- Joined
- Aug 10, 2009
- Messages
- 1,812
- Reaction score
- 14
I love being a medical student and I will complete this path and become a doctor. However, I have had several difficulties in the first semester of medical school that were foreshadowed in pre-med school life.
I decided to go into medicine as a result of my interest in missionary work. I had no biology background (I even managed to skip biology in high school - I considered it "soft" science). So I enrolled at my local community college in the honors program. My previous academic experiences were very good, but very old. I had not taken a class in 20 years and had not completed my degree in computer science, since it wasn't necessary for my career.
In the next two years I took between 6 and 12 hours each semester. I CLEP'd many of the non-science courses and in science took, Biology I, physics I & II, Chem I & II, Cell Bio, Zoology, Genetics, before taking the MCAT. I continued working full-time, but used vacation time to take 1 day off each week.
My MCAT score was good - except, with little biology experience and no OChem the BS score was only a 9.
Up to this point, I was making all A's. I was competing mostly with CC students and faking my way through biology tests by reading the teacher's mind and getting extra credit points. I never read the books. I was working full-time and thought that my multi-tasking skills were serving me well.
Realizing my weakness in biology, I completed my degree while applying by taking Evolution, Biochem, OChem I. In the final spring semester before medical school, my job was outsourced to India and I became a full-time student, so I took Virology, Immunology, Biochemistry, Personal Health (degree requirement), and OChem II.
This last semester is when problems started showing up. My GPA for this semester is only a 3.0. These classes are memorization and not analysis. I'm an analyzer by inclination and training and my adult experiences have confirmed this. I attempted to work on a study method that would serve me well in medical school - I came up with a set of flashcard tools that I believed would work and these did work for me, to the extent that I used them. Unfortunately, they did not convert directly. The classes in medical school are too fast, and you cannot make flashcards during lecture.
So, here are the predictable problems that I could have predicted and corrected.
1) I didn't have enough biology - particularly any anatomy or physiology. I didn't know the difference between sympathetic, parasympathetic, central or peripheral nerves. I didn't know anything about hormones. However, the immunology/virology has been very useful.
2) I didn't make the switch from quick analysis and assimilation to the hard work of detail memorization. None of my undergrad training had me studying figures and repeating them in detail. I did not learn to draw a knowledge schema and repeat it at will.
Those are the things that I could have done before, that could help now.
Now, here are the strengths that I have, but I think are important and someone who is weak in these things should work to gain them.
1) Big picture. You have to be able to have an instinctive and intuitive understanding of big picture things and not lose it in the details. This is a direct contradiction of Weakness #2 (above). When they teach you the connection of the hypothalamus and pituitary, you have to understand, in an intuitive way, that the"RH" hormones like GnRH (gonadal) are going to affect the pituitary to produce "H" hormones like LH and FSH. If you forget a detail like the name of the portal veins (which I have forgotten) you can presume its existence because you know the big picture.
2) Experience with discouragement. Everyone feels like an imposter in medical school at some point. It is important to know that discouragement is temporary and will eventually pass. I was once the very bottom of the "feces roll down hill" pyramid and I know that eventually you can climb up. Difficulties can eventually be overcome.
Excuse the length and poor writing. If I had more time I would have written a shorter post.
I decided to go into medicine as a result of my interest in missionary work. I had no biology background (I even managed to skip biology in high school - I considered it "soft" science). So I enrolled at my local community college in the honors program. My previous academic experiences were very good, but very old. I had not taken a class in 20 years and had not completed my degree in computer science, since it wasn't necessary for my career.
In the next two years I took between 6 and 12 hours each semester. I CLEP'd many of the non-science courses and in science took, Biology I, physics I & II, Chem I & II, Cell Bio, Zoology, Genetics, before taking the MCAT. I continued working full-time, but used vacation time to take 1 day off each week.
My MCAT score was good - except, with little biology experience and no OChem the BS score was only a 9.
Up to this point, I was making all A's. I was competing mostly with CC students and faking my way through biology tests by reading the teacher's mind and getting extra credit points. I never read the books. I was working full-time and thought that my multi-tasking skills were serving me well.
Realizing my weakness in biology, I completed my degree while applying by taking Evolution, Biochem, OChem I. In the final spring semester before medical school, my job was outsourced to India and I became a full-time student, so I took Virology, Immunology, Biochemistry, Personal Health (degree requirement), and OChem II.
This last semester is when problems started showing up. My GPA for this semester is only a 3.0. These classes are memorization and not analysis. I'm an analyzer by inclination and training and my adult experiences have confirmed this. I attempted to work on a study method that would serve me well in medical school - I came up with a set of flashcard tools that I believed would work and these did work for me, to the extent that I used them. Unfortunately, they did not convert directly. The classes in medical school are too fast, and you cannot make flashcards during lecture.
So, here are the predictable problems that I could have predicted and corrected.
1) I didn't have enough biology - particularly any anatomy or physiology. I didn't know the difference between sympathetic, parasympathetic, central or peripheral nerves. I didn't know anything about hormones. However, the immunology/virology has been very useful.
2) I didn't make the switch from quick analysis and assimilation to the hard work of detail memorization. None of my undergrad training had me studying figures and repeating them in detail. I did not learn to draw a knowledge schema and repeat it at will.
Those are the things that I could have done before, that could help now.
Now, here are the strengths that I have, but I think are important and someone who is weak in these things should work to gain them.
1) Big picture. You have to be able to have an instinctive and intuitive understanding of big picture things and not lose it in the details. This is a direct contradiction of Weakness #2 (above). When they teach you the connection of the hypothalamus and pituitary, you have to understand, in an intuitive way, that the"RH" hormones like GnRH (gonadal) are going to affect the pituitary to produce "H" hormones like LH and FSH. If you forget a detail like the name of the portal veins (which I have forgotten) you can presume its existence because you know the big picture.
2) Experience with discouragement. Everyone feels like an imposter in medical school at some point. It is important to know that discouragement is temporary and will eventually pass. I was once the very bottom of the "feces roll down hill" pyramid and I know that eventually you can climb up. Difficulties can eventually be overcome.
Excuse the length and poor writing. If I had more time I would have written a shorter post.
!! Although, I still think it shows when I write reports and in my study habits as they were non-existent when I was in school over ten years ago.
