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For those of you who have been accepted and are preparing at this point for matriculation and orientation, congrats! Good luck! You’ve earned it. You did it! You WILL be doctors!!!
So pull up a chair and grab another cold one; I was asked by an SDNer about the big DOs and DON’Ts of being a pre-clinical med student. Here are my thoughts:
As you know, you have along hard road ahead of you, but you can do it! Many of are probably still wondering “what have I gotten myself into?”
Well, for starters, that cliché of “drinking from the fire hose” is true. Actually, it’s more like “drinking from a fire hose while running after the fire engine”. We’re going to throw everything at you, in a very short period of time. I had a friend who was a graduate of U WV, and he told me that medical school “took him to his intellectual limits.”
Here are some tips that I have gleaned from my successful students, and helpful SDNers. In no particular order:
Identify your optimal learning style. Not everyone learns best by sitting on their butts for 6-8 hours a day. More importantly, what worked in college might not work in med school. I have tons of students who have troubles in the first third of their first semester because the sheer overload of material clobbers them.
Studying in med school isn’t merely adding more studying hours, but studying in a way that is best attuned to your learning style. Some people have to hear things, and so they may do best in study groups teaching their friends, or listening to lectures on video playback. This is why I feel that SDN posts asking “what works for you?” are better phrased as “what resources are available?”
The key thing here is shake things up. Try going to lectures if you're struggling; conversely, if you really get nothing from being at lectures, then by all means, do something else in that time period (unless you're at schools with required lecture attendance).
Others are visual learners and do best by making tables charts figures, writing out pathways, etc.
Every one of my clinician colleagues has told me that repetition is the key to learning. And don’t worry about not learning everything at once, you’re not radio actors with live air time tomorrow afternoon. We realize it takes time to get your material down. Yes, given the nature of the beast, some cramming will be impossible to avoid, but be aware if you cram, you don’t retain. And it’s not enough to memorize, you have to apply what you’ve learned. So merely reading and re-reading your PPT files to try to memorize them like you're learning the lines from Othello and Titus Andronicus isn't going to work.
You have taken and done well enough on the MCAT to have been accepted. However, some of you still have challenges with standardized testing. If you have test taking anxiety, get help for it NOW. And get a good night's sleep before exams, too. This helps retention and test performance.
Some people have trouble with exams because of poor confidence and a tendency to overthink. IF you able to narrow your choices down to two, but consistently pick the wrong one, then that’s a confidence issue. Go with your first choices for answers, because they tend to be the correct ones.
IF you are drawing a complete blank on most of the answers, then that’s a database issue.
I post this all the time here, but this is important enough to repeat: your schools will have special resources to help struggling students. One is a learning or education center, to help you with time mgt, learning styles, test taking anxieties, mind mapping, etc.
Med school is stressful. I like to point out that it has broken even healthy students. The other resource to use, and this is just as important, is the counseling or therapy center. Med school can be a soul crushing meat grinder, especially when you’re floundering. Don’t be afraid of losing face; don’t be afraid to seek out help. Don’t be a non-compliant patient. You’re going have plenty of these on your own!
Have or develop good coping skills in case family or relationship issues intrude. As a medical student you have to be somewhat selfish. This is especially pertinent for students who come from cultures where extended family is important. You can’t always run home if Uncle Joe gets sick.
In addition, it's best to have or develop a support group. Your fellow students are your family now. You can turn to them.
Yet another resource: Seek out your professors if you're struggling; they're there for you! IF you have faculty who teach their research and not what you’re supposed to really need, complain loudly and often to your deans. Don’t put up crap like that.
Always be able to look at the big picture. I have seen so many students get lost in the weeds trying to memorize every detail. You simply can’t do it. He who tries to learn everything will end up learning nothing. Use resources other than your PPT files, like Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, Anki, Sketchy, etc. High scorers on Boards tend to use more of the external resources than just than their lecture notes.
Bone up on what you're weakest in. This is why practice tests are so helpful. Qbank, Testweapon, BnB, USMLE World, ComBank, ComSAE, whatever the resource, make sure use to them. We and others find that our best students take lots of practice questions, and the weakest students don’t. If you feel you know particular material, it's OK to spend less time with it, and better to work on your weakest areas. But identifying those holes in your knowledge base is extremely important.
What to do about textbooks???? This is a vexed question! My views have evolved here.
My first recommendation is to find out from your senior classmates if the Faculty actually test from them, or even use them. There are indeed Faculty who will tell you “Read Chapter 8 from Robbins because that’s what I’ll test you on”, and sure enough, that’s where the test questions come from.
If Faculty only recommend books, then you’re probably safe with using PPTs and outside resources. There is a trend with the shift to e-books to include more useful content like videos and test question banks, so this might be some justification for buying books.
Board review books are exactly that; do NOT use them in place of a required text, unless your Faculty are so poor that they provide no guidance on what is important material.
At my school, we’ve found that our weakest students always try to make do with just review books. In fact, the weakest students have an attitude that “if it’s not in FA, It’s not important”. WRONG. Every one of my students who have taken Boards tell me that there’s stuff on Boards that is NOT covered in FA. FA is the barebones minimum of what you should know. Sadly, for some people, FA generates near religious devotion. Go figure. Some SDNers may be interpreting this as "if you don't buy textbooks, you're a bad student". I hope that's not what they're thinking.
