Annoying Small Groups

[Spetzler-Martin]

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Just wondering if other people at different institutions are in the same boat as me. My school requires a ridiculous number of required small group sessions per week for lecture based material. We also have to watch 1-3 hour long pre-work videos prior to these small group sessions and are subsequently assigned worksheet questions that we have to discuss for nearly 2.5 hours, 3-4 times a week. This is on top of two 3 hour anatomy lab sessions per week.

What's even worse is that these small group sessions are often at 8 AM in the morning.

Overall, these small groups sessions are a major time suck and I'm a bit annoyed as I want to use boards resources while studying, but the obscene amount of pre-work and small group sessions have been driving me nuts. If I understand the material, I don't see why I have to discuss it for 3 hours straight. And if I don't, I'd rather just google the question or talk to a professor.

 

[M&L]

in my school we have small groups roughly once a week... well, every other week twice, to be specific (we skip one week, next week we have two, roughly). so this is so weird to me....

 

[M&L]

Just wondering if other people at different institutions are in the same boat as me. My school requires a ridiculous number of required small group sessions per week for lecture based material. We also have to watch 1-3 hour long pre-work videos prior to these small group sessions and are subsequently assigned worksheet questions that we have to discuss for nearly 2.5 hours, 3-4 times a week. This is on top of two 3 hour anatomy lab sessions per week.

What's even worse is that these small group sessions are often at 8 AM in the morning.

Overall, these small groups sessions are a major time suck and I'm a bit annoyed as I want to use boards resources while studying, but the obscene amount of pre-work and small group sessions have been driving me nuts. If I understand the material, I don't see why I have to discuss it for 3 hours straight. And if I don't, I'd rather just google the question or talk to a professor.

what exactly do you do during small groups? we discuss cases. i actually find them useful.

 

[Spetzler-Martin]

what exactly do you do during small groups? we discuss cases. i actually find them useful.

We're given clinical style problems that relate to the lecture material. I'm completely fine with 1 or 2 small group sessions but it's the extra 2 hours of videos that they make us watch before the sessions that is really frustrating.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

We have like 4-5 small groups a week, sometimes more, including path labs and our clinical reasoning sessions. Our clinical reasoning sessions are pretty much everyone’s favorite part of the curriculum.

 

[Spetzler-Martin]

We have like 4-5 small groups a week, sometimes more, including path labs and our clinical reasoning sessions. Our clinical reasoning sessions are pretty much everyone’s favorite part of the curriculum.

Sounds similar to our curriculum. Luckily we have a 2 week break until our next block. I'm going to churn out the material for the next block until then. Hopefully that'll help save a lot of time

 

[M&L]

We have like 4-5 small groups a week, sometimes more, including path labs and our clinical reasoning sessions. Our clinical reasoning sessions are pretty much everyone’s favorite part of the curriculum.

same here. we love them. always fun.

BUt we do not have to do any extra prep for it, - except that you have to know the material, of course.

 

[Goro]

Just wondering if other people at different institutions are in the same boat as me. My school requires a ridiculous number of required small group sessions per week for lecture based material. We also have to watch 1-3 hour long pre-work videos prior to these small group sessions and are subsequently assigned worksheet questions that we have to discuss for nearly 2.5 hours, 3-4 times a week. This is on top of two 3 hour anatomy lab sessions per week.

What's even worse is that these small group sessions are often at 8 AM in the morning.

Overall, these small groups sessions are a major time suck and I'm a bit annoyed as I want to use boards resources while studying, but the obscene amount of pre-work and small group sessions have been driving me nuts. If I understand the material, I don't see why I have to discuss it for 3 hours straight. And if I don't, I'd rather just google the question or talk to a professor.

You weren't aware of this before you applied to the school, or after you interviewed?

Welcome to Team Based learning, which is THE thing in medical education now. U VM has no lectures....all TBL.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

same here. we love them. always fun.

BUt we do not have to do any extra prep for it, - except that you have to know the material, of course.

Yeah we get a one pager that has the initial info (vitals, initial hpi, maybe a family hx) and a handout on the complaint and the pathophys and working it up and stuff. But the topic is always on something we’ve been learning that week, so studying is preparing. I don’t usually do any extra prep for them.

 

[Spetzler-Martin]

You weren't aware of this before you applied to the school, or after you interviewed?

Welcome to Team Based learning, which is THE thing in medical education now. U VM has no lectures....all TBL.

