Everyone has different methods that work for them. I can only share my method so that's what I'll do
.
During the week I just do around 3 or 4 hours a day after class reading through the notes. On that "first pass" I don't pay too much attention to specific details, I just try to understand as much as I can. If I run into something I don't understand, I look it up - I don't try to know everything I read but just enough so that what was presented in lecture makes sense. During this time I also skim the relevent parts of Robbins, Clinical Microbio Made Rediculously Simple, Costanzo Physiology, BRS pharm/microbio/path, etc. At this point I'm just trying to see it all and try to recognize the ways that everything connects with each other.
As an exam approaches, I ramp this up - I put in more hours and try to finish looking through everything by the end of Friday (if it's a 2 week exam, if it's a 4 week exam, I try to finish by Wednesday - we usually have exams on Mondays). After that, I read through all the notes actively, and pay close attention to details. What that means is, I'm reading each lecture with all the other lectures in mind, making connections between different lectures to reinforce my knowledge. I spend very little time on trying to commit anything to memory by rote, because by taking note of details and trying to think of each detail in relation to other details from other lectures I'm strengthening connections between different concepts so that when I think of one concept the associated concepts pop up as well. (Sorry for the weird explanation, I was into connectionist neural networks in undergrad.) I don't actually set aside any time at all for aggressive memorization (i.e. flashcards, looking over charts, etc), I just rely on my understanding of the material and trust that the associations I've made between concepts will allow me to retrieve the details I need when I encounter them on an exam. In our organ-based curriculum, this works really well for me.
For courses where memorization of details is important, like anatomy, or memorizing what antibiotics are used for what bacteria, etc. it helps to attack it from multiple angles. For instance, in anatomy, memorize the muscles, with their innervations, blood supplies, etc. Then instead of going by and trying to rememorize the muscles, go through everything by nerve. Draw out the nerves, and try to remember what each nerve innervates. Then draw out the arteries, and try to remember what muscles each artery supplies. Then go back by muscle, then nerve, then artery again. Rinse and repeat. For attachments, you can do it by muscle and then by attachment site, instead of trying to memorize everything by each muscle every time. For microbio, you can do it by pathogen, by drug, by mechanism of action, etc. But if you understand how the drugs work, and understand why certain drugs are used for certain bacteria, rote memorization isn't quite as necessary as for anatomy.
If you attack the problem from the same angle every time, your eyes will glaze over eventually and your brain will shut down. Trying it from multiple angles and in different ways keeps it more interesting and makes it more active, and it makes your memorizing more effective because you're seeing the problem in different ways. It's like when you look at a sculpture - if you look at it from only one perspective your understanding of it will be very limited, and trying to memorize details is difficult because everything seems unrelated to everything else. If you walk around it and appreciate it from different perspectives you have a better understanding of what the sculptor was trying to accomplish. And when you understand the sculptor's motives, remembering little details about the sculpture becomes easier.
Well that's my New Age explanation of how I study.
Edit: I guess I should mention that we have class 8-12, so 3-4 hours every day after class isn't so bad for us.