prepping for med school

For the love of all you hold near and dear, enjoy your last months of freedom. No one is really prepared for the onslaught they call "med school"... so really... enjoy your time. Walk in the mountains. Smell the fresh air. Go skiing. Do NOT NOT NOT take any classes.

And please, for the sake of all of us in med school, please write your experiences down here so we can live vicariously through you and try to recall what the outside world is like.

Seriously, there's nothing that will prepare you. Relax, sleep, eat good food, and enjoy life. Med school is exhausting.

Everyone's advice who is in med school seems to be, relax, have fun, and travel while you still can. I'm out of school too and have been thinking about picking up an anatomy book and reading it. Taking a class to prep probably is overkill, I'd say if you insist on doing something just buy a book. It will be less expensive and less time consuming than taking a course. No matter what we do I doubt it will make a shred of difference come med school.

People tend to say don't study and relax.

But honestly, instead of sitting on your couch watching 14 hours of spongebob squarepants I would say 'light reading' is okay.

With that. The summer before M1 started for me I had alot of freetime but listened to the people here at SDN, i did nothing of note and didnt study...

I wish I reviewed... nothing serious but just simple anatomy stuff. I wish I knew that biceps meant the muscle had 2 heads lol.

You have months before M1 starts for you. Take it slow, but learn yourself the muscles, where they attach, and their innervations. Learn the major blood vessels don't memorize every branch but be familiar enough with the aorta. This can all be picked up through an anatomy for dummies text. Don't make it painful on yourself but take it slow and easy in your downtime/boredom

DannMann99 said:

People tend to say don't study and relax.

But honestly, instead of sitting on your couch watching 14 hours of spongebob squarepants I would say 'light reading' is okay.

With that. The summer before M1 started for me I had alot of freetime but listened to the people here at SDN, i did nothing of note and didnt study...

I wish I reviewed... nothing serious but just simple anatomy stuff. I wish I knew that biceps meant the muscle had 2 heads lol.

You have months before M1 starts for you. Take it slow, but learn yourself the muscles, where they attach, and their innervations. Learn the major blood vessels don't memorize every branch but be familiar enough with the aorta. This can all be picked up through an anatomy for dummies text. Don't make it painful on yourself but take it slow and easy in your downtime/boredom

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Bad advice.

I don't mean to be so harsh, but the best advice you'll get is relax. If you are bent on getting a book and looking at it, I would advise Netter's Human Anatomy Atlas or maybe getting my favorite, Rohen's Color Atlas of Anatomy. However, do NOT sit down and begin to memorize anything. First of all, these books are very nice picture books. Look at them and appreciate what you're looking at. Don't try to memorize the names, origins, insertions, innervations, blood supply, anything. Look at the muscles and play a game with yourself: guess their function. Do you have to be right? Hell no. You will, however, see that there is a trend that you will be able to bring with you when you start to study in medical school. Not only that, but many of the muscles you will learn have very broad origins and insertions, of which are of little importance.

And don't let Anatomy scare you. As someone who has never taken any kind of Anatomy course before I can tell you honestly that it was difficult, but not impossible. In fact, I worked very hard at it, making sure I stayed on top of the material as best as possible, asked questions when I didn't understand, and found a good study partner that pushed me through the times I couldn't focus. I got an A. It's not impossible. It's not even improbable. It just takes hard work and focus. If you spend the next 9+ months trying to learn anything, it will make the actual learning process of medical school burn you out much faster.'

As ShyRem said, go out and do anything and everything you can do. Call up some old friends and reminisce. Go visit a National Park. Watch all those movies that everyone is amazed you've never seen. Put ketchup on your Mac'n'cheese. Start getting in a work out regiment. Have... fun.

Congratulations on your acceptance. Go live!

DannMann99 said:

People tend to say don't study and relax.

But honestly, instead of sitting on your couch watching 14 hours of spongebob squarepants I would say 'light reading' is okay.

