First Year is Intense!

Started by DivorceLawyer2011
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DivorceLawyer2011

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Hi all,

I am a 40-year-old (emphasis on old!) lawyer who has just begun the first year of medical school in NYC. Maybe it’s due to the fact I haven’t been in school for many years, but wow - I can’t believe how intense med school is! (I’m loving it, but wow - I don’t ever recall working this hard in law school).

They have us taking “Molecular Mechanisms of Disease,” “Foundations of Clinical Medicine,” and “Clinical Gross Anatomy” to start. I figured that sounded pretty straightforward and didn’t sound like it would be so involved, but was I ever wrong!

Haha. I guess we all live and learn. I just wanted to grouse with you all about how intense our first year (and likely all med school) is.

How are my fellow M1s holding up?
 
I will say that I got way less stressed when I gave up trying to remember everything. There’s too much information.

Figure out a way to study where you make As and Bs and still have a little free time and time to sleep and take care of yourself. If you try to remember everything you might end up remembering not as much. If that makes sense.

It’ll be over before you know it, trust me. And you’ll wish you remembered more from this time when you’re an M3
 
Agreed, friend. I'm 31 and was an engineer up to lead level for most of a decade and feel dumb as hell right now going into my block 2 exam on Monday. 🫠
 
PathNeuroIMorFM said:
Just remember that when things are hard, bigger idiots than you (myself included) got through med school with good study methods. UFAPS + Amboss Question Bank is the way. Join us on r/Medicalschool too if you haven't already!
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Thanks for the tips! The raw amount of material we have to learn is staggering. To be candid, I didn’t know where to start for non-university study aides. Would you mind elaborating on what UFALS and Amboss is?

Back when I was in lack school we had a resource called Emanuel’s, which gave a nice outline of the law and relevant analysis. Is there anything similar for us new to med school? I’ve been getting random ads on my Facebook feed and such trying to sell such things, but I would love some recommendations.

Thanks all!
 
Amen!
Dral said:
First week of 1st year our Dean got up in front of the class and said something to the effect of: If undergrad was like drinking from a water fountain, medical school is like drinking from a fire hydrant.
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I’m 100 percent the dumbest person in my class. I was asked a question about some thorax anatomy the other day and I answered that a posterior to anterior image was displaying costal cartilage. Not knowing that it was from a posterior to anterior perspective. My prof was kind when I was clearly wrong at this super basic question. I wanted to die!

Hoo boy, trying to keep up with the pre med bio majors is going to take some time. 🙂
 
It
operaman said:
Yeah I don’t think I ever once felt prepared for an exam in medical school. I just studied constantly and eventually an exam happened. Then I started studying something else.

Lather, rinse, repeat, until board certified.

Only 7-10 more years to go!
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Its tough! So much to remember and hard to find what is high value for the exams.
 
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DivorceLawyer2011 said:
Thanks for the tips! The raw amount of material we have to learn is staggering. To be candid, I didn’t know where to start for non-university study aides. Would you mind elaborating on what UFALS and Amboss is?

Back when I was in lack school we had a resource called Emanuel’s, which gave a nice outline of the law and relevant analysis. Is there anything similar for us new to med school? I’ve been getting random ads on my Facebook feed and such trying to sell such things, but I would love some recommendations.

Thanks all!
Click to expand...
UFAPS. It stands for UWorld, First Aid, Anki, Pathoma, and Sketchy. Those are the main reputable resources.

You can download FA as a PDF, it's just a giant book with outlines of everything important. I use it as my primary resource to get the gist of stuff.

Download Anki and watch a few videos from their channel about how to use it (not intuitive or user friendly at all esp if you're not tech savvy). It's based a flash cards app with built in spaced repetition and there are premade decks for Step 1 and 2. Your school probably also has a Google drive with a bunch of preclinical decks in it. The basic idea is suspend (make inactive) everything, then unsuspend the stuff you're studying right now. The main step deck has like 35k cards or something so you have to go about it in an organized way, but this helps solidify just basic facts about stuff. Your school probably has an Anki master who can help you get set up if the YouTube vids are too confusing.

UWorld is a big question bank. Most schools give you a subscription sometime in second year, if yours doesn't just buy it. I used their MCAT QB and it was instrumental in my decent score lol.

Pathoma and Sketchy I haven't used yet but they're just additional resources some people like, I think Pathoma is more about bugs and drugs and sketchy is trying to encode with weird pictures. Like it'll generate a where's Waldo type scene with a bunch of references to med school stuff hidden in it and solving the puzzle helps encode? I haven't used it tbh but this is how it's been described to me.
 
Nontrad_FL_LGBT said:
UFAPS. It stands for UWorld, First Aid, Anki, Pathoma, and Sketchy. Those are the main reputable resources.

