MD & DO Basic sciences/preclinical students, what is your typical med school day like?

[Wannabe_successful]

I want to verify what I’ve researched on google and YouTube, regarding most medical schools have optional attendance for lecture and it not going beyond 5 hours a day, usually less. My medical school has mandatory attendance for lecture. If you add up the commute times and entire time spent at the school to attend lectures, it equates to 10 hours a day. This leaves you with about 4 hours a day to study, if you want 7 hours of sleep, food, and potentially a 45 minute workout. For the typical student, it takes about 2 hours to master 1 hour of lecture. My medical school has 8 hours of lecture/day. I find listening to lecture to be passive and inefficient for me. My block exam results show the results of it. I think all the excess lecture time allows my professors to squeeze in the utmost minute details to cherry pick from, in addition to rob students of their time to master the learning objectives. They even have a lot of mandatory meetings during our lunch break. Personally, I decided to withdraw and progress towards a different course of action.

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[Lifeblood_20]

My school has both optional and mandatory lectures/group sessions. Mandatory stuff is probably ~3 hours per day on average. Optional lectures are probably another ~5 hours per day, but you can skip those and view them later at 2x speed, etc. Overall, very doable time-management-wise.

 

[Wannabe_successful]

My school has both optional and mandatory lectures/group sessions. Mandatory stuff is probably ~3 hours per day on average. Optional lectures are probably another ~5 hours per day, but you can skip those and view them later at 2x speed, etc. Overall, very doable time-management-wise.

Thank you for responding. I’m an M1 by the way. Okay, so I’m not crazy. I think the only students exceeding in my school’s format are the brilliant ones/ones who’ve been exposed to the content before and have the reps of exposure under their belts. I’m fresh and need more time to self study for my retention - active learning, but hard to do when 10 hours a day are spent at school. I think I’ll do a masters in biomedical science and hone my knowledge and skills before I revisit this.

 

[Lifeblood_20]

Yeah medical school having mandatory stuff for 8 hours/day during pre-clinical years is not conducive to learning imo. Very little flexibility for students to do what works for them.

 

[xDNA]

MS1 here, my school has about 8-12hrs/WEEK on average, of mandatory stuff. I think my school, does a pretty decent job allowing us a lot of free time for independent learning. Usually at the beginning of the block there are more mandatory things, and as we get closer to finishing the our system block theres more free time and less mandatory things

 

[Wannabe_successful]

MS1 here, my school has about 8-12hrs/WEEK on average, of mandatory stuff. I think my school, does a pretty decent job allowing us a lot of free time for independent learning. Usually at the beginning of the block there are more mandatory things, and as we get closer to finishing the our system block theres more free time and less mandatory things

See, that makes sense. I appreciate your response. It’s reassuring. I was going through a stage of imposter syndrome and found out that most schools don’t operate the way mine does. I worked as a truck driver, 14 hours a day while doing some premedical classes, and I still was able to do decent because I had the free time to learn the best way I do, making my own schedule. With my school and the mandatory lectures about 8-10 hours a day, I’ve perform terribly. I’ll work to go to another school that honors my learning style.

 

[DarkBluMage]

See, that makes sense. I appreciate your response. It’s reassuring. I was going through a stage of imposter syndrome and found out that most schools don’t operate the way mine does. I worked as a truck driver, 14 hours a day while doing some premedical classes, and I still was able to do decent because I had the free time to learn the best way I do, making my own schedule. With my school and the mandatory lectures about 8-10 hours a day, I’ve perform terribly. I’ll work to go to another school that honors my learning style.

Your best bet is to stick it out. Once you’ve matriculated at a medical school it’s near impossible to get into another one. Med school isn’t like undergrad. It’s almost impossible to transfer schools and if you withdraw you’ll probably never get into another one.

 

[Wannabe_successful]

Your best bet is to stick it out. Once you’ve matriculated at a medical school it’s near impossible to get into another one. Med school isn’t like undergrad. It’s almost impossible to transfer schools and if you withdraw you’ll probably never get into another one.

I understand. I did a LOA just in case it doesn’t work out.