First year of med school so far... holy crap!

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Well I'm at Med school in India because I didn't have the money for school back in the states. It's unfortunate but it has to be done.

Therefore, I'm EXTREMELY worried about my steps because I want to get into top residencies like Derm or something, even if that's not possible, I still want to do stellar on the Steps to keep doors open.

Someone please tell me how I should be studying with the MLE in mind because I don't care about doing well on the Indian Medical Exams, it's not like it's going to matter as much as the MLE.

No offense, but if you wanted to "keep doors open," you should have went to a US med school rather than trying to do the fast track MBBS thing.

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I think it is great so far. I agree 100% with the firehose analogy. I am not striving for AOA or honors at my school so I am pretty satisfied with my performance and stress levels. I still get stressed out before a test, but it is getting better. I have to study every night and most of the weekend now versus a day or two before the test before. I have gained some weight and not kept up with running (I believe this will be corrected next block). Most importantly though, I am enjoying most everything I am learning. I can't say the same for all my classmates but I even find embryo to be relatively interesting. I don't think I could have handled a curriculum that was not like ours though. I feel like my school was made for me and that probably helps a lot.
 
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These dreary winter months are not good for my motivation. :(
 
These dreary winter months are not good for my motivation. :(

Right there with you. Between the snow, clouds, dreariness, and biochem, it is a struggle. I think the novelty of first year has worn off :).
 
The pacing is faster than anything I have ever seen in undergrad. We are taking our infectious diseases exam tomorrow, and I am happy to know the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites. The antibiotic coverage is killing me, and I always get frustrated in knowing that the coverage WILL DECREASE. mycobacterial, HIV, Fungal, and viral drugs are a lot easier to remember.

I wish there was more conceptualizations and less memorizing, though.

You have to know antibiotic coverage in M1? Thats rough
 
Yeah, it seems like a lot of schools using the same curriculum we do choose to have immunology in the first year instead of neuro. That move doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me since head and neck transitions flawlessly to neuro, but whatever works. Anything is better than anatomy.
 
We too have Immuno/Infectious disease during M1 and our Neuro is M2. Though I don't know how big of a deal it is in terms of transitions as we are on a block schedule.
 
we have both immuno and neuro is in M1
 
Choose the right school and first year will be the best of your life (if you choose to play it that way).

I'm shocked at how different this all is than what I expected. In all honesty, it's become a joke to me. I'm not the most gifted student here either. Matter of fact, I probably came in with the worst numbers.

My one piece of advice for incoming first years is to not make any judgments on what you think your life will be like until you experience it.
 
Unless, of course, you hate anatomy with a burning passion. In that case, life is going to be miserable regardless of where you go.
Interesting. Because I LOVE anatomy. My favorite class. Also loved biochem. Maybe I'm just a weirdo.
 
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Yeah, it seems like a lot of schools using the same curriculum we do choose to have immunology in the first year instead of neuro. That move doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me since head and neck transitions flawlessly to neuro, but whatever works. Anything is better than anatomy.
At my school we actually do head & neck with neuro in an integrated course. It works pretty well I must say.
 
We're on a systems based curriculum. We have anatomy all of first year and we do neuroanatomy the first block of second year when we take neuroscience.

It's all very integrated which I like. We did have to learn antibiotics first semester of first year, which killed me.
 
Not having vacations all semester = LONG tired semester.

How many people actually get some sort of spring break?
 
damn no spring break MS1/MS2, that is rough!

we get a week off too.. i'm not going anywhere cause i'm broke but waves are always free and lift tickets aren't too bad.. ;)
 
I've heard that the first two years of medical school, for all intents and purposes, is one giant masturbatory session.
 
Not having vacations all semester = LONG tired semester.

How many people actually get some sort of spring break?
I had 1wk vacation in first two sems and 2month vacation after the university exam at the end of second sem.
 
Biochem isn't too bad, we do it as a part of physiology. It is done in second year here, but we don't do a degree before we get into medicine. So this is my second year out of high school. At least you learn a few methods to study if you have done another degree before this.

Anatomy is quite a pain. And to make things worse, we have to get a subminimum of 40% on each section of anatomy (so gross, embryology and histo). The only thing that I am looking forward to is the 4 months of holiday at the end of this year. If we get an average of 60% or above we don't write exams.
 
can't believe we're almost done with 1st year
 
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