You can download FA as a PDF, it's just a giant book with outlines of everything important. I use it as my primary resource to get the gist of stuff.

Download Anki and watch a few videos from their channel about how to use it (not intuitive or user friendly at all esp if you're not tech savvy). It's based a flash cards app with built in spaced repetition and there are premade decks for Step 1 and 2. Your school probably also has a Google drive with a bunch of preclinical decks in it. The basic idea is suspend (make inactive) everything, then unsuspend the stuff you're studying right now. The main step deck has like 35k cards or something so you have to go about it in an organized way, but this helps solidify just basic facts about stuff. Your school probably has an Anki master who can help you get set up if the YouTube vids are too confusing.

UWorld is a big question bank. Most schools give you a subscription sometime in second year, if yours doesn't just buy it. I used their MCAT QB and it was instrumental in my decent score lol.

Pathoma and Sketchy I haven't used yet but they're just additional resources some people like, I think Pathoma is more about bugs and drugs and sketchy is trying to encode with weird pictures. Like it'll generate a where's Waldo type scene with a bunch of references to med school stuff hidden in it and solving the puzzle helps encode? I haven't used it tbh but this is how it's been described to me.
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Thanks! I will definitiely check these out tonight.
 
DivorceLawyer2011 said:
They have us taking “Molecular Mechanisms of Disease,” “Foundations of Clinical Medicine,” and “Clinical Gross Anatomy” to start. I figured that sounded pretty straightforward and didn’t sound like it would be so involved, but was I ever wrong!
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I'm 99.99% certain you're a fellow Columbia student. This is a throwaway account for me. Fellow non-trad Columbia, upperclassmen, feel free to PM me, and I'm happy to meet up on campus and support getting on the UFAPS/Amboss train, as I agree with others who say its the way.
 
Non-trad M2 here sending good vibes to all of you! One thing that I don't see mentioned a lot is how crucial the wise expenditure of your mental energy is to your success. Medical school requires a TON of mental energy, so using your mental energy efficiently can help a lot. Here is what I have learned:

1. Obsessing over how hard it is = bad use of mental energy. Of course it's hard, and I have plenty of days where I feel dumb as hell. But I find it easier to to have a mindset of "it is my JOB to figure this out." As anyone who has had a job knows, when you have a job you show up and do your job well. It doesn't matter how you feel about it, or if it's difficult. You do your job. If you were a divorce lawyer I am certain you know how to put your emotions aside and do your job. In medical school, your job is to learn a ton of stuff and figure out concepts. So think less about how hard it is and focus on knowing your stuff.

2. Definitely look into third party resources as others have said! Sketchy for micro/pharm, Pathoma/Boards and Beyond for pathology, and UWorld/Amboss for practice questions. And Anking every day. The power of Anking is that it you can do cards based on Sketchy, Pathoma, Boards, UWorld, etc. This means you do not waste mental energy trying to think about whether you need to review something. Anking tells you what you need to review, so you spend your mental energy learning your stuff, not going trying to remember to review stuff.

3. If you are using third party resources, sitting there thinking "was this concept in the lecture?" = bad use of mental energy, especially if your school has NBME exams (if your exams are in house, you'll need to rely on lectures more). If you know a disease or bug wasn't covered in lectures then sure, don't do those cards. But if you watch a Pathoma video on something that mentions a detail about a disease that wasn't covered in lecture, just do the damn Anking cards. Learning a few extra facts (within reason) is a FAR better use of your mental energy than sitting there thinking "do I need to know this?" Chances are, even if you don't need to know it now you might need to in a week. And if not then, then you'll need to know it for Step. Now, I don't lose sleep over stuff not emphasized in lectures, but putting in a little extra effort to familiarize yourself with a concept on the front end will pay off hugely on the back end.

Edited to add: try to develop a self-awareness of when you are and aren't in a good mental space to study, and use that to your advantage. If your brain is fried and you're hangry, DO NOT spend 2 more hours trying to study. You will have wasted 2 hours where you studied badly and didn't rest. Instead, stop what you are doing and do what you need to do to rest/recuperate. And try to align your most high-yield studying to the part of the day when you are feeling the most rested/fed/alert. For me, that means doing new Sketchy/Pathoma/Boards videos and their associated Anking cards in the morning after breakfast. Same deal with UWorld. It would be a terrible waste of UWorld if I did it at 4:30pm when I'm tired and hungry.

And finally, if you got into medical school that means you deserve to be there 🙂 Part of being resilient is learning how to keep going even when you feel super dumb. So stick with it, try different third party resources, and don't be afraid to ask for help. You will continuously adapt as time goes on!
 