I'm fine with team based learning for clinical skills and anatomy. However, there's a limit for lecture based material. 14 hours is pushing it. And yes I was aware , but there's a difference between knowing and being a part of it.

 

[Goro]

I'm fine with team based learning for clinical skills and anatomy. However, there's a limit for lecture based material. 14 hours is pushing it. And yes I was aware , but there's a difference between knowing and being a part of it.

I'd say you made your bed and now have to lie in it. Two years will go quickly.

 

[Spetzler-Martin]

I'd say you made your bed and now have to lie in it. Two years will go quickly.

Yeah, I apologize, I just needed a safe place to rant. Haha

 

[M&L]

Yeah, I apologize, I just needed a safe place to rant. Haha

i mean, i understand where you are coming from. I am sure every school has things that are annoying. I have some bad days when i just want to give myself a really bad haircut. hahahha. in those days i just try to remember that i am doing this for a reason, and that the most important thing is step 1 this year. Everything else goes on the back burner for me.

 

[slowthai]

I feel you. These small groups are pure flaming garbage and extremely low yield. Just another part of the suck of some med schools. Apparently the amount of small groups and mandatory BS is going to go up secondary to the step p/f thing. That might be what happened actually. Admins are like "Haha, you have to pay attention to our crappy curriculum now"

 

[COMMANDER CLOWN]

Team based ANYTHING is an absolute joke lmao. Great concept, terrible execution, just like pretty much everything in medical education.

 

[Cornfed101]

We have mostly lecture but we just did our first TBL and it was seriously a straight up dumpster fire. The professor kept giving us these questions and giving us like 10 min to search google for the answers. Then people argued with her about how stupid her correct answer was. It was a huge waste of time. Oh and then she gave us a huge PowerPoint with stuff we were supposed to have learned and will be tested on and it’s all figured and diagrams with no explanation.

if you can’t tell I’ll really happy about my test next Tuesday

 

[deleted804295]

Just wondering if other people at different institutions are in the same boat as me. My school requires a ridiculous number of required small group sessions per week for lecture based material. We also have to watch 1-3 hour long pre-work videos prior to these small group sessions and are subsequently assigned worksheet questions that we have to discuss for nearly 2.5 hours, 3-4 times a week. This is on top of two 3 hour anatomy lab sessions per week.

What's even worse is that these small group sessions are often at 8 AM in the morning.

Overall, these small groups sessions are a major time suck and I'm a bit annoyed as I want to use boards resources while studying, but the obscene amount of pre-work and small group sessions have been driving me nuts. If I understand the material, I don't see why I have to discuss it for 3 hours straight. And if I don't, I'd rather just google the question or talk to a professor.

Yeah I mostly just skip these classes. Attendance is not mandatory.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Yeah I mostly just skip these classes. Attendance is not mandatory.

Attendance isn’t mandatory at your small group sessions?

 

[deleted804295]

Attendance isn’t mandatory at your small group sessions?

Nope.

Large class size so every small group has like 10 students. Plus it's hard to monitor who attends or not via Zoom. And my lecturers are frankly bad at facilitating the small group sessions.

 

[Cornfed101]

Plus it's hard to monitor who attends or not via Zoom.

sounds like they are just lazy. zoom absolutely provides this info. This is how my school keeps attendance

 

[slowthai]

Nope.

Large class size so every small group has like 10 students. Plus it's hard to monitor who attends or not via Zoom. And my lecturers are frankly bad at facilitating the small group sessions.

If this is really true (like it's actually not mandatory), you are truly living the dream.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Nope.

Large class size so every small group has like 10 students. Plus it's hard to monitor who attends or not via Zoom. And my lecturers are frankly bad at facilitating the small group sessions.

Yeah wow if the sessions are actually not mandatory and you’re not just saying you can skip them without anyone knowing, that is awesome.

 

[deleted804295]

sounds like they are just lazy. zoom absolutely provides this info. This is how my school keeps attendance

We're not graded on attendance 😀

Only mandatory lectures are when patients are brought in.

 

[deleted804295]

Yeah wow if the sessions are actually not mandatory and you’re not just saying you can skip them without anyone knowing, that is awesome.

I am haha. That's why this school was my top choice.

