Do you ever have to write essays in med school?

[HoboCommander]

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I've had to write papers as an undergrad. Do you ever have to write papers in med school too? Because I hate writing papers.

 

[LucidSplash]

I've had to write papers as an undergrad. Do you ever have to write papers in med school too? Because I hate writing papers.

We haven't had to write anything I would consider a "paper." But we've had to do some 500 word "reflections." Lame, but not like writing a 10 or 20 page paper.

 

[OncoCaP]

I've had to write papers as an undergrad. Do you ever have to write papers in med school too? Because I hate writing papers.

Not really. You write some brief essays and that's about it for the required stuff. There are plenty of opportunities (research, etc.) for those who want to do more than the minimum (optional).

 

[Raryn]

Depends on the med school. Some of the more extreme examples (Yale, Duke) require you to have a full on research thesis or they wont let you graduate. Talk about a paper requirement 😛

 

[Mobius1985]

I've had to write papers as an undergrad. Do you ever have to write papers in med school too? Because I hate writing papers.

I wouldn't count four-page write-ups of a patient history and physical as a "paper", but you will definitely be doing a lot of writing. You won't have a spell checker to help you out with them either.

 

[Depakote]

We had a few group papers for our Clinical Practice/Ethics/Etc class (banged them out in about an hour)... there was one final project in that class that could have been a video/paper/other project. There was a lot of flexibility with that one but the paper would have been the fastest/easiest option.

Haven't had any huge required research papers.

 

[LikeClockWork]

Man, I had no idea there wouldn't be many papers. I figured they'd comprise as much of the curriculum as in undergrad. This is great, since I hate papers too.

 

[EkLiLiaN]

lol... I think it depends on the school you attend. But definitely don't expect to write 10-30 page papers every semester/sequence.

 

[bcat85]

lol... I think it depends on the school you attend. But definitely don't expect to write 10-30 page papers every semester/sequence.

Thank God.. Writing huge papers that serve little purpose is such a waste of time.

 

[ViolaGreene]

short essays at worst. they arent that bad and everyone bses anyway

 

[neuro1617]

This is all good to hear. I hate writing papers haha😛

 

[Captain Fantastic]

I wouldn't count four-page write-ups of a patient history and physical as a "paper", but you will definitely be doing a lot of writing. You won't have a spell checker to help you out with them either.

Well, you could use a spell checker...

http://www.stedmans.com/product.cfm/376/228

 

[diosa428]

We had to write 2 page "essays" in pharm, for every test. And they had to have citations. It was annoying. And we have those stupid touchy feely essays for our practice course.

 

[Law2Doc]

I wouldn't count four-page write-ups of a patient history and physical as a "paper",

I would. They can be quite elaborate. I've definitely had to write up lengthy H&Ps to turn in for various clerkships with a several paged assessment and plan, discussing various differential diagnoses, and why each did or didn't apply, with footnotes. A good medicine note can be very long and full of discussion, and require a decent amount of thought and reading up on topics. They won't call it an essay or a paper, but you'd better believe that's what it is and what they expect. And you may find yourself writing notes every day in some rotations. More writing than any college class. Lots of it is boring data, but some of it is essay-like discussion of a medical topic as it relates to the patient, and so if you don't like writing you are going to have a very unhappy 3rd year and residency.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

We're PBL here and so we write 2 "objectives" a week. (Each person in the lab takes a "learning objective" from the PBL case -- physiology of an organ system, for example -- to research and present to the rest of the lab during the next PBL session.) The objectives are usually 2-4 pages and cite at least two sources.

So that's... ~3 pages per objective, 2 objectives per week, 8 weeks per block, 4 blocks per year, 2 preclinical years... ~384 pages per student in the first two years.

So while not strictly "essays," there is plenty of writing required at my medical school in the preclinical years.