Can you manage time such that medical school is not stressful?

[TheBiologist]

So in undergrad I've had periods where I wait until the last minute to study for multiple tests and it's high stress. But when I make an effort to keep up with the material as it's taught I find that I not only do very well but I have practically no stress and very little 'hard' studying before exams

can med school be time-managed like this or will it always be stressful?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[bananafish94]

You have to manage your time in medical school, or else it will eat you alive. It's still stressful, though. Our exams are basically our entire grade for the unit, and if you don't get a certain score you fail and have to remediate it over the summer. Doesn't matter how well you prepare, that's stressful. But you do get used to it and there's a lot less extra stuff that you have to worry about like in college where it seems like you're constantly juggling 18 million things at once.

 

[SouthernGent]

Gotta manage your time, end of story. Keep up with material or it will easily overwhelm you. That being said, I still have time to practice music for an hour, workout for about the same amount, and can sometime squeeze in non-school reading at night. I still stress out during exam week, but is all about balance.

 

[Goro]

Not only do you have to manage your time, but you do have to master stress reduction techniques as well. Med school is a furnace.

 

[21Rush12]

Trust that you will succeed if you put the work in, and stop giving a F about what your numerical score is.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

 

[Turkishking]

Trust that you will succeed if you put the work in, and stop giving a F about what your numerical score is.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

But you need to care what your numerical score is. The key components to get accepted in medical school is numerical score!!!

 

[RogueUnicorn]

Not everyone is not super stressed out in medical school outside of the clinical year. There are stress spikes, but overall medical school is still school and a rather comfortable, coddled (by necessity/design) environment. And my time management skills were/are terrible.

 

[aldol16]

You will definitely be less stressed than your peers if you keep up to date with the work and can keep that up. The challenge is keeping it up with the sheer amount of information and material thrown at you. You will definitely be stressed during exams because they're exams and no matter how up to date you are, you'll still have to study and review just like everyone else. But pass/fail curricula go a long way towards helping to alleviate that stress.

 

[Piglet2020]

You will definitely be less stressed than your peers if you keep up to date with the work and can keep that up. The challenge is keeping it up with the sheer amount of information and material thrown at you. You will definitely be stressed during exams because they're exams and no matter how up to date you are, you'll still have to study and review just like everyone else. But pass/fail curricula go a long way towards helping to alleviate that stress.

What if you got accepted in a school that does A/B/C/D grading? Would it be more stressful? Is there any reason not to go to this school because of their grading system? I like all the other aspects of the curicculum.

 

[21Rush12]

But you need to care what your numerical score is. The key components to get accepted in medical school is numerical score!!!

OP asked about managing in Med school.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

 

[aldol16]

What if you got accepted in a school that does A/B/C/D grading? Would it be more stressful? Is there any reason not to go to this school because of their grading system? I like all the other aspects of the curicculum.

This will depend on you and what's important to you. All I can say is that true pass/fail is generally less stressful than A/B/C/D grading where the class is basically segregated and ranked from the pre-clinical years. Most schools have some sort of clinical ranking but you kind of need that in order for residency program directors to compare you to other applicants. But it's totally unnecessary in the preclinical years. If this is important to you, then it will naturally weigh strongly in your decision. But personally, I don't think any single factor should be enough to completely exclude a school.

 

[tbonez71]

Im just going to say that of my friends that are in medical school, nearly all of them say that medical school preclinical years are less stressful than undergrad where they were trying to juggle a ton of ECs. Of course they aren't stress free, you can just concentrate more on all the the information being thrown at you! The only person who hasn't said that is going to a state school with all mandatory classes and ranked P/F.

I think it gets much more stressful your third year, possibly your fourth but I think it depends on how your school handles throwing work at you while you are out interviewing for residency. This is a good question to ask students as you fly around to interview.

 

[CyrilFiggis]

So in undergrad I've had periods where I wait until the last minute to study for multiple tests and it's high stress. But when I make an effort to keep up with the material as it's taught I find that I not only do very well but I have practically no stress and very little 'hard' studying before exams

You know what cramming for an exam helps with? Passing the test. You know what it doesn't do? Actually have you learn the material. This isn't ideal when it's 6-8 weeks before STEP 1 and instead of reviewing concepts and pertinent details, you're wasting time re-learning material you never really knew to begin with.

What if you got accepted in a school that does A/B/C/D grading? Would it be more stressful?

Yes. There have been multiple studies done over the last 10 years looking at grades, STEP scores, residency placement, stress and depression at schools that switched from ranked/letter grades to pass/fail. They found no changes in performance, success in clerkship, residency placement or STEP scores. But they found a statistically significant (p<0.001 at minimum) reduction in stress, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, level of depression, burnout and feeling they wanted to drop out.

 

[Mad Jack]

Time isn't what makes medical school stressful. It's more the nature of the process.