Truly non-mandatory classes, no rankings, P/F curriculum. It's a dream

 

[mojetter]

wow, looking back that was half of my anxiety during medical school...I hated the small groups, didnt realize how much until this post

 

[Eye-eye]

Just wondering if other people at different institutions are in the same boat as me. My school requires a ridiculous number of required small group sessions per week for lecture based material. We also have to watch 1-3 hour long pre-work videos prior to these small group sessions and are subsequently assigned worksheet questions that we have to discuss for nearly 2.5 hours, 3-4 times a week. This is on top of two 3 hour anatomy lab sessions per week.

What's even worse is that these small group sessions are often at 8 AM in the morning.

Overall, these small groups sessions are a major time suck and I'm a bit annoyed as I want to use boards resources while studying, but the obscene amount of pre-work and small group sessions have been driving me nuts. If I understand the material, I don't see why I have to discuss it for 3 hours straight. And if I don't, I'd rather just google the question or talk to a professor.

This was me 3 years ago, and it was a long and frustrating couple of years. However, seeing your classmates every day and actually getting to know them at least a little was a huge boon by M3. You know your classmates and you work to benefit each other on the floors. When I hear the horror stories about awful gunners at other schools, I'm very glad I sat through all those otherwise time-wasting PBLs in M1-2.

 

[Neopolymath]

Attendance isn’t mandatory at your small group sessions?

The school will make them mandatory when faculty get their feelings hurt. These things start out not mandatory because the faculty think people won't need to be told to "do the right thing" until they realize no one is going precisely because it isn't mandatory (because at most schools it sucks, apparently).

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The school will make them mandatory when faculty get their feelings hurt. These things start out not mandatory because the faculty think people won't need to be told to "do the right thing" until they realize no one is going precisely because it isn't mandatory (because at most schools it sucks, apparently).

Ha. Yeah some of our small group sessions are really good. Especially the clinical ones. Most people would still go even if they weren’t mandatory.

 

[blockrudder1]

For me it's more about the timing of these small groups. The A.M is the easiest time for me to knock out 700+ cards, so leaving those until after 3p isn't optimal.

 

[Mass Effect]

I'm fine with team based learning for clinical skills and anatomy. However, there's a limit for lecture based material. 14 hours is pushing it. And yes I was aware , but there's a difference between knowing and being a part of it.

Your schedule and time commitment doesn't sound much different from a traditional M-F lecture/lab curriculum (and FYI, if you're upset about doing anything at 8 am, you're in for a world of hurt MS-3 year and beyond). Team learning has its pros and cons like all things, but it sounds pretty in-line with other schools/curriculums if that's your question.

Just to bring this full circle, the revolt by students who would rather study for boards than pay any attention to the curriculum they're paying a quarter of a million dollar for is why Step 1 is moving to pass/fail.

 

[Lawpy]

Your schedule and time commitment doesn't sound much different from a traditional M-F lecture/lab curriculum (and FYI, if you're upset about doing anything at 8 am, you're in for a world of hurt MS-3 year and beyond). Team learning has its pros and cons like all things, but it sounds pretty in-line with other schools/curriculums if that's your question.

Just to bring this full circle, the revolt by students who would rather study for boards than pay any attention to the curriculum they're paying a quarter of a million dollar for is why Step 1 is moving to pass/fail.

And probably Step 2 too once people begin to ditch the wards

 

[Spetzler-Martin]

Your schedule and time commitment doesn't sound much different from a traditional M-F lecture/lab curriculum (and FYI, if you're upset about doing anything at 8 am, you're in for a world of hurt MS-3 year and beyond). Team learning has its pros and cons like all things, but it sounds pretty in-line with other schools/curriculums if that's your question.

Just to bring this full circle, the revolt by students who would rather study for boards than pay any attention to the curriculum they're paying a quarter of a million dollar for is why Step 1 is moving to pass/fail.

I wake up at 5 every day but on days where we have 1 day to go over 4 hours of pre-work assignments in addition to the normal lectures, I would like to have a bit more rest which I don't get to have with 8 AM sessions. It isn't necessary for us to have sessions this early but it is necessary to start rounding in a hospital early in the day. And a lot of students like myself are still gunning to do well on Step 1 in preparation for Step 2, so nothing has change with a P/F Step 1

 

[slowthai]

Just to bring this full circle, the revolt by students who would rather study for boards than pay any attention to the curriculum they're paying a quarter of a million dollar for is why Step 1 is moving to pass/fail.

What's funny is that they're going to continue to ditch school lectures just off the strength of boards resources alone. It is in my enlightened self-interest to focus on boards, especially when step 2 builds directly on step 1. So they haven't "fixed" anything. If anything, they're just going to start ditching the wards for UWorld, just like @Lawpy said.