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DivorceLawyer2011 said:
Hi all,

I am a 40-year-old (emphasis on old!) lawyer who has just begun the first year of medical school in NYC. Maybe it’s due to the fact I haven’t been in school for many years, but wow - I can’t believe how intense med school is! (I’m loving it, but wow - I don’t ever recall working this hard in law school).

They have us taking “Molecular Mechanisms of Disease,” “Foundations of Clinical Medicine,” and “Clinical Gross Anatomy” to start. I figured that sounded pretty straightforward and didn’t sound like it would be so involved, but was I ever wrong!

Haha. I guess we all live and learn. I just wanted to grouse with you all about how intense our first year (and likely all med school) is.

How are my fellow M1s holding up?
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A nurse practitioner will take your job when you are done with online classes and 500 hrs shadowing.
 
Splenda88 said:
Well, as a practicing physician, I can tell you the bean counter don't care.
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Did you get fired and replaced by a nurse practitioner? I'm sorry if that happened to you. If you don't mind me asking, what specialty are you?

I know that urgent care is basically just "go see an NP" now. And Emergency Medicine is in a dire spot.

But other than those areas..... I have yet to meet a single practicing physician IRL who is at all concerned of midlevels "Taking our jerbs." I signed up for physician recruitment on LinkedIn (at the suggestion of one of my preceptors) and I get job offerings from all over the world daily. I just fail to see how the sky is falling, but hey, maybe I'm just in a really great area to practice medicine.

Or are you predicting what will happen years from now? I could see hospitalists even having issues at some point. Although I doubt it will become that widespread once patients start dying. We have midlevels on the hospital service where I'm at and their notes are almost completely useless
 
I am in my low 30s as an M1 and I feel constantly behind no matter how hard I work to catch up haha. Can't wait to get out of the first few blocks and get into organ systems, haven't been able to find much 3rd party questions for the basic biochem stuff so i'm just grinding hundreds of anki cards a day.
 
chssoccer7 said:
I am in my low 30s as an M1 and I feel constantly behind no matter how hard I work to catch up haha. Can't wait to get out of the first few blocks and get into organ systems, haven't been able to find much 3rd party questions for the basic biochem stuff so i'm just grinding hundreds of anki cards a day.
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We start organ systems tomorrow. 👌
 
Hollow Knight said:
Did you get fired and replaced by a nurse practitioner? I'm sorry if that happened to you. If you don't mind me asking, what specialty are you?

I know that urgent care is basically just "go see an NP" now. And Emergency Medicine is in a dire spot.

But other than those areas..... I have yet to meet a single practicing physician IRL who is at all concerned of midlevels "Taking our jerbs." I signed up for physician recruitment on LinkedIn (at the suggestion of one of my preceptors) and I get job offerings from all over the world daily. I just fail to see how the sky is falling, but hey, maybe I'm just in a really great area to practice medicine.

Or are you predicting what will happen years from now? I could see hospitalists even having issues at some point. Although I doubt it will become that widespread once patients start dying. We have midlevels on the hospital service where I'm at and their notes are almost completely useless
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No. I did not get fired and replaced by a NP. My point is that medicine is heading that way where we will have NP/PA takeover. I am an IM hospitalist.
 
Splenda88 said:
It will probably happen in 7-10 yrs. For instance, my hospitalist group has 4 NP out of ~20 FT clinician and I anticipate it will be half and half in 7-10 yrs.
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People have been saying this since I started med school 20 years ago.

My outpatient medical group has been cutting back midlevels. Not sure about the hospitalist group, but the vast majority of the notes I see outside of chest pain rule outs are from physicians.
 
hydrocephalusexvacuole said:
I'm 99.99% certain you're a fellow Columbia student. This is a throwaway account for me. Fellow non-trad Columbia, upperclassmen, feel free to PM me, and I'm happy to meet up on campus and support getting on the UFAPS/Amboss train, as I agree with others who say its the way.
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Haha, am I that obvious? 🙂. You’re correct. I’m loving Columbia Vagelos! I graduated from Harvard prior to coming to Columbia and the vibe is a lot different with the (much) large NYC.

I very much appreciate your offer to meet up re UFAPS/Amboss etc! I’ll DM you my UNI. I really appreciate your help!
 
Splenda88 said:
It will probably happen in 7-10 yrs. For instance, my hospitalist group has 4 NP out of ~20 FT clinician and I anticipate it will be half and half in 7-10 yrs.
Click to expand...
Our hospitalist group found that the NPs cost them more--they still had to staff an extra doc to pick up all the issues the few NPs the hired overlooked (or outright created).

More hassle, more cost. So they stopped hiring/training any more NPs.

The surgical services use NPs for rounding. Otherwise all the groups here are avoiding NPs.