With that. The summer before M1 started for me I had alot of freetime but listened to the people here at SDN, i did nothing of note and didnt study...

I wish I reviewed... nothing serious but just simple anatomy stuff. I wish I knew that biceps meant the muscle had 2 heads lol.

You have months before M1 starts for you. Take it slow, but learn yourself the muscles, where they attach, and their innervations. Learn the major blood vessels don't memorize every branch but be familiar enough with the aorta. This can all be picked up through an anatomy for dummies text. Don't make it painful on yourself but take it slow and easy in your downtime/boredom

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Dann don't be scaring the innocent pre-meds with studying for anatomy. Everything you told them they will pick up in class very easily. And its all relative to region you are working on, so they won't realize what the purpose of those vessels/muscles/nerves do, unless they have to additional puzzle pieces.

Enjoy your time before school. Once you get here, be prepared to work very hard and ready to dedicate your time and future to learning. Have as much fun as you can, b/c your lifestyle changes the moment you get here.

I'll probably be a voice in the dark here. I'm one of those "weird ones" that doesn't think med school is hell. It IS HARD as hell, but it is still fun to be learning about the human body is such detail. Studying isn't the worst thing in the world. I'd much rather be here than in a traditional, dull job with little to shoot for except maybe a 5% raise and promotion a year away.

As far as burnout, I took classes literally until the weekend before med school started, so there was no "cooldown" session for me. Do I regret it? Not at all! I'm doing what I want to be doing! If I want to "see the world," I just do it on breaks.

The one thing that would make my time here more enjoyable is if I had already taken Human Anatomy, Physiology or Biochem. Biochem and I don't get along well at all... I spend more time on Biochem than anything else.

So, my advise? Why come to med school if you aren't going to enjoy it? Take just a few classes now to get back into the swing of things.

BCLumas said:

Bad advice.

I don't mean to be so harsh, but the best advice you'll get is relax. If you are bent on getting a book and looking at it, I would advise Netter's Human Anatomy Atlas or maybe getting my favorite, Rohen's Color Atlas of Anatomy. However, do NOT sit down and begin to memorize anything. First of all, these books are very nice picture books. Look at them and appreciate what you're looking at. Don't try to memorize the names, origins, insertions, innervations, blood supply, anything. Look at the muscles and play a game with yourself: guess their function. Do you have to be right? Hell no. You will, however, see that there is a trend that you will be able to bring with you when you start to study in medical school. Not only that, but many of the muscles you will learn have very broad origins and insertions, of which are of little importance.

And don't let Anatomy scare you. As someone who has never taken any kind of Anatomy course before I can tell you honestly that it was difficult, but not impossible. In fact, I worked very hard at it, making sure I stayed on top of the material as best as possible, asked questions when I didn't understand, and found a good study partner that pushed me through the times I couldn't focus. I got an A. It's not impossible. It's not even improbable. It just takes hard work and focus. If you spend the next 9+ months trying to learn anything, it will make the actual learning process of medical school burn you out much faster.'

As ShyRem said, go out and do anything and everything you can do. Call up some old friends and reminisce. Go visit a National Park. Watch all those movies that everyone is amazed you've never seen. Put ketchup on your Mac'n'cheese. Start getting in a work out regiment. Have... fun.

Congratulations on your acceptance. Go live!

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Okay 1, this guy is going to LECOM... I've heard some weird **** goes on over there... real 'back woods' kinda stuff... So I would completely discount what he said.

Dann don't be scaring the innocent pre-meds with studying for anatomy. Everything you told them they will pick up in class very easily. And its all relative to region you are working on, so they won't realize what the purpose of those vessels/muscles/nerves do, unless they have to additional puzzle pieces.

Enjoy your time before school. Once you get here, be prepared to work very hard and ready to dedicate your time and future to learning. Have as much fun as you can, b/c your lifestyle changes the moment you get here.

