Getting ahead before med school starts?

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dxcrunner

dxcrunner

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For those currently in med school, would you have found it beneficial to memorize the anatomy of the body and review my medical physiology book over the summer before med school starts? or maybe other material that you would find to be very helpful to have learned before starting med school?

If not, why not?
 
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Not to repeat southernIM but seriously, have you read nothing on this site? Don't stress about it. You'll figure it out when school starts.
 
I added a second part to this question that I can't seem to find much of an answer to. Why is memorizing anatomy not helpful before med school if you will have to do it then anyway? Everyone just says enjoy the summer, but I feel I can easily enjoy my summer, relax, and do a little studying to be somewhat productive.
 
dxcrunner said:
I added a second part to this question that I can't seem to find much of an answer to. Why is memorizing anatomy not helpful before med school if you will have to do it then anyway? Everyone just says enjoy the summer, but I feel I can easily enjoy my summer, relax, and do a little studying to be somewhat productive.
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Well again not to be an a** but this definitely has been answered before.

a) You won't remember it in any level of detail that will be helpful. Especially if you are "relaxing and doing a little studying to be somewhat productive"

b) You don't know what you need to know. You could waste an entire summer studying the wrong information - stuff you'll never get tested on.

c) Anchoring. You don't know the appropriate depth or breadth to be studying.

It's a waste of your time, and won't give you any substantial benefit
 
dxcrunner said:
I added a second part to this question that I can't seem to find much of an answer to. Why is memorizing anatomy not helpful before med school if you will have to do it then anyway? Everyone just says enjoy the summer, but I feel I can easily enjoy my summer, relax, and do a little studying to be somewhat productive.
Click to expand...

There's A LOT of anatomy of memorize, and you're not going to do it by just casually studying over the summer. Plus, once you start, they'll let you know what you need to know and what's useless minutiae. Just enjoy your time off man, you're not going to have much of it left.
 
Here's why: because you will forget most/all of what you learn.

"But I'm smart, I can remember it."

No, you can't. In fact, when you start anatomy in med school, you will forget things by exam time that you learned a few WEEKS earlier. How much do you think you will forget of what you learned a few months earlier?

"But I know myself and I have an especially good memory"

Oh really? Can you remember the quadratic equation without looking it up? No? Me neither. And all of us knew that sucker cold at one point or we wouldn't have passed high school algebra. What about the fundamental theorem of calculus? Yeah, used to know that and a hundred other things cold. Now? Couldn't derive something if my life depended on it (unless I could use the power rule).

The point is that we all (yes, even the intellectually gifted among us) forget things we don't use. It's just how the brain works. The same thing will happen to your study over the summer. You won't study hard enough, you'll waste some of your last remaining free hours studying something you're going to forget anyway because you're not immersed in it yet. You aren't really USING it yet. You'll piddle away 2-3 hours a day "studying" something but not doing it enough to remember it in any meaningful way.

Will pre-study hurt you? No, of course not. But it won't help you either. At MOST it gets you 3-4 questions right on your FIRST exam, and you will lose more than that sometime in the early spring when you start feeling the burnout and quit caring for a few weeks until the sheer terror of blowing an exam makes you come around in the nick of time.

This is why I have NEVER met a medical student who walked out of their first exams saying, "Man, I wish I had studied over the summer!"

Relax, enjoy your remaining free time. People much stupider than you have done just fine. You'll do fine too. If you're even considering studying during your last remaining summer, you are probably enough of a workaholic that you'll make the adjustment to med school without any problem.
 
Nothing I could have done before I started school would have prepared me for school

You cannot pre-study for the anatomy. Its a whole new beast that you'll just need to deal with in school
 
What they said. Also, med school is a MARATHON. You need to get your mind right over the summer so you can come in fresh and hit it really hard during the year. Just relax and enjoy yourself. This is the reward for 4 years of hard work. You won't get another break like this with the exception of M1/M2 summer, during which you may or may not be researching/volunteering. Do what you wanted to do in college but couldn't because you were busy trying to get into med school. Visit family who live far away, catch up with old friends, hang out with your siblings/parents, party with friends who you will probably not see again for a while. You'll regret it if you don't.
 
