Can someone explain what the material covered in medical school is like?

[Goldslugs]

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I have a good idea of what subjects are covered so I don't mean like that. I've also heard the firehouse analogy a lot, but what is like? Is it a large amount of material you are expected to know with each part having very little depth, or is it a lot of material with a lot of depth?

An example of a lot of material with very little depth would be expecting to know a lot of terms each of which have one or a few simple definitions. An example of a lot of material with a lot more depth would be basically a way more complicated version of that.

Thoughts?

 

[Lucca]

I went to visit a friend who graduated and went to medical school here in Texas. I got there early enough for class to be in so I sat in on an Immunology lecture with him. Basically it was like rapid fire biology. Facts about pathways and interactions were just being dolled out one after another. In undergrad you might expect the professor to go over a biochem mechanism and then go back and explain how each step works, how it's regulated, what enzymes play a role, ask some questions to the class about hypothetical regulation situations or disorders or what type of enzyme might catalyze a reaction, whether it's reversible, etc etc. Instead, one pathway would come and go and then another related topic or interaction would be introduced and on we would go. It's not like the professor was hyped up on adder all just powering through slides or anything but I could see what people meant about the volume. All of the medical students were frantically highlighting their "syllabus" (which was a 100-200 page tome as opposed to the one page class description I'm familiar with) or typing notes on their laptop. A few just sat there and absorbed.

It wasn't terrifying but I was glad I didn't have to take any notes.

That was my single lecture take on medical school, I'm sure the medical students will be more helpful but that was my impression as a current undergrad

 

[WedgeDawg]

Amount of material: Very high. Higher than anything you've done in undergrad.
Depth of material: fairly high. Much higher than any undergrad intro classes. At least as high as midlevel classes, if not higher. Could be as high as some upper level classes depending on the classes that you took, but might not be as high as some super specific classes.

For example, you're expected to know all the protein pathways of basically everything that you learn. One example of this is the Wnt signaling pathway. You absolutely have to know the protein pathway and what affects what, but you might not have to know the exact conformational changes that the proteins undergo in the pathway in order for it to work. Another example might be the clotting cascade. You have to know how all the factors interact, what complexes form, how other things like plasminogen come into play, what inhibits what, etc, but you might not have to know exactly how the tenase complex activates factor X on a molecular level other than its a cleavage.

Nothing I've learned so far in my one semester of med school is anything I would say is conceptually more difficult than anything I learned in undergrad, but the volume of information is extremely high and the pace is fast. My 3 week genetics block essentially covered what what my undergrad genetics class covered and then some more with regards to disease states, inheritance, clinical applicability, etc.

However, you adapt very quickly. I went from working ~14 hours/day (including class time) my first two weeks of med school to working ~3-4 hours/day with spikes right before exams my last week while maintaining the same grades.

 

[mxmd]

med school isn't hard because the material itself is hard. It's hard because there's just so damn much of it you need to learn in 4 years.

You can divide it up roughly into basic sciences and clinicals. you learn all the nitty gritty stuff in the basic sciences (physiology, enzyme pathways, histology and pathology, etc). The clinical part is where you actually get to apply what you learn in the basic sciences onto real patients, with the added human element... there's stuff you learn in your clinical years (dealing with patients, becoming a doctor, etc) that you don't really learn in your basic science years

 

[Ismet]

Varies by course, but generally it's a lot of material with considerable depth within a short time frame.

Our biochem course was 2 weeks long. 9 class days. Of course we didn't go into the intricate details like an undergrad biochem course would, and the course was more clinically-oriented than an undergrad basic science course, but it was considerable depth.

It gets more in depth for organ system courses, because you have to understand physiology (how things work, not just rote memorization) and pathology. I think for our cardiology course, we covered 900 pages of lecture notes in 5 weeks or something like that. Our microbiology syllabus was like 500-600 pages for 4 weeks. As @Lucca experienced, lectures tend to move pretty fast, so the best prep was actually to read the lecture notes BEFORE lecture, then attend lecture (or podcast), then review it.

 

[differentiating]

I have a good idea of what subjects are covered so I don't mean like that. I've also heard the firehouse analogy a lot, but what is like? Is it a large amount of material you are expected to know with each part having very little depth, or is it a lot of material with a lot of depth?

An example of a lot of material with very little depth would be expecting to know a lot of terms each of which have one or a few simple definitions. An example of a lot of material with a lot more depth would be basically a way more complicated version of that.

Thoughts?

I'd say it's a lot of material in a decent amount of depth, though very little of it is actually hard to learn. For example, in our cardiovascular block, we learned the entire clotting cascade, a bunch of drugs used for a variety of heart conditions (CHF vs angina, etc.) as well as when they're indicated/side effects/mechanism, different types of valvular heart disease and their causes/pathologies/signs/symptoms, etc.

Personally, I actually have to keep up with the material as opposed to undergrad, in which it was more than sufficient to study my notes a day or two before the exam and ace it. I try to take notes on each lecture/topic by the end of the following weekend so I don't fall too far behind at any given point in time. That's the firehose part of it - if you fall behind, it just keeps coming, so it's hard to get out of that hole - but it's certainly manageable as long as you're not completely terrible at budgeting your time.

 

[Psai]

I went to visit a friend who graduated and went to medical school here in Texas. I got there early enough for class to be in so I sat in on an Immunology lecture with him. Basically it was like rapid fire biology. Facts about pathways and interactions were just being dolled out one after another. In undergrad you might expect the professor to go over a biochem mechanism and then go back and explain how each step works, how it's regulated, what enzymes play a role, ask some questions to the class about hypothetical regulation situations or disorders or what type of enzyme might catalyze a reaction, whether it's reversible, etc etc. Instead, one pathway would come and go and then another related topic or interaction would be introduced and on we would go. It's not like the professor was hyped up on adder all just powering through slides or anything but I could see what people meant about the volume. All of the medical students were frantically highlighting their "syllabus" (which was a 100-200 page tome as opposed to the one page class description I'm familiar with) or typing notes on their laptop. A few just sat there and absorbed.

It wasn't terrifying but I was glad I didn't have to take any notes.

That was my single lecture take on medical school, I'm sure the medical students will be more helpful but that was my impression as a current undergrad

It's not scary until you realize that they expect you to remember everything. You're always behind, no matter what you do

 

[f4reignbeauty]

There is a lot of material, but you'll adjust! 🙂 During our foundations block, we essentially went through my entire undergrad degree within 8 weeks. Was the material difficult? No, not really, but there is a lot of it. If you're worried about the material, I recommend reaching out to your school's learning skills coordinator. They are such a great resource, and can give you advice on time management, and how to efficiently study the material.

Good luck!

 

[Goro]

Material that I learned in an entire semester in grad school I cover in literally one week.

It's also not merely knowing, you have to apply.

I have a good idea of what subjects are covered so I don't mean like that. I've also heard the firehouse analogy a lot, but what is like? Is it a large amount of material you are expected to know with each part having very little depth, or is it a lot of material with a lot of depth?

An example of a lot of material with very little depth would be expecting to know a lot of terms each of which have one or a few simple definitions. An example of a lot of material with a lot more depth would be basically a way more complicated version of that.

Thoughts?