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Honestly? Im not saying memorize ****. Im saying learn what muscles are in your quadriceps/hamstrings. Learn that there are things called plexuses and they can be important. Learn that there are in fact more then 4 muscles responsible for head movement... Im not saying memorize everything that attaches to the hyoid bone I'm just saying... familarize yourself with it. Get an easy read book about it, and play it in your downtime...

Someone was recommending getting a netter's why... It doesn't even have words.

Dann, I can't wait to meet you, 10 months, haha. No need to call names though .

DannMann99 said:

Okay 1, this guy is going to LECOM... I've heard some weird **** goes on over there... real 'back woods' kinda stuff... So I would completely discount what he said.

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I really never interject on heated discussion but I want to bring attention to your blatant immaturity. I mean really was any of that called for. I'm far from perfect but is it fair to say you're better than this angry rant? It obviously makes no valid point at all.

Well, the bottom line is that you should do what makes you happy. If that means picking up a text and digging through it during your break, so be it. Honestly, I can think of at least a dozen things I'd rather do more, but I guess everyone has different ideas of what is fun. Reading medical school text isn't really very high on my list.

If, however, you think reading medical text during your interim period is going to adequately prepare you for what is to come, well, my personal opinion is that it will not. Most people just don't have the background to know how to study these types of texts in a useful manner w/o adequate guidance. You'll spend a lot of time grinding your wheels trying to plow through medical text to very little benefit when you could be skiing in Colorado, or whatever pleases you. Studying over in the interim period is very low yield. Cherish your free time while you have it, because once medical school starts, it will become increasingly difficult to do so. Really. Enjoy this time. I can't remember the last time my mind was truly care free since I began medical school.

Medical school isn't exactly terrible, but it's pretty darn consuming; it eats up your time and your life. It is interesting and from time-to-time there are moments that could count as enjoyable, but overall, I'd say that, for me, it is a lot of grueling hard work and filled with stress, although you do get better at handling it all as you progress. Truthfully, I'm pretty burned out on the pre-clinical stuff at this moment and very ready to move onto clinical rotations... I don't think I'll miss these times too very much...

DannMann99 said:

Okay 1, this guy is going to LECOM... I've heard some weird **** goes on over there... real 'back woods' kinda stuff... So I would completely discount what he said.




Honestly? Im not saying memorize ****. Im saying learn what muscles are in your quadriceps/hamstrings. Learn that there are things called plexuses and they can be important. Learn that there are in fact more then 4 muscles responsible for head movement... Im not saying memorize everything that attaches to the hyoid bone I'm just saying... familarize yourself with it. Get an easy read book about it, and play it in your downtime...

Someone was recommending getting a netter's why... It doesn't even have words.

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Wow. I thought you had a bit more class than that, Dan. Oh well. It speaks loudly for your personality.

To your bolded statement: could you please explain your previous post, then? Here it is, in case you forgot it:

DannMann99 said:

You have months before M1 starts for you. Take it slow, but learn yourself the muscles, where they attach, and their innervations. Learn the major blood vessels don't memorize every branch but be familiar enough with the aorta. This can all be picked up through an anatomy for dummies text. Don't make it painful on yourself but take it slow and easy in your downtime/boredom

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Muscles, attachment points, innervations, and major blood supplies, huh? That seems to be the bulk of the Musculoskeletal system to me. Since I'm the ******* who recommended Netter's, I'll defend it. Sure, it has no words. In fact, that's probably better. Dr. Netter's drawings give, on most occasions, a pretty good picture of the anatomy you will be studying and how it relates to surrounding structures. What good will it do you if you walk into the Gross lab knowing that the Genioglossus muscle, which attaches to the superior mental spine of the mandible, the hyoid bone, and the dorsum of the tongue, is innervated by the Hypoglossal Nerve (CN XII), and is given blood (mainly) by the Lingual nerve, a branch of the External Carotid artery? Not much, really. Sure, you've saved yourself the time to memorize the information, but, in actuality, you've not learned anything. You've simply stored information to be regurged at a later date. If that's how you learn, good for you. I'm sure it's working.

