Does your brain rewire for med school?

[Amit1]

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I was having a hell of a time memorizing boat loads of information for med school, and especially retaining it for more than a couple days. I was on the virge of going crazy, I would have panic attacks when I looked at material I spent 60 hours on and not remembering a word of it.

However in the past week the information seems to be stored much more easily. I am doing better on tests with much less effort. Is this something that others have gone through? Whatever it is that happened, I hope it sticks - otherwise I was getting ready to bail.

 

[Discobolus]

Yeah, I think the memorizing gets easier.

Your brain also tends to get rid of extraneous memories, which is why in a lot of ways I feel dumber after 2 years of medical school than before. My vocabulary has gotten worse (except for the huge increase in medical terminology) and I feel pretty ignorant of the humanities these days.

 

[automaton]

yes, you become more stupid and childish.

 

[bnichols0330]

I agree that you somewhat "rewire" your brain to learn vast amounts of info that you would have never been able to learn before. I also think it forces you to have somewhat of a photographic memory so that you can see charts & diagrams in your head to retain the info.

More importantly my philosophy is that we have a limited capacity of knowledge & the more we cram it with medical info the more of the extra stuff we lose. I have never locked my keys in my car in my life until I started med school & 2 years in I have done it 3 times. I forget where I put things all the time the week before a test b/c that is not as important to me as the life cycle of Plasmodium vivax. It is ridiculous how much "common sense" you lose when you are prioritizing the info that you remember. Good Luck.

 

[Amit1]

That is very true, I always leave my fly open now. Seriously. I have to check it every few hours and half the times its open. This never happened before med school.

 

[ishaninatte]

Bunk.

 

[MEG@COOL]

Yeah, I think the memorizing gets easier.

Your brain also tends to get rid of extraneous memories, which is why in a lot of ways I feel dumber after 2 years of medical school than before. My vocabulary has gotten worse (except for the huge increase in medical terminology) and I feel pretty ignorant of the humanities these days.

Have you actually forgetten meanings of words or do you just not use them in your active vocabulary?

 

[Paws]

More importantly my philosophy is that we have a limited capacity of knowledge & the more we cram it with medical info the more of the extra stuff we lose. I have never locked my keys in my car in my life until I started med school & 2 years in I have done it 3 times. I forget where I put things all the time the week before a test b/c that is not as important to me as the life cycle of Plasmodium vivax. It is ridiculous how much "common sense" you lose when you are prioritizing the info that you remember. Good Luck.

Holy cow this is totally me - in the first week of school I lost my sunglasses, my sun hat, and my EYEGLASSES. All found within a day or so. But the eyeglasses have been lost about FIVE times this semester and the most recent was 2 1/2 weeks ago. I looked everywhere about eight times, no glasses. Fortunately I have two pairs for just such an emergency. Today, I am cleaning out my book bag and there they are in the bottom. I looked in this bag maybe 15 times and they weren't there before. So either the "I am Lost" fairies decided it was time to bring them back, or I am really going blind or something. Freaky.

Now I just expect that I will be losing things and I try and look out for it.

😛

 

[leorl]

Same happens to me!! I find myself really distracted in the midst of the cramming.

One thing I found different was the way you have to study. I was one of those people who got by in hs and undergrad without studying very much. Not to say I was a slacker, but I wouldn't really study throughout a course and just sorta cram for the exams and manage to do fine. Doesn't work in medicine! I find myself having to go over the same material 100s of times before it sticks. For me, I have to understand the material before I can remember it...but in medicine, understanding the material isn't the problem..it just doesn't stick! And there's so much of it to remember. So I find myself in my mid-twenties having to change the way I've studied for the past 10 years.

 

[Geronimo]

The more education you get, the more common sense it seems that you lose. However, the longer you are out of school, the more it comes back to you.

 

[franklinthedog]

In my first semester I first lost my keys. Then I lost my entire wallet. My keys showed up eventually (in my bookbag which I checked about 20x); my wallet never did.

It's because there is so much on your mind that the little things get lost, literally. I do think it's easier to memorize, your brain seems to develop some sort of circuit for it. But, it's not fun studying all the time, I can't wait to be done with the first two years (although having the freedom to skip class is quite nice).