 

[Spetzler-Martin]

What's funny is that they're going to continue to ditch it just off the strength of boards resources alone. It is in my enlightened self-interest to focus on boards, especially when step 2 builds directly on step 1. So they haven't "fixed" anything. If anything, they're just going to start ditching the wards for UWorld, just like @Lawpy said.

I feel like it might be slightly different however as direct patient encounters during rotations do help with Step 2, at least that's what I heard from MS3 and MS4 students

 

[slowthai]

I feel like it might be slightly different however as direct patient encounters during rotations do help with Step 2, at least that's what I heard from MS3 and MS4 students

For sure. To elaborate, we'll be hearing a lot more "Is there anything else you need help with?" so that people can go home and study instead of staying late for whatever reason. It'll be interesting to see how people balance gunning for both a high step 2 and honors during M3. I reckon it'll be significantly harder, as they have made step 2 harder (plus everyone actually cares about it now) and clinical grades can be so subjective.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

For sure. To elaborate, we'll be hearing a lot more "Is there anything else you need help with?" so that people can go home and study instead of staying late for whatever reason. It'll be interesting to see how people balance gunning for both a high step 2 and honors during M3. I reckon it'll be significantly harder, as they have made step 2 harder (plus everyone actually cares about it now) and clinical grades can be so subjective.

I don’t care. I’m just so ready to be done with preclerkship. 3 more months.

 

[slowthai]

I don’t care. I’m just so ready to be done with preclerkship. 3 more months.

Funny, I'm somewhat dreading it. I think it might just be the worst year... I'm hoping that I'll be pleasantly surprised

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Funny, I'm somewhat dreading it. I think it might just be the worst year... I'm hoping that I'll be pleasantly surprised

I would so much rather work 80 hours a week in the hospital than be doing lectures, etc. 50 hours a week.

 

[Mass Effect]

I wake up at 5 every day but on days where we have 1 day to go over 4 hours of pre-work assignments in addition to the normal lectures, I would like to have a bit more rest which I don't get to have with 8 AM sessions. It isn't necessary for us to have sessions this early but it is necessary to start rounding in a hospital early in the day. And a lot of students like myself are still gunning to do well on Step 1 in preparation for Step 2, so nothing has change with a P/F Step 1

Then maybe you should ask them to give you more than one day for 4 hours of work because 8 am start time in school is pretty typical regardless of the year.

And probably Step 2 too once people begin to ditch the wards

What's funny is that they're going to continue to ditch school lectures just off the strength of boards resources alone. It is in my enlightened self-interest to focus on boards, especially when step 2 builds directly on step 1. So they haven't "fixed" anything. If anything, they're just going to start ditching the wards for UWorld, just like @Lawpy said.

Ditching the wards will last all of one match cycle and I suspect the ones who do it will likely be on probation before the end of intern year.

 

[slowthai]

I would so much rather work 80 hours a week in the hospital than be doing lectures, etc. 50 hours a week.

Nah, I hear that. I'd probably feel the same if our time wasn't devalued to the nth degree. In the worst case, like 90% of that work is being a professional groupie and the other 10% is finding time to study. Like I said, I hope that's not the case.

 

[slowthai]

Ditching the wards will last all of one match cycle and I suspect the ones who do it will likely be on probation before the end of intern year.

When I say "ditching the wards", I'm really talking about minimizing unnecessary/extra time in the hospital, at risk of clinical grades suffering. With step 2 becoming the new step 1, I believe that's a risk people will be willing to take. I know I'd give up some honors if it meant a 270+ step 2.

 

[Mass Effect]

When I say "ditching the wards", I'm really talking about minimizing unnecessary/extra time in the hospital, at risk of clinical grades suffering. With step 2 becoming the new step 1, I believe that's a risk people will be willing to take. I know I'd give up some honors if it meant a 270+ step 2.

It's not just about giving up honors. If you're going to be the guy to ask to leave at 2 pm everyday, you're going to get a pretty ****ty eval and some-not-so-nice things to put into your dean's letter.

 

[slowthai]

It's not just about giving up honors. If you're going to be the guy to ask to leave at 2 pm everyday, you're going to get a pretty ****ty eval and some-not-so-nice things to put into your dean's letter.

Well I'm really not talking in extremes here. The larger point I'm trying to make is that the pressure to maximize one's time is immense, and people will find a way, by hook or by crook.