Again, Netter's will give you great representations of relationships of structures. Do you know what the Circle of Willis is? Probably not. However, I'm sure you can tell the difference between the front and the back of the brain. Use your general understanding of how the human anatomy generally looks to find neat and interesting relationships and find how those are related to other structures. There are TONS and TONS of really cool things that you can begin to appreciate now without being bogged down with the entire learning process.

Ultimately, OP, as spiced said, do what makes you happy. That's always the most important issue to solve. However, whatever "backwoods"-ness Dan is talking about, I have no idea. LECOM-B has tied for 2nd or first in board scores the past few years, ranking up with the "prestigous" schools of TCOM, MSUCOM, and, dare I say, PCOM. In fact, here is a link that will give you links to LECOM-Erie's 2008 Matches (and their scores were not as good as ours, so keep that in mind).

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=574257

If I find LECOM-Bradenton's list (or if someone has a link to it), I'll post it.

Good luck.


PS. Dan for helping me make my point!


EDIT: Dan, I realized that you may think that when I said "could you please explain..." you might think I would want a response. I just wanted to clarify that I don't want, need, desire, or care to have a reply to that statement. It was more rhetorical so that I could display your obvious hypocrisies within the same thread. Thanks!!

I didn't read your post. I stand by my back woods statement you lame-o.

People get this inflated idea premedschool... like do we all live like james bond... go skiing in aspen before going to med school? wtf does that. I worked, and went out to the bar, and hung out, and watched tv... maybe other kids lived extravagant lives... i couldn't really afford to. But my friend. if you have the opportunity to go skiing in colorado... you would be a fool to study netter's instead of skiing. i just tend to think realistically




and bacchus... if you = your avatar.... cant wait to meet me? i'll totally buy you a lunch.

DannMann99 said:

I didn't read your post. I stand by my back woods statement you lame-o.

People get this inflated idea premedschool... like do we all live like james bond... go skiing in aspen before going to med school? wtf does that. I worked, and went out to the bar, and hung out, and watched tv... maybe other kids lived extravagant lives... i couldn't really afford to. But my friend. if you have the opportunity to go skiing in colorado... you would be a fool to study netter's instead of skiing. i just tend to think realistically




and bacchus... if you = your avatar.... cant wait to meet me? i'll totally buy you a lunch.

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Honestly, I don't really care if you want to sit there and counter all of your arguments endlessly, but it truly is inappropriate to make comments about a medical school, of which you obviously know nothing about. It shows little class and is not needed. You need to stop.

Please, however, continue to tell the OP that what you meant to say in your first post was "If you have the opportunity to go skiing in Colorado... you would be a fool to study anything at all instead of skiing." I never told the OP to "study" Netter's. I told him to look at it and appreciate the drawings. That's all. I guess, however, it is acceptable for you to finally back your way into the general consensus, no matter if each post is slightly hypocritical of the previous ones.

Good luck.

I would take a biochem class, and that is what I did. 4 credits isnt going to kill you- and it will help when you get here.

Other than that, enjoy yourself. Go skiiing, go on vacation, sleep in, etc etc.

lol at the LECOM comment btw. I didnt know everyone from LECOM where *****s, thanks for the heads up dan.

Do whatever YOU want to do...If you want to study, go ahead. If you want to chill and hang out with your buddies all year then do that.
I doubt going through anatomy will burn you out over the next year so much that it'll break your spirits...

Just like everyone else said, studying doesn't seem to pay off from what I hear. I think the most anyone should do before hand is perhaps familiarize yourself with some of the basic terminology. This is NOT learning much of anything but just being familiar with the terminology so it doesn't feel like a complete foreign language. The way my memory decays, I don't think I could remember much more than that without constant review anyway.

Reading biochem and anatomy and hope some of it sticks.

For me I will have basically one year from end of classes to beginning of next set of classes. I teach hs science so I get constant low level review. I am however writing a lab manual for my high school human anatomy and physiology class. It sucks and I am no expert, but the experience and studying involved is pretty nice.