 

[missmod]

Also, I think sleep deprivation has really made me start doing dumb things like lock myself out of my apartment twice this week. 😡

 

[wylie313]

i know exactly what you guys are saying, i cant form regular sentences, and i feel as though my quick wit has all but vanished. but ask me to rattle off the symptoms and diagnosis to digeorge syndrome and i become a man possessed 🙄

 

[Discobolus]

No, I know the meaning of the word I'm looking for I just can't recall what it is, so I have to use a less sophisticated synonym.

Have you actually forgetten meanings of words or do you just not use them in your active vocabulary?

 

[Medpilot]

No, I know the meaning of the word I'm looking for I just can't recall what it is, so I have to use a less sophisticated synonym.

Hey, you remembered 'synonym' at least. It took me a few seconds...

 

[highclass]

OK guys, I forgot my damn locker combination.....went for Thanksgiving break, came back, TOTALLY forgot my combination. And, of course, why would I write it down somewhere...that would be too easy.... 😡

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one losing my mind. 🙂

 

[Zuwie]

Yeah, I think the memorizing gets easier.

Your brain also tends to get rid of extraneous memories, which is why in a lot of ways I feel dumber after 2 years of medical school than before. My vocabulary has gotten worse (except for the huge increase in medical terminology) and I feel pretty ignorant of the humanities these days.

When you're in love: "Baby, my love for you is constitutively activated! Nothing can downregulate this feeling. Why don't I react my substrate with your active site?"

 

[ginger_flower]

Same happens to me!! I find myself really distracted in the midst of the cramming.

One thing I found different was the way you have to study. I was one of those people who got by in hs and undergrad without studying very much. Not to say I was a slacker, but I wouldn't really study throughout a course and just sorta cram for the exams and manage to do fine. Doesn't work in medicine! I find myself having to go over the same material 100s of times before it sticks. For me, I have to understand the material before I can remember it...but in medicine, understanding the material isn't the problem..it just doesn't stick! And there's so much of it to remember. So I find myself in my mid-twenties having to change the way I've studied for the past 10 years.

Totally agree with you on this!! Unfortunately for me, I still 😳 haven't been able to successfully break this very bad habit of mine. I would probably still classify myself as a slacker. But, what I've learned that to pass the third year shelfs (knock on wood) you really only need to show up everyday and try your hardest to do stuff and learn whilst you're on wards, and anyways, they have weekly lectures for us, and if you don't space during them it can be enough. Of course, you should read, but seriously who has the time when they're so dang tired from the wards?! You may not get honors, but hey... P = MD.

 

[Nezmar]

i know exactly what you guys are saying, i cant form regular sentences, and i feel as though my quick wit has all but vanished. but ask me to rattle off the symptoms and diagnosis to digeorge syndrome and i become a man possessed 🙄

This is me too. I joke about how my brain has gone to mud because of all my studying but I'm not as quick with the replies as I used to be. I also bumble out my sentences instead of saying them smoothly (like anyone having spoken a language for >20 years would be able to do). Take some time off from school and I get my tongue back but lose my memorizing skills. This thread is actually quite comforting.

Just rereading what I wrote seems to prove my point. I feel like I need to practice the sentence in my head before saying it.

 

[gioia]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one losing my mind. 🙂

I lost my mind and my Chanel lip gloss 😡

 

[tr]

I totally agree with the posters about the zero-sum mind.

I was always one of those people who remembered lots of random trivia, had a super vocabulary, did Quiz Bowl in college, etc.

After the first two years of med school, I found that both my working vocabulary and my fund of non-medical knowledge had shrunk to pathetically miniscule proportions. As another poster said, it wasn't that I had forgotten the meanings of words, but that I simply couldn't recall the words themselves. I started having that 'tip-of-the-tongue' feeling multiple times a day, when before that it had been a rare occurrence.

But the most striking thing for me was that I started forgetting the names of people I knew very well and saw every day. Like, people in my medical school class. I even forgot the name of a girl who was in my anatomy group. I knew the people, could tell you lots of relevant facts about them and their life stories, but their names would escape me for hours at a time.

And now that I've been in the research phase of an MD-PhD program for over two years, I've forgotten all the crap I learned in med school as well. So the result is that I don't know any historical/geographical/political information, I don't know any big words, I don't remember anybody's name, and I've forgotten all the medical trivia that I temporarily replaced all the other stuff with. Lord help me when I get back on the wards.

