Difficulty of med school??

[ddmo]

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That sounds like law school -- I'm hoping I won't fall for the mind tricks this time. Do you only get negative feedback?

The only positive feedback you get is in your exam scores and maybe rotation evaluations. Rarely will it come directly.

My roommate is a law student. While, you guys have the Socratic method, we and now you have pimping. I think it's worst in surgery. Imagine being stuck in a tiny room with a law professor for 5+ hours, who spends the entire time asking you questions he knows you probably don't know, then derides you for not knowing the answers. You feel worthless after that experience. However, come to find out in the eval., he was impressed with your knowledge. 15/100 isn't so bad after all.

You'll do fine after having gone through law school. But your studying will have to be tweaked for sure. Much different approach.

 

[ddmo]

Good luck on Step 1!

So a question to all you students -- how do you determine what to focus on learning? I've heard that it's impossible to learn everything because the sheer volume is too huge. How do you keep yourself sane and learn what you need to know to do okay?

Forgot about the second part.

Thanks for the good luck.

As for your course exams, I was actually able to learn just about everything. It is possible.

The boards, there's no way.

Rotations, no way either.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

But your studying will have to be tweaked for sure. Much different approach.

Oh that's true. The vast majority of my law school exams were open book/open note. Sure, we learned lots of stuff so you did have to do some memorization, but memorization of details was nowhere near the main focus of my courses.

 

[Brickhouse]

I didn't mean to shut you down. I just know too many people who showed up at med school planning to continue to do what worked in college in terms of hours and crashed and burned. 🙂

It's ok. 😉

And I was 5 years outta college by the time I got to med school so I honestly don't remember what I did!

 

[jocg27]

What you studied in college and how you did makes a difference. I am glad to have been a psych major, I enjoyed it and learned a lot, I don't regret it and wouldn't change a thing. I can, however, definitely tell sometimes that I don't have the science background some people in my class have. For some classes, ie immuno, histo, that makes a huge difference in how much I have to study. I found out quickly that no matter how much I studied, I probably would not honor biochem, because even though I studied hard and did pretty well, mean scores for that class were quite high (at our school at least, highest of any of our first year classes) - lots of people in med school are biochem majors.

So my point is to figure out how much you need to study and for what subjects, you need to honestly think about your strengths and weaknesses. If you didn't take as much bio as you could, you may need to work more for those than the people around you. If you're all about molecular bio stuff, maybe you'll think anatomy or physio or something else is rougher than people around you. Guilty pleasure: personally I got a kick out of seeing one of the sharpest people in our class totally stressed out last week, completely sweating the -- human behavior final.

 

[Dr. Weebs]

.

 

[Dr. Weebs]

I think this is a very fair statement, generally-speaking.

P.S. Med students that take the time to blog about how miserable they are should probably be studying.

BRAVO!!!!!! 👍 👍 👍 👍

Hehe... mmmmk. I know I'm going to blog sometimes as a study break. Writing a diary is theraputic for a lot of people. Making it a blog is just publicizing it so that other people can, perhaps, learn from your experiences. What a concept. Kudos to those medical students who take the time to blog. They add a significant resource to this website, and probably help their own mental health at the same time

 

[Dr. Weebs]

I think this is a very fair statement, generally-speaking.

P.S. Med students that take the time to blog about how miserable they are should probably be studying.

BRAVO!!!!!! 👍 👍 👍 👍

Hehe... mmmmk. I know I'm going to blog sometimes as a study break. Writing a diary is theraputic for a lot of people. Making it a blog is just publicizing it so that other people can, perhaps, learn from your experiences. What a concept. Kudos to those medical students who take the time to blog. They add a significant resource to this website, and probably help their own mental health at the same time.

 

[vtucci]

That sounds like law school -- I'm hoping I won't fall for the mind tricks this time. Do you only get negative feedback? That happened in law school and was very demoralizing. I picked up an exam my first year and discovered that I had indeed made the highest score in the class, but I still felt like crap because I had "no" and "?" written all over the exam. It didn't help that the professor attached a sheet to the exam stating that our performance was "disappointing." In undergrad, professors did fluffy stuff like tell you the good parts about your work before getting to the problems.

Good luck on Step 1!

So a question to all you students -- how do you determine what to focus on learning? I've heard that it's impossible to learn everything because the sheer volume is too huge. How do you keep yourself sane and learn what you need to know to do okay?

Coming from law totally sucks, take my word for it. You do not get feedback before an exam and there are often no sample questions (unlike law school)!

 

[The Engineer]

It all depends on how your brain is wired and how the medical school administration has the courses set up.

If you are able to memorize massive (I can't adequately stress this word) quantites of random information quickly, you will do fine in the first two years of medical school. You will be patted on the head and hailed as a monument to students everywhere. Third and fourth year may be rough for you later on though.

If you are a good problem solver, you will do just fine in during rotations in your third and fourth year, but the first two years will be difficult.

Hope this helps. Medical school is pretty hard core for most mere mortals.

 

[Brickhouse]

It all depends on how your brain is wired and how the medical school administration has the courses set up.

If you are able to memorize massive (I can't adequately stress this word) quantites of random information quickly, you will do fine in the first two years of medical school. You will be patted on the head and hailed as a monument to students everywhere. Third and fourth year may be rough for you later on though.

If you are a good problem solver, you will do just fine in during rotations in your third and fourth year, but the first two years will be difficult.

Hope this helps. Medical school is pretty hard core for most mere mortals.

Or maybe you can do a little of both, and you'll get through it all ok.