And we're in a ruralish area with a shortage of all specialists/PCPs.

Patients actually do understand the difference. I can't tell you how often patients tell me that they haven't seen a doctor and they only see the NP/PA in clinic, and are unhappy about it.

PA/NP's taking over? Not a chance. Taking some opportunities/possibly helping in some way? Of course. But never taking over.

I don't lose any sleep over AI or midlevels.
 
I'm feeling really overwhelmed because as I suspected in college, but now have confirmed in medical school, it is intuitively taking me longer to grasp topics compared to my peers. This means I have to go through something 3-4 times before it clicks whereas for everyone else 1-2 runs seems like enough. So its 12:30AM and here I am going over what I already should have learned about anatomy. Not giving up, not totally surprised either but I somewhat perplexed based on my pre-med prior conversations with med students where they stated that they only studied till 6PM daily. Nope. Absolutely wish I could study till at most 8PM, but I highly doubt I could pass school with that schedule.
 
Choсolate said:
I'm feeling really overwhelmed because as I suspected in college, but now have confirmed in medical school, it is intuitively taking me longer to grasp topics compared to my peers. This means I have to go through something 3-4 times before it clicks whereas for everyone else 1-2 runs seems like enough. So its 12:30AM and here I am going over what I already should have learned about anatomy. Not giving up, not totally surprised either but I somewhat perplexed based on my pre-med prior conversations with med students where they stated that they only studied till 6PM daily. Nope. Absolutely wish I could study till at most 8PM, but I highly doubt I could pass school with that schedule.
Click to expand...
Some people are smarter than you. That’s OK. I had a ROUGH time in the first two years. You’ll make it.

It ticks me off when my classmates act like I’m nuts/a loser/etc for having to study hard in med school but it it is what it is.

Also of course make sure you try different study methods and talk to your academic support person if your school has one. But at the end of the day I just had to grind a lot harder than most people to make As and Bs. There was only so many ways I could become more efficient, at the end of the day I just had to put in the hours.
 
RangerBob said:
Our hospitalist group found that the NPs cost them more--they still had to staff an extra doc to pick up all the issues the few NPs the hired overlooked (or outright created).

More hassle, more cost. So they stopped hiring/training any more NPs.

The surgical services use NPs for rounding. Otherwise all the groups here are avoiding NPs.

And we're in a ruralish area with a shortage of all specialists/PCPs.

Patients actually do understand the difference. I can't tell you how often patients tell me that they haven't seen a doctor and they only see the NP/PA in clinic, and are unhappy about it.

PA/NP's taking over? Not a chance. Taking some opportunities/possibly helping in some way? Of course. But never taking over.

I don't lose any sleep over AI or midlevels.
Click to expand...
I agree that the sky is not falling. I am just hoping things last another 7-8 yrs.
 
Hollow Knight said:
Some people are smarter than you. That’s OK. I had a ROUGH time in the first two years. You’ll make it.

It ticks me off when my classmates act like I’m nuts/a loser/etc for having to study hard in med school but it it is what it is.

Also of course make sure you try different study methods and talk to your academic support person if your school has one. But at the end of the day I just had to grind a lot harder than most people to make As and Bs. There was only so many ways I could become more efficient, at the end of the day I just had to put in the hours.
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I think that's one of the parts of med school that isn't talked about as much. Everyone who gets in is used to being on the smarter end of the spectrum in undergrad then you get to med school and realize everybody is at least that If not a good bit smarter.
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
I think that's one of the parts of med school that isn't talked about as much. Everyone who gets in is used to being on the smarter end of the spectrum in undergrad then you get to med school and realize everybody is at least that If not a good bit smarter.
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Fully embracing being the dumb friend who lightens the mood enough for smart people to study without imploding. 👌
 
Hollow Knight said:
I will say that I got way less stressed when I gave up trying to remember everything. There’s too much information.

Figure out a way to study where you make As and Bs and still have a little free time and time to sleep and take care of yourself. If you try to remember everything you might end up remembering not as much. If that makes sense.

It’ll be over before you know it, trust me. And you’ll wish you remembered more from this time when you’re an M3
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How do you do this? I really don’t know what information to focus on 😭
 
The REAL Doc McStuffins said:
How do you do this? I really don’t know what information to focus on 😭
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There came a point where I just focused on 3rd party stuff and AnKing. That still got me Bs mostly.

I also had mandatory class and I’d pay attention in class. But I stopped going to class, doing 800 flashcards, and reading tons of PowerPoint slides and memorizing those too. I just did pathoma/sketchy/BnB and AnKing and went to class and things turned out OK.

Ironically most of the people who just paid attention to my school’s curriculum had trouble passing step 1
 
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