 

[zeloc]

I totally agree with the posters about the zero-sum mind.

I was always one of those people who remembered lots of random trivia, had a super vocabulary, did Quiz Bowl in college, etc.

After the first two years of med school, I found that both my working vocabulary and my fund of non-medical knowledge had shrunk to pathetically miniscule proportions. As another poster said, it wasn't that I had forgotten the meanings of words, but that I simply couldn't recall the words themselves. I started having that 'tip-of-the-tongue' feeling multiple times a day, when before that it had been a rare occurrence.

But the most striking thing for me was that I started forgetting the names of people I knew very well and saw every day. Like, people in my medical school class. I even forgot the name of a girl who was in my anatomy group. I knew the people, could tell you lots of relevant facts about them and their life stories, but their names would escape me for hours at a time.

And now that I've been in the research phase of an MD-PhD program for over two years, I've forgotten all the crap I learned in med school as well. So the result is that I don't know any historical/geographical/political information, I don't know any big words, I don't remember anybody's name, and I've forgotten all the medical trivia that I temporarily replaced all the other stuff with. Lord help me when I get back on the wards.

I think you'd be surprised how fast this information came back if you pulled out your sources and studied them. You always learn stuff very easily when you've learned it once before. Besides, according to studies in psychology we have virtually limitless memories. I think the problem is a lot of us med school students stop doing things we used to do before entering med school, and so we lose a lot of stuff to disuse.

 

[Flobber]

after starting school, i came home one day and realized that, for some crazy reason, my key didn't unlock my apartment door. i needed to get in and no one was there to let me in, so i actually broke the door down police-style. immediately upon smashing the door in, i had an epiphany. i had been turning the key the wrong way.

i swear this is a true story.

 

[MD Rapper]

x

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I was always one of those people who remembered lots of random trivia, had a super vocabulary, did Quiz Bowl in college, etc.

Ah, but my problem is that I still am one of those people. I would love to dump all that crap out to make room for what I will be tested on, but it's just so stubborn! It won't leave. My brain is full!

 

[fang]

This happened to me last year after the 1st anatomy test--


cashier at Baja Fresh: "Can I help you?"

me: "yeah, I'd like a, a, you know, one of those things that have beans, you know, are rolled up in a flour thing with beans and vegetables"

cashier: --silence-- "...you mean... a burrito?"

me: "yup, that's it, a burrito, thanks."

 

[quideam]

Haha.... yeah, i'm definetely losing my mind too 🙂. One thing that helps is setting a little time aside for outside 'academic work'.... I subscribe to several magazines (politics, literature), and I try to read for a half hour or so a couple times a week. I'm also taking Hebrew classes - actually, quite a few people in school take outside classes (i know people taking photography, arabic, and french). I think that sort of thing really helps your mind not lose touch with, well, reality - plus it's a nice break from the eight billion branches of the brachial plexus 🙂

Quid

 

[MikeS 78]

your brain totally rewires to a new level...by the end of 2nd year, i could have read and memorized the "high yield" parts of war and peace in a weekend.....now i wouldnt have enjoyed anything about it but by god i would remember it for step 1.......

 

[tr]

Besides, according to studies in psychology we have virtually limitless memories.

What studies? What kind of study could you possibly design to test the hypothesis of a 'virtually' limitless memory capacity?

Anyway, it's theoretically impossible for our memory capacity to be truly limitless, since we have a specified number of neurons (10^9) and synapses (10^12). (And only a small fraction of those are devoted to memory storage.)

I think the problem is a lot of us med school students stop doing things we used to do before entering med school, and so we lose a lot of stuff to disuse.

There's some truth to that, but on the other hand I think attrition due to disuse is slower than replacement. Many of the trivia facts I recalled in Quiz Bowl were things I had learned before college (I was focused on the sciences in college and didn't take any history, art, political science, etc.). But a mere year or two later in med school, I experienced a huge decline in my recall of these types of facts.

As an analogy, suppose you delete a file on your computer and need to recover it. If you haven't saved many new files since the deletion, you'll likely be able to find the information; but if you've saved a lot of files in the meantime, the data you want are more likely to have been overwritten.