 

[mjl1717]

Im not planning on going to med school, im a dental hopefull, but anyways i have a friend thats in med school right now and he told me its really not that bad... He said if u wanna be at the top of the class, then yes its very difficult. But he said that if u just wanna get through it, its really not that bad... Is this true? Just curious

Well just the # of responses to you q should tell you its not ice cream and cake:

1)be aware that compared to law school its 5 major exams since to be respected and accepted by insurance companies they want board certification. in law school pass one measely bar exam and then you can sue people. in medicine (which is a little off the topic) be ready to get SUED which is no exaggeration nowadays.

2)Class wise a lot of students have had some of the coursework before.
so liberal arts majors beware.

3)there is always a guy who brags I only studied a few hours for major exams.

4)in the real world this field is about total sacrifices, one must still study and make big time social, financial and life sacrifices. also one must have some way to buffer the stress.

5)also doctor have to know how to communicate extrememly well with there pts. a lot of times lying lawyers fail to communicate to their clients.. what im saying is that communicating well {which most take for granted and many can not do} is worth about 50% in this medical arena.

6)i almost forgot the volume is extremely high with ever changing tides. {eg. watch out for that new non nucleotide reverse trancriptase inhibitor over there}

 

[medicomel]

i was a liberal arts major, and i'm not that scared because of my lack of upper-level sciences (save for biochem). it won't be cake and ice cream, for sure, but i think i can muddle through.

 

[mjl1717]

i was a liberal arts major, and i'm not that scared because of my lack of upper-level sciences (save for biochem). it won't be cake and ice cream, for sure, but i think i can muddle through.

Hey buddy, Im not trying to discourage anyone. you can do it! But Im just saying its a FULL, I mean FULL sacrifice compared to what others may tell you. {I dont know what other analogy there is-playing football and getting points?} And its definitely not a slow lusty stroll thru the park smelling flowers with ice cream and cake.// Another thing you become married to the career.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Well just the # of responses to you q should tell you its not ice cream and cake:

1)be aware that compared to law school its 5 major exams since to be respected and accepted by insurance companies they want board certification. in law school pass one measely bar exam and then you can sue people. in medicine (which is a little off the topic) be ready to get SUED which is no exaggeration nowadays.

2)Class wise a lot of students have had some of the coursework before.
so liberal arts majors beware.

3)there is always a guy who brags I only studied a few hours for major exams.

4)in the real world this field is about total sacrifices, one must still study and make big time social, financial and life sacrifices. also one must have some way to buffer the stress.

5)also doctor have to know how to communicate extrememly well with there pts. a lot of times lying lawyers fail to communicate to their clients.. what im saying is that communicating well {which most take for granted and many can not do} is worth about 50% in this medical arena.

6)i almost forgot the volume is extremely high with ever changing tides. {eg. watch out for that new non nucleotide reverse trancriptase inhibitor over there}

Why is the lawyer hating necessary for this thread?

 

[jocg27]

i was a liberal arts major, and i'm not that scared because of my lack of upper-level sciences (save for biochem). it won't be cake and ice cream, for sure, but i think i can muddle through.

I was liberal arts as well, and I've done fine and I'm sure you will as well...But it can be a struggle sometimes, since so many people around you have pretty much only taken upper level science classes.

It's definitely muddle through - able, but what I mean about it being a struggle wasn't so much that the classes were too hard, or I couldn't handle the science courseload. I mean more along the lines of sometimes it seems like a struggle to actually feel like I belong in med school. Here I was almost completely surrounded by science people, meanwhile I'm thinking maybe I should've just gone into education like I was thinking of doing, and it's made worse by people talking about how often they've learned some molecular biology stuff, meanwhile you thinking you maybe covered it in class some time before, but slept through it and forgot it right after the exam.

But, it turns out I have done well, I am happy to be here, and do feel like it's the right place for me. My advice would be to stay active in other things - if your school has clinical volunteering programs, get involved with that, or find your own way to do that kind of thing. It helps a lot to remind you that there are all kinds of doctors, doctors do, in fact, work with people, and no matter what it seems like from the other first year students around you, there is more to medicine than memorizing biochemistry.

 

[pristine21]

I found Undergrad to be difficult only because I would freak out if I didn't get an A in a class...I graduated with a 3.79... (that .01 point made me want to kill my physics lab instructor) I find medical school easier because passing med school is a bit (I stress bit) easier than getting all A's in undergrad so..... if you want to do well in medical school it is muuuuuucccchhh harder than undergrad, but if you want to pass (I get average or slightly below average on exams) than it could be easier than undergrad...

 

[ImaMedStud]

Im not planning on going to med school, im a dental hopefull, but anyways i have a friend thats in med school right now and he told me its really not that bad... He said if u wanna be at the top of the class, then yes its very difficult. But he said that if u just wanna get through it, its really not that bad... Is this true? Just curious

Depends...
I've heard from my residents and friends training back East that it's not a good day unless someone makes you cry. Out west though, it's a different story. MS1 was like being a super senior in college, MS2 was about shelves and the boards at the end, with pseudo-optional class time in between. MS 3 was the big shock, you gear up up to beaten down, go all out for rotation 1 and just pass by the skin of your teeth... thus demoralized you being the second rotation with no permanent damage but little by little you give up/don't give a rat's A$$ anymore and all of the sudden, you begin to do better without really trying. At my school you really have to work or suffer some greek tragedy for that Fail, and it seems a similar herceluean feat is necessary to pass. But to just get by, all you need to do is read, more than a little, less than a lot, and just show up, in spite of all the pimping and flak you'll recieve.