The first week of med school I wished I had pre-studied for anatomy, but by the third week I saw how completely useless it would've been.

My school sent out pre-matriculation "suggested" study material that I didn't do, and we had a quiz on it at the end of the first or second week. (They didn't say we'd have a quiz.) So I was really stressed in the beginning trying to learn all of that and keep up with lectures. Now, I wish I was that busy--I study two or three times as much now that we've really begun the year.

You really can't prepare for med school. All you can do is start and trust you'll adjust little by little til studying almost all day every day is no big thing.
 
southernIM said:
Well again not to be an a** but this definitely has been answered before.

a) You won't remember it in any level of detail that will be helpful. Especially if you are "relaxing and doing a little studying to be somewhat productive"

b) You don't know what you need to know. You could waste an entire summer studying the wrong information - stuff you'll never get tested on.

c) Anchoring. You don't know the appropriate depth or breadth to be studying.

It's a waste of your time, and won't give you any substantial benefit
Click to expand...

Boom. Thats the key. Its hard to imagine the level of detail needed. I thought I had a clue...nope...I didn't.
 
My anatomy class was 4 months of pure intensity. That was not even enough time with constant studying to retain everything the day after an exam. Yet in 3 months of light studying, you're somehow going to get ahead? **** I hate med students.
 
operaman said:
Here's why: because you will forget most/all of what you learn.

"But I'm smart, I can remember it."

No, you can't. In fact, when you start anatomy in med school, you will forget things by exam time that you learned a few WEEKS earlier. How much do you think you will forget of what you learned a few months earlier?

"But I know myself and I have an especially good memory"

Oh really? Can you remember the quadratic equation without looking it up? No? Me neither. And all of us knew that sucker cold at one point or we wouldn't have passed high school algebra. What about the fundamental theorem of calculus? Yeah, used to know that and a hundred other things cold. Now? Couldn't derive something if my life depended on it (unless I could use the power rule).

The point is that we all (yes, even the intellectually gifted among us) forget things we don't use. It's just how the brain works. The same thing will happen to your study over the summer. You won't study hard enough, you'll waste some of your last remaining free hours studying something you're going to forget anyway because you're not immersed in it yet. You aren't really USING it yet. You'll piddle away 2-3 hours a day "studying" something but not doing it enough to remember it in any meaningful way.

Will pre-study hurt you? No, of course not. But it won't help you either. At MOST it gets you 3-4 questions right on your FIRST exam, and you will lose more than that sometime in the early spring when you start feeling the burnout and quit caring for a few weeks until the sheer terror of blowing an exam makes you come around in the nick of time.

This is why I have NEVER met a medical student who walked out of their first exams saying, "Man, I wish I had studied over the summer!"

Relax, enjoy your remaining free time. People much stupider than you have done just fine. You'll do fine too. If you're even considering studying during your last remaining summer, you are probably enough of a workaholic that you'll make the adjustment to med school without any problem.
Click to expand...

Wow very well said. Thanks!
 
Just to make a more general point (because I was where you are right now a few months ago OP), its good to realize that people who are ahead of you in your training really know what they are talking about (sounds really obvious but I think its easy to forget). I remember wanting to get ahead before I started school this year and reading the collective SDN/every med student ever wisdom that its worthless. Now that I'm actually in it I see how true that really is.

What I've found is that this is really true for most aspects of our training. Its really easy to do your own thing and think you are your own special snowflake, but its just not the case. Find an upper classman to mentor you and constantly solicit advice - you will avoid common pitfalls and you'll have a much easier time of med school.
 
dxcrunner said:
For those currently in med school, would you have found it beneficial to memorize the anatomy of the body and review my medical physiology book over the summer before med school starts? or maybe other material that you would find to be very helpful to have learned before starting med school?

