem, get accepted to med school, then continue to ace classes there....well I don't really know how to explain how impossible and ridiculous that would have sounded to me.

And just for reference, I'm not what I would consider incredibly smart. Things don't just come effortlessly to me. I do work very hard to compensate, which I think is what all of this really comes down to anyways.

 

[Law2Doc]

People tend to exaggerate the difficulty, danger, etc. of many things they've accomplished in their lives.

... I do work very hard to compensate, which I think is what all of this really comes down to anyways.

So people tend to exaggerate that they work very hard in med school... But you work very hard...

 

[Sardinia]

@Zyra Medical school tests are designed to fail you if you didn't come into test day comfortable enough to pass every question that you could possibly prepare for leading up to the very moment when you actually take the test.

Edited my statement to reflect that attempting to perfectly study all the minutia is a black hole. Rather, realizing that the attempt to do so is a black hole and finding a way to best clog the hole would perhaps be a more apt analogy as to why many students are thankful for the pass/fail standards.

 

[surfguy84]

So people tend to exaggerate that they work very hard in med school... But you work very hard...

Hey, if I'm exaggerating how hard I work, that just means things are even easier! Either way, it ain't as bad as its made out to be.

 

[Law2Doc]

@Zyra Medical school tests are designed to fail you if you didn't come into test day comfortable enough to pass every question that you could possibly prepare for leading up to the very moment when you actually take the test.

Edited my statement to reflect that attempting to perfectly study all the minutia is a black hole. Rather, realizing that the attempt to do so is a black hole and finding a way to best clog the hole would perhaps be a more apt analogy as to why many students are thankful for the pass/fail standards.

Yeah, pass-fail in college means everyone can get by with minimal studying. Pass fail in med school still means you know most of the material as weighted against a group of extremely high scoring peers. Also a "C-" equivalent might not be a passing grade on a med school test. As mentioned above you might still be ranked. And lots of places break down pass into honors, high pass, pass and "come see me", so it's not like it's not just a grade under a different name. In that respect P/F doesn't necessarily mean "easier". It's just meant as a tool to decrease competition, unsavory gunner behavior.

 

[Law2Doc]

Hey, if I'm exaggerating how hard I work, that just means things are even easier! Either way, it ain't as bad as its made out to be.

It's not "bad" but I think we all agree it's a lot of work. You'll work every day, and you'll get through it. If you try to coast and wait to cram before tests like you did in college you might not. And even if you do this and somehow "pass" you'll put yourself in a bit of a hole for step 1 or pimping down the road where it helps if you've cemented in that knowledge.

 

[spartan25]

Yeah, pass-fail in college means everyone can get by with minimal studying. Pass fail in med school still means you know most of the material as weighted against a group of extremely high scoring peers. Also a "C-" equivalent might not be a passing grade on a med school test. As mentioned above you might still be ranked. And lots of places break down pass into honors, high pass, pass and "come see me", so it's not like it's not just a grade under a different name. In that respect P/F doesn't necessarily mean "easier". It's just meant as a tool to decrease competition, unsavory gunner behavior.

This makes me glad that I ended up at one of the true pass/fail schools. I had no idea before matriculating that some "pass/fail" schools did an internal ranking

 

[Law2Doc]

This makes me glad that I ended up at one of the true pass/fail schools. I had no idea before matriculating that some "pass/fail" schools did an internal ranking

They do it mostly for AOA purposes. The "dirty little secret" of med school is that the first two years of med school grades, even if you have them, simply don't count much for residency so long as you pass but it's not really advertised because you actually do need that material for step 1 and as foundation for your clinical years, which count a lot, so they want you working hard. So many med schools make sure people still play the honors/grades game using subtler shades of gray, and still encourage people to set very high bars. Having a strong foundation matters.

The P/F schools tend to try to mitigate some of the negative behavior that comes with having grades or gradations and to some extent when a school moves to P/F, rather than a good thing you could argue that that actually telegraphs that the school felt it had a big problem at one point. Show me a P/F school and I'll show you one that must have had out of control gunners.

Every school wants a set up where every person works hard and helps each other but the truth of the matter is most places are still "ranked" and there's going to be a competition for residency spots at the other end and helping someone to be the best sometimes unfortunately means you end up second best and there's just no way around that. Not everyone is going to get what he wants, and you'd better believe you'll have classmates interviewing for the exact same residency spots after med school and there won't be a spot for everyone.

And so no matter how they set up the grading/ranking system, there will be competition and you are foolish if you just shrug it off. If it's true P/F now that just means you need to build up your foundation so you can do that much more damage on Step 1. Some degree of competition is good. No one ever got far in life without pushing themselves past others. You should always push yourself to be the best. You need to push yourself in med school if for no other reason that it's one of those careers jobs that if you suck at it, people can die.

 

[Goro]

Just want to follow up my learned colleague's comments by adding that most medical students are completely unaware that the first two years are not merely about Boards, but wards as well. Once you hit years 3 and 4, your questions will be, "so, student doctor X, can you tell me some of the causes of biliary obstruction?".

(3) you are heavily evaluated for residency based on your Step 1 score, for which the first two years of med school is strong foundation, so yeah you want to study the material hard and get that foundation even though you are "passing". Having a strong foundation also creeps up in clinical years and residency. You need to "know stuff" even beyond the med school tests.

One of the perverse things about a P/F grading system is that the faculty at these schools get galled that the top students, even with class rankings, are, on the surface, scored the same as the bottom students. So inevitably, they add a HP to the schema. Then a P+ or similar gets thrown in as well, and we're back to the equivalent of A/B/C/D/F!

My schools used to have letter grades, and then switched to numerical. We found that the grade grubbing mercifully stopped at that point.

The P/F schools tend to try to mitigate some of the negative behavior that comes with having grades or gradations and to some extent when a school moves to P/F, rather than a good thing you could argue that that actually telegraphs that the school felt it had a big problem at one point. Show me a P/F school and I'll show you one that must have had out of control gunners.