the best and worst of med school?

[yelooc45]

I have read a lot of med school threads that paint a pretty scary picture of sad medical students. As I prepare for my own medical school application process, I am feeling anxiety from some of the horror stories I hear. I was wondering if I could get some input from med students as to what you find to be especially tough about medical school but also what you find to be rewarding?

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[Planes2Doc]

What sucks? Pre-clinical years. Everything about them. It's not a privilege. It will break you apart and work you far beyond anything that was possible. First year was the worst time of my life, period.

Most rewarding? Finishing pre-clinicals and moving to patient care.

 

[Munty]

While I am not a med student and thus won't comment on the ups and downs of being in medical school, I will say I had similar concerns about being in med school. Once I started interviewing and meeting students at different schools I learned that a majority of them enjoy their lives, still get to enjoy /some/ free time, and are interesting people with good social skills and unique hobbies.

Part of the problem for my misconception was that the state schools in my state are notoriously bland and the students don't seem to be very excited about medical school. I was glad to find this was not the norm outside of my state.

 

[Lawpy]

What sucks? Pre-clinical years. Everything about them. It's not a privilege. It will break you apart and work you far beyond anything that was possible. First year was the worst time of my life, period.

Most rewarding? Finishing pre-clinicals and moving to patient care.

Would you support a curriculum involving only 1 yr preclinical (and rest clinical and/or research year)?

 

[Planes2Doc]

Would you support a curriculum involving only 1 yr preclinical (and rest clinical and/or research year)?

If you cut out clinically-irrelevant minutiae then yes.

 

[piii]

Better suited for the actual medical student board

 

[wasteofspace323]

Better suited for the actual medical student board

It would be moved back. Pre-meds can't make posts on med student boards.

 

[piii]

It would be moved back. Pre-meds can't make posts on med student boards.

Interesting

 

[Planes2Doc]

Also don't approach this with the whole SDN ideology of the journey's importance. The sole point of medical school is to become a physician. That's it. End of story.

You'll see lots of people become severely depressed and take a massive hit on their physical and mental health. It's that bad. So it's best to approach this with the end goal in mind, and not to kid yourself into thinking that this will be some magical fun journey with lots of happiness, sunshine, and rainbows.

 

[mimelim]

The worst part of medical school were the pre-clinical years. Basically just an extension of pre-med.

The best part of medical school was being a part of clinical services in the hospital. Bottom of the totem pole, yes. But, being a part of the team caring for people is very rewarding.

MS3: bottom of the totem, learning the basics: how to interview patients, how to organize your thoughts, how to develop a differential, how to enact a plan, what you provide to the treatment team is minimal, but you can have an impact and that feels good.

MS4: rotation dependent, but on rotations that you are going into, carried the team pager, expected to develop basic patient plans (Mr. Smith has a post-op fever, how do you want to manage it?) you still have minimal impact in the grand scheme of things, but generally more focused.

Internship: Back to the bottom of the totem, but now you are actually responsible for things. Nerve wracking, but exciting. What you do matters. An intern that "gets it" is worth their weight in gold. Continue to learn, but if you are good/adept, patients and people above you do notice.

Residency: More responsibility, more impact.


Personally, with the exception of M&M, things seem to only get better as I go forward.

 

[WingedOx]

What sucks? Pre-clinical years. Everything about them. It's not a privilege. It will break you apart and work you far beyond anything that was possible. First year was the worst time of my life, period.

Most rewarding? Finishing pre-clinicals and moving to patient care.

...then of course you realize that once you're in clinicals, your job is to pay 40k/year to be a glorified ass-kisser.

 

[operaman]

I had a great time in med school and honestly enjoyed the whole thing. Obviously the clinical years are far more rewarding than the first two, but even pre clinicals aren't that bad. The volume of information is impressive but manageable.

Much of the stress is self inflicted I'm afraid. Sure the whole experience has its stresses, but much of what you hear people complain about is self inflicted. If you work hard and stay caught up and treat it like a job, you'll do fine. If you treat it like premed 2.0 and approach it with an undergraduate mindset, you're setting yourself up for trouble.

I would also strongly advise incoming students to build a strong support network early on. Find good mentors. Get to know your faculty. Accept any and all free help offered by your school. Find a group to study with sometimes. Make time for exercise. Make time for religion if that's your thing. You get the idea.