If not, why not?
Click to expand...
I took anatomy in undergrad. Even though I had learned 100% of what was taught in med school anatomy so far, it did not give me much of an edge and IMO not worth it. Physiology was useful tho in terms of letting me be a little looser on studying and pre-reading for lectures.
 
No, not at all.

IMO, the only thing that would be useful is to have exposure to the pace of pre-clinical curriculum (in the sense that you will have less of a shock once things kick off for real), but this isn't achievable short of a school-established pre-mat program.
 
Not the summer before. But it would be very helpful to take Biochemistry or advanced biology classes while still in college. These helped me a lot in med school Biochem.
 
Studying anatomy before starting med school! NOOOOOOOO!

You might as well find your own cadaver and start dissecting...
 
Waste of time. I had that feeling of wanting to look at stuff beforehand because I didn't want to fall behind or feel like I knew much less than my classmates, but as everyone told me, and are now telling you, it doesn't matter/it's not worth it. You'll have a lot to learn and plenty of time to learn it in school, of course I go to a P/F school, if you're going to a graded school then things may be different. Do some other interesting things in your free time or pick up a new hobby that will help keep you sane in med school.
 
Dave89 said:
Not the summer before. But it would be very helpful to take Biochemistry or advanced biology classes while still in college. These helped me a lot in med school Biochem.
Click to expand...
Or just study Lippincott's Biochem.
 
dxcrunner said:
I added a second part to this question that I can't seem to find much of an answer to. Why is memorizing anatomy not helpful before med school if you will have to do it then anyway? Everyone just says enjoy the summer, but I feel I can easily enjoy my summer, relax, and do a little studying to be somewhat productive.
Click to expand...
because what you cover the entire summer will be covered in under a day and you are not putting it into context/ making it clinical so its just words you are memorizing.
 
DermViser said:
Or just study Lippincott's Biochem.
Click to expand...

One needs to be a pretty big geek to study (and, more importantly, learn) from a biochem textbook without the lure of credits toward one's major.

But if one can manage it...
 
Just going to throw this out there... I made flash cards for the muscles and innervations (also origin and insertions, but I didn't focus on those) that were going to be covered on the first test a couple of weeks before school started. I didn't set aside time to study, but I would just flip through them on commercials when I was watching tv. By the time school actually started, I had a good portion of them memorized and it was just one less thing to worry about when they gave us tons of other info to learn.
 
allenlchs said:
It depends on where in the country you are.
Click to expand...
Almost anywhere you learn, train or practice in the US, your patients are more likely to speak Spanish, if they don't speak English. It is easier to stay interested in the history (even with a translator) if you can follow along. You will be a more highly valued team member in both medical school and residency if you get an accurate, faster history and this is also a plus for practice building and referrals. Many schools strongly recommend it and PD's consider language skills a huge plus (especially in the southwest and inner cities) when they pick residents.
 
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operaman said:
Oh really? Can you remember the quadratic equation without looking it up? No? Me neither. And all of us knew that sucker cold at one point or we wouldn't have passed high school algebra. What about the fundamental theorem of calculus? Yeah, used to know that and a hundred other things cold. Now? Couldn't derive something if my life depended on it (unless I could use the power rule).
Click to expand...

Um, yes to both. 😆

Actually, I'm surprised to hear that people wouldn't remember the quadratic equation. That sucker was irreversibly drilled into my head in seventh grade but good. FTC is a little more understandable, particularly since not everyone takes calculus, and also because many people's math education stops there, so it wouldn't be reinforced in later classes.
 
Lol getting ahead before medical school starts. Trust me, you'll feel silly you ever said this.
 
If you can somehow memorize all the bones, their landmarks, muscles. (Function, blood supply, Innervation, and attachments), all the schematics for nervous system and blood flow (with anastomoses)... Then go for it...

If not - to relax.
 
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