Congratulations to everyone accepted. This is very exciting news for you and I know you are on a high right now. It is a big step to be able to get into medical school and be on your way toward becoming a physician.
I just finished a slew of night shifts this last two weeks and now my internal clock is screwed up. As I was laying in bed, I was thinking of some things and thought I would get on here and share a few thoughts with everyone, accepted or not.
While it is safe to say that being accepted is a huge hurdle and the beginning of a roller coaster of emotions for the rest of your life, it will not be the last high you experience, and it certainly will not come without a plethora of lows. Here are a few things I would suggest thinking about while you gear up for this process. Don't spend too much time on them, but place them in the back of your head for when you are laying in bed unable to sleep. In no way am I implying that you should start studying anytime between now and next August. Finish out Undergrad (if you haven't yet) and then take a much needed break. It will be the last stress free break you will get for a long time. However, these are questions and thoughts you should think about to better prepare yourself for success when you start medical school. In no way do I claim to be an expert or perfect at this process. These are just my thoughts and opinions as I have gone through the last 3 years.
1)
Learn how you learn: Throughout undergrad, you probably had some classes that were difficult to you. Perhaps it was the professor that couldn't teach well, you couldn't understand his accent or the material really wasn't your cup of tea. Whatever it was, you still had to struggle to learn the material and pass tests. You may have tried different study strategies, got a tutor or even stopped going to class and read the book to learn. Whatever you did, hopefully you did something. As "pre-med" students, we are a driven bunch that try to look for solutions to problems. Hence, why you got into medical school. But, sometimes I think we get caught up in trying to find an external solution and fail to look for an internal solution. Over the next few months, I would strongly encourage you to take a look at yourself and come to some sort of consensus of how you learn. Are you a visual learner using diagrams and pictures? Do you learn best from someone talking to you or do you learn best talking to others? Are you the type of person to prefer to read a book instead of listening to an instructor? Learning what type of learner you are will serve you well as you go through this process. Strategies you used in Undergraduate may or may not work for you in Medical school. In an analogy, the material each day is comparable to the Fire Hose scene in the 1989 weird al classic UHF (here is a
link if you are unsure of the reference). For example, I use to type my extensive notes in Undergrad and read through them over and over again. I had pages and pages of notes and this was acceptable because my class load was lighter than what it was in Med school. I could not use this strategy when starting at DCOM due to the information being too much and had to learn a different way of memorizing and learning. It wasn't until my first test that I realized I am 99% a visual learner and need to read and draw diagrams on my own to learn. Once I figured that out, I was able to get through the material much more efficiently and retain it. On the opposite spectrum, a friend of mine is very much so an auditory learner. He would watch lecture videos 3 or 4 times in order to learn the material. This worked well for him and certainly would have failed for me. We each had different strategies, but the same goal: learn the material. In short, learn how you learn.
2)
How do you do under pressure? Unfortunately this question is a trick question. When you decided to go to medical school, you unknowingly entered into a field with unwavering pressure. However, it is safe to say that depending on your careful planning skills, you can opt to remain on the lower side of the pressure scale if you choose, more often than not. With that being said, are you the type of person who likes to plan and avoid procrastination? or will you justify extra play time at the expense of increasing the amount of pressure you have to get work done? Like I said, this is a trick question because there is always pressure, it is also a trick question, because if you are the type of person who thrives under pressure, you can play more often, study less and still excel throughout this process; these people frustrate the former, but what can you do. I for one, am not the type of person who necessarily excels when pressure is overwhelming. Therefore, I am a planner. I plan and think ahead to avoid pressure as much as possible. If I know that there is a lot of material to cover the next week, I will take more time the week before to cover material not yet discussed in hopes of preparing myself for the busy coming week. Yes, this sometimes bit me in the butt, as professors may take material out of there lecture and I spent time learning it, but in the long run, it was something still associated with medicine and added to my overall general knowledge. Occasionally, the material was brought back up later down the road in another class and I was already aware of it. I digress. But, ask yourself how you do under pressure and plan accordingly. The last thing you want is to have an overwhelming amount of information to study with too little time to study it. The end result is always the same, disappointing.