I worked full time for a year after I graduated before starting med school. I was worried about getting back into it. I now realize that was pretty unwarranted. I was pretty quickly forced to make the necessary adjustments to get back into good study habits.

I say study something if it makes YOU feel better. I agree that if you are going to take a class, take biochem. Will studying and taking additional classes help you "cope" with med school? Maybe a little bit. Probably not much, if at all. I'm one of those people that needs to feel productive at all times though, so I understand the desire to do something useful.

I agree with what someone said above that med school isn't "hell". You just have to have realistic expectations. You are going to eat, sleep, and breath science for a couple of years so having fun while you can is important.

Some anatomy might stick. Biochem won't, because there is so much ****, and you won't need to know all of it.

If you really want to study, grab yourself a Netter's, a BRS anatomy, and some sort of basic undergrad human anatomy text. Learn the terminology in the textbook. Like the anatomical planes and directional terms, and what does "tuberosity" mean, and **** like that. That sort of thing is useful, and you can probably familiarize yourself with it in a way that will be useful to you, so that you're not just wasting your time.

The next step is: go to this website...

http://www.anatomy.wisc.edu/courses/gross/

Watch a video, and then read about it in BRS. If you can get this far and you don't want to kill yourself, and you have come to grips with the fact that trying to get some booty is a futile pursuit for you, and you feel like you're actually retaining the information, then keep going. Knock yourself out.

Anatomy is going to be tough to wrap your brain around, until you're in the lab with your cadaver. At least that's how it is with me. I can read about this **** for a week and know almost nothing. Then I go into the lab for two hours and I can learn everything. I have found that I am a very visual/spatial learner though. I was great at o-chem, I think, because it was a lot like that.

I should add that I am not necessarily advocating the above actions. There is more than enough time in school to learn everything you need to learn. All I'm saying is that, if you can't be talked out of studying something, then that's what I'd do. Get used to thinking in terms of anatomy. It is kind of a different language, and I am glad I had a background in it before I came to med school.

I should also add that, if you feel like you aren't really understanding anything after about two days, drop the whole idea and just relax. Do some pleasure reading. If nothing else, it will get you used to reading constantly, which you will be doing.

The videos, I should add, are a must, if you are to have any hope of understanding this stuff. Netter's just isn't that great as anything more than a crude reference. Nothing looks like it does in Netter's, unless maybe you dissected Netter himself. Actually, recently dead people kind of look like they do in Netter's, but that doesn't do you much good in preparing you for your cadaver lab.

thanks for the link, those videos are pretty interesting.

i couldn't help but notice that the dude in the video did those dissections without gloves on.

You will come to grips with the fact that you will get soiled. In lab, in rotations, and probably when you're a physician. Some people have just come to grips with it more than others.

While I don't make a habit of it, I've picked through my cadaver gloveless on occasion.

TexasTriathlete said:

Some anatomy might stick. Biochem won't, because there is so much ****, and you won't need to know all of it.

If you really want to study, grab yourself a Netter's, a BRS anatomy, and some sort of basic undergrad human anatomy text. Learn the terminology in the textbook. Like the anatomical planes and directional terms, and what does "tuberosity" mean, and **** like that. That sort of thing is useful, and you can probably familiarize yourself with it in a way that will be useful to you, so that you're not just wasting your time.

The next step is: go to this website...

http://www.anatomy.wisc.edu/courses/gross/

Watch a video, and then read about it in BRS. If you can get this far and you don't want to kill yourself, and you have come to grips with the fact that trying to get some booty is a futile pursuit for you, and you feel like you're actually retaining the information, then keep going. Knock yourself out.

Anatomy is going to be tough to wrap your brain around, until you're in the lab with your cadaver. At least that's how it is with me. I can read about this **** for a week and know almost nothing. Then I go into the lab for two hours and I can learn everything. I have found that I am a very visual/spatial learner though. I was great at o-chem, I think, because it was a lot like that.

