Things I can think of off the top of my head.. may add to this later:
- keep up the exercise
I think I dropped the ball on this one, as I saw tons of classmates maintaining their gym or running routines. The prob for me was, what I usually did was dancing- not working out at the gym which tended to be a more flexible option. Luckily, during my 2nd semester, I was able to squeeze dance classes into my schedule. So, just a reminder to keep up the exercise!
- get a cooking routine going
Again, I never really got into the groove and ended up buying crap a LOT. I really like cooking, so it just felt like a mess that I never got into a routine to do this regularly. I think what I will have to do next year is do more planning & cook almost entirely on the weekend for an entire week.
- make time to read EVERY night before bed
Fiction. Unrelated to med stuff. I feel like part of my brain has necrosed due to lack of use.
I really don't want my language skills to degrade over the course of med school. Not to mention it's something I used to enjoy so much!
So the above are all mental health, lifestyle type things. As for med school itself:
- get some real patient experience if you can before med school
I felt like my time working in the psych ward, and my time as a counselor REALLY gave me a much greater comfort level and understanding of patients. (I don't mean volunteering at a hospital either... I mean some "real job" where you have actual responsibility.)
It's amazing how those few months (probably 9 months-1 yr in total) gave me much more than I could have ever learned as a student. And I say this as a MSI! That personal experience really helped me develop an even greater personal investment in some of what I was learning. Come MSIII (esp the psych rotation), I can't even gauge how much of an advantage my experiences will give me. So it's quite worthwhile to do something like this. It will mature you and prepare you.
- be prepared to memorize
Someone on here said I had a "philosophical objection to memorization" LOL Well... perhaps I did, initially. I came into med school expecting a MUCH different experience. I thought anatomy would actually teach me what muscles were engaged when a gymnast does a flip, and things of that nature... I thought I would come out of these classes actually UNDERSTANDING how things work.
I thought pharm would actually teach me mechs for reactions and structures of drugs.
No, no, no, no, no. None of that!
I guess there's just a lack of time. And I was deeply misinformed about the nature of the beast. Med school teaches you none of that and does not go into enough detail for you to predict or understand in that capacity.
If you learn raising your arm engages the supraspinatus muscle, that's what you memorize, and that's it. There's no deeper understanding involved and you won't be able to predict anything from the tidbits you memorized.
Too bad. The sooner you adapt to this environment, the less you object, the easier the transition.
...It took me a while to accept the truth of this situation. lol
- skip class (if it helps you)
This saved me from going crazy. After anatomy (pretty mandatory) was done with, I gradually declined in class attendence, and found myself with a lot more free time and a lot more sanity.
That's all for now. May think of more later.