3)
How do you handle failure or sub-par performance? Kind of a scary question. No one likes to admit that they may or may not fail. I hope that no one in the coming classes do fail, however lets be realistic, failure happens. You can find millions of fail videos over Youtube showing this natural phenomenon. We are human and innately fall from time to time. Sometimes at no fault of our own. With that being said, when you fall, how do you handle it? Do you sink into a pit of despair, becoming doom and gloom? Or do you take failure as a challenge to push harder, think smarter and plan more? It is easy when things are going wrong to point a finger at someone other than yourself. It takes real courage to look at yourself and ask, "did I push as hard as I could, think how I was asked to think and find a solution to the problem?". This type of attitude will be invaluable throughout your career and serve you well if you develop it. Don't get me wrong, all of us have moments of pessimism, I am not one to claim exception. I was very much so a doom and gloom type individual at the beginning of medical school. I have gotten better with time, but my wife will be the first to tell you I still have my moments. If your thoughts mainly consist of blaming others for sub-par performance or behavior, you have a virus and need to do some cleansing. It will only cause you and those around you pain and frustration. Being accepted to medical school, it is up to you to look for solutions and avoid blaming. The school will provide the knowledge, only you can do the learning.
4)
What is more important, grades, board scores or extracurricular activities? This question you probably don't have to think about until you are a month out from starting. However, I thought I would bring it up so you can think about it at the dawn of your first day. Throughout medical school you will often find yourself talking with other students about different medical fields. You will probably talk about competitive and not so competitive specialties, earning potentials, hours worked and probably expectations that may or may not be unrealistic. This is okay and an important part of your medical school experience. However, caution on spending too much time discussing it. In addition, caution on the misconception that EC activities are a make all break all component of matching where you want*. This falls under the category of competitive specialties and what they want in an applicant. While they may have a role in the process, the bigger thing to think about is learning the material to becoming a physician. You cannot treat a patient if you don't know the information. Your days as the student class president or president of the womens health club will be worthless in an ACLS situation or when a patient presents with an infectious disease. When you start medical school, you will be bombarded with emails consisting of clubs, events, leadership opportunities and much more. DCOM is good to help make sure none of this happens until after your first test. However, it is still your responsibility after DCOM opens the club gates to analyze your abilities and determine from there your options. Your first and foremost responsibility is to make sure that you can successfully learn and test on the things you are learning. Avoid joining clubs, activities and leadership positions until you are 110% certain that you can successfully balance the responsibilities of learning aforementioned water-hose information. Then and only then should you think about adding extracurricular activities to your already stressful load. If you want a competitive specialty, great, but the principle still stands; if you don't do well in school and pass your boards with flying colors, you wont match into that specialty anyway, so the EC activity will be worthless. My current student government president is a perfect example of determining your abilities and then acting on them. He did/does great in school and then determined he would get involved in student government. To my knowledge and from what I see, he balances both beautifully. If, at the beginning of classes you find that you are behind, struggling to stay caught up and not performing at your best, don't contemplate adding the stress of a leadership position, big or small onto your plate.
*I have not yet gone through the matching process, however my experience thus far in rotations and school helps to verify my comments. If you don't know the material and have the scores to boot, who cares what you have done outside of school.
Sorry if this post is misplaced. It is not my goal to discourage or distract from the exciting news of being accepted to a career and profession that is noble, honorable and fulfilling. However, I do want to plant some seeds that will hopefully help keep pain at a minimum and add to a successful experience. I wish all of you the best of luck, both accepted and not accepted. Medicine is a persistence game. Keep on keeping on and you will get where you want to go. If you have been accepted, go out and celebrate, spoil yourself a little, with reason of course. For those of you still waiting to get that exciting phone call both pre and post interview, keep your head up. Good things come to those who wait.