 

[Glandzburg]

It's all relative. I stretched myself very thin in undergrad with work and EC's on top of full-time classes, so what was left of my nights and weekends were spent studying. During the pre-clinical years at many med schools, lecture attendance isn't mandatory so you are free to structure your lecture-capturing and studying however you like. I've actually found that I have MORE free time as an MS-1 than I did in undergrad because I am not doing a million other activities on top of studying.

MS-2 and Step studying will bring its own set of challenges, but things aren't too bad right now.

 

[asdf123g]

I had a great time in med school and honestly enjoyed the whole thing. Obviously the clinical years are far more rewarding than the first two, but even pre clinicals aren't that bad. The volume of information is impressive but manageable.

Much of the stress is self inflicted I'm afraid. Sure the whole experience has its stresses, but much of what you hear people complain about is self inflicted. If you work hard and stay caught up and treat it like a job, you'll do fine. If you treat it like premed 2.0 and approach it with an undergraduate mindset, you're setting yourself up for trouble.

I would also strongly advise incoming students to build a strong support network early on. Find good mentors. Get to know your faculty. Accept any and all free help offered by your school. Find a group to study with sometimes. Make time for exercise. Make time for religion if that's your thing. You get the idea.

UG mindset? What do you mean by this? Wouldn't that be treating it like a job as stated in your previous sentence?

 

[Glandzburg]

UG mindset? What do you mean by this? Wouldn't that be treating it like a job as stated in your previous sentence?

Most undergrads (in my experience) do not treat school like a job. It is much more common for them to not look at the material until 2 days before the exam, a technique that does not work in medical school. Treating it like a job means dedicating X number of hours every day to learning the material, even if exams are not right around the corner. If you do this and do it right, the pre-clinical volume of material is much less daunting.

 

[Oh_Gee]

Would you support a curriculum involving only 1 yr preclinical (and rest clinical and/or research year)?

that's what Duke does. that's a lot of info to squeeze into 1 year though.

 

[Markymark15]

So far the pre-clinicals are fine, even with the large amount of information I have to study. Just stay healthy and do things outside of medicine. Find some hobbies you can do while in medical school. Thousands of doctors and residents have been through the same thing, trust me, you can do it too. Good luck.

 

[asdf123g]

Most undergrads (in my experience) do not treat school like a job. It is much more common for them to not look at the material until 2 days before the exam, a technique that does not work in medical school. Treating it like a job means dedicating X number of hours every day to learning the material, even if exams are not right around the corner. If you do this and do it right, the pre-clinical volume of material is much less daunting.

i guess im effed then. I treated it like a job and barely got through. There is no way I could've crammed 2 nights before.

 

[Glandzburg]

i guess im effed then. I treated it like a job and barely got through. There is no way I could've crammed 2 nights before.

I'm sure there is a lot of room for improvement in your efficiency. Many incoming MS-1's struggle with this, so don't think that one can't improve these skills.

 

[asdf123g]

I'm sure there is a lot of room for improvement in your efficiency. Many incoming MS-1's struggle with this, so don't think that one can't improve these skills.

uhh yes and no. Yes i was inefficient, in the sense i would check my phone and email somewhat often because i was highly involved in school and often needed to communicate. No, in the sense i was being productive most of the time when i was on my phone/doing email. Every semester i'd take 1-2 hard classes tops and fill the rest with easy gen edus that required only a few hours of studying the night before...so im kind of concerned.

 

[Glandzburg]

uhh yes and no. Yes i was inefficient, in the sense i would check my phone and email somewhat often because i was highly involved in school and often needed to communicate. No, in the sense i was being productive most of the time when i was on my phone/doing email. Every semester i'd take 1-2 hard classes tops and fill the rest with easy gen edus that required only a few hours of studying the night before...so im kind of concerned.

Proper studying goes beyond simply time put in. It sounds you need to find more effective study methods if you are spending that much time studying and are still not happy with the results. Most institutions have learning specialists that can help you refine your study techniques, or you could seek help from your peers. My point is, do something about it.

 

[Winged Scapula]

It would be moved back. Pre-meds can't make posts on med student boards.

That is false.

If the topic posted by the pre-med student is mostly of interest to other pre-meds, then it will be moved back.

Each forum moderator may move threads at their discretion but the general rule is that the forum topics are to be of interest to the population for whom the forum was designed.