I should add that I am not necessarily advocating the above actions. There is more than enough time in school to learn everything you need to learn. All I'm saying is that, if you can't be talked out of studying something, then that's what I'd do. Get used to thinking in terms of anatomy. It is kind of a different language, and I am glad I had a background in it before I came to med school.

I should also add that, if you feel like you aren't really understanding anything after about two days, drop the whole idea and just relax. Do some pleasure reading. If nothing else, it will get you used to reading constantly, which you will be doing.

The videos, I should add, are a must, if you are to have any hope of understanding this stuff. Netter's just isn't that great as anything more than a crude reference. Nothing looks like it does in Netter's, unless maybe you dissected Netter himself. Actually, recently dead people kind of look like they do in Netter's, but that doesn't do you much good in preparing you for your cadaver lab.

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Careful, TT. If you say that you might have Dan telling you that you're an idiot for even suggesting that idea and call your school some kind of backwoods-insult in an attempt to insult you somehow. Yes, even though you go to the sister campus of the prestigious PCOM.

Just thought it was funny.

Thanks for posting the vids TT. It's my newest bookmark. Come on people keep the links coming, I need some biochem notes lol.

I wouldn't **** with the biochem. It just won't make any sense without context.

Actually, I probably wouldn't do much at all, but if I did, I'd stick to the anatomy.

I'm in a human biochemistry class right now and the only redeeming factor is that I'll be somewhat familiar with the names. There is no way I'm going to remember all this stuff in a year. The only plus to med school seemed to be that it was multiple choice for the biochem tests. As it is now, I have 55 minutes to do about 10 pages worth of drawing with a scattered definition or explanation. It could be worse, but it could def. be better. I will be pretty good with metab when I'm done I guess.

I dunno, some of you all could be the type that enjoys pouring over this stuff over the interim period with great effort to little or no benefit, but (and I also believe that a vast majority of my peers think this way as well, even if they did at one point think that studying during the period before schools was a good idea), I'd rather attempt, if I could turn back the wheels of time to when I was in your position, to fully appreciate the stretch of time that doesn't involve the craziness and intensity that medical school tends to come with.

Once you start school, you are in for a long, crazy, and intense ride that rarely, if ever, lets up. It's not all bad, but you'll be completely immersed and the path before you is rather cut out and narrow. You'll certainly have time for things outside of school and you should definitely try to pick some things to engage in that don't involve school that you enjoy, but it won't be as care free as the period before school. You'll get sick of school, all the craziness that it involves, of the routines you go through to survive/thrive in this setting, and, indeed, of seeing the same people over and over again in the same situation, at least some of the time. You may want to do something fun, but you soon realize that you can't readily remember what that means any more. This isn't the experience that everyone has, of course, and it does occur on a gradient, but for the most part, my experience and what I have noticed of my peer's, is that it is a very common one.

What you could stand to gain from studying over the interim period and the effort required to do it properly simply isn't worth it, unless you are one of the rarer birds amongst us that has the capacity to make it worthwhile and/or really thrives off of it. So far, I haven't talked to any one in my class that has thought studying over the interim period was a wise use of time, or was worthwhile.

I strongly encourage you to enjoy your free time. Good luck!

Wise words, Spiced, wise words. I, for one, will be taking them to heart.

Indeed, medical school is relentless in never letting up. The pressure is constant. I got done with a final today and have the luxury to take one day off. ONE, if I took 2-3 I would be chronically behind for the next section. In agreement with Spicedmanna, you have to find enjoyment in things other than school related activities or youll go nuts. You can almost lose touch with reality and get buried in notes, so enjoy your freedom now. I will say that often medical school can be fun too. My advice in the transition once your in is to get a good healthy routine and stick to it and youll do just fine. Its all about balance

To add a little flavor, I feel that having immunology in my background to be a HUGE benefit. Without a solid course in immuno before coming to KCUMB, I would have been lost.