Review books are for review, and that’s it. And BTW, First Aid for USMLE I still has errors in it!
Study with your friends, unless they’re too distracting. Otherwise, seek out the people in your classes who really impress you, and ask them “how they do it?” Even if you get a single tip that helps, that’s worth it.
What makes medical students fail? The most common reasons at my school are mental health issues, especially depression, or poor work ethic; less seen is an inability to separate outside life issues from med school (ie, poor coping skills), or repeated failure on Boards. A handful simply lost interest in Medicine, or never were fully committed to the path in the first place.
But to quote Queen Victoria, “We are not interested in the possibility of failure!”
And to quote my wise colleague Angus Avogadro: Don't wait to be spoon fed everything, have some intellectual curiosity. This is what you are going to be doing for the rest of your life anyway, looking up things for cases you have and are not sure how to handle,. etc.
Most of you are where you are right now because you love learning about the human body. Don’t ever lose that.
And good luck to you all!
So pull up a chair and grab another cold one; I was asked by an SDNer about the big DOs and DON’Ts of being a pre-clinical med student. Here are my thoughts:
As you know, you have along hard road ahead of you, but you can do it! Many of are probably still wondering “what have I gotten myself into?”
Well, for starters, that cliché of “drinking from the fire hose” is true. Actually, it’s more like “drinking from a fire hose while running after the fire engine”. We’re going to throw everything at you, in a very short period of time. I had a friend who was a graduate of U WV, and he told me that medical school “took him to his intellectual limits.”
Here are some tips that I have gleaned from my successful students, and helpful SDNers. In no particular order:
Identify your optimal learning style. Not everyone learns best by sitting on their butts for 6-8 hours a day. More importantly, what worked in college might not work in med school. I have tons of students who have troubles in the first third of their first semester because the sheer overload of material clobbers them.
Studying in med school isn’t merely adding more studying hours, but studying in a way that is best attuned to your learning style. Some people have to hear things, and so they may do best in study groups teaching their friends, or listening to lectures on video playback. This is why I feel that SDN posts asking “what works for you?” are better phrased as “what resources are available?”
The key thing here is shake things up. Try going to lectures if you're struggling; conversely, if you really get nothing from being at lectures, then by all means, do something else in that time period (unless you're at schools with required lecture attendance).
Others are visual learners and do best by making tables charts figures, writing out pathways, etc.
Every one of my clinician colleagues has told me that repetition is the key to learning. And don’t worry about not learning everything at once, you’re not radio actors with live air time tomorrow afternoon. We realize it takes time to get your material down. Yes, given the nature of the beast, some cramming will be impossible to avoid, but be aware if you cram, you don’t retain. And it’s not enough to memorize, you have to apply what you’ve learned. So merely reading and re-reading your PPT files to try to memorize them like you're learning the lines from Othello and Titus Andronicus isn't going to work.
You have taken and done well enough on the MCAT to have been accepted. However, some of you still have challenges with standardized testing. If you have test taking anxiety, get help for it NOW. And get a good night's sleep before exams, too. This helps retention and test performance.
Some people have trouble with exams because of poor confidence and a tendency to overthink. IF you able to narrow your choices down to two, but consistently pick the wrong one, then that’s a confidence issue. Go with your first choices for answers, because they tend to be the correct ones.
IF you are drawing a complete blank on most of the answers, then that’s a database issue.
I post this all the time here, but this is important enough to repeat: your schools will have special resources to help struggling students. One is a learning or education center, to help you with time mgt, learning styles, test taking anxieties, mind mapping, etc.
Med school is stressful. I like to point out that it has broken even healthy students. The other resource to use, and this is just as important, is the counseling or therapy center. Med school can be a soul crushing meat grinder, especially when you’re floundering. Don’t be afraid of losing face; don’t be afraid to seek out help. Don’t be a non-compliant patient. You’re going have plenty of these on your own!
Have or develop good coping skills in case family or relationship issues intrude. As a medical student you have to be somewhat selfish. This is especially pertinent for students who come from cultures where extended family is important. You can’t always run home if Uncle Joe gets sick.
In addition, it's best to have or develop a support group. Your fellow students are your family now. You can turn to them.
Yet another resource: Seek out your professors if you're struggling; they're there for you! IF you have faculty who teach their research and not what you’re supposed to really need, complain loudly and often to your deans. Don’t put up crap like that.
Always be able to look at the big picture. I have seen so many students get lost in the weeds trying to memorize every detail. You simply can’t do it. He who tries to learn everything will end up learning nothing. Use resources other than your PPT files, like Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, Anki, Sketchy, etc. High scorers on Boards tend to use more of the external resources than just than their lecture notes.
Bone up on what you're weakest in. This is why practice tests are so helpful. Qbank, Testweapon, BnB, USMLE World, ComBank, ComSAE, whatever the resource, make sure use to them. We and others find that our best students take lots of practice questions, and the weakest students don’t. If you feel you know particular material, it's OK to spend less time with it, and better to work on your weakest areas. But identifying those holes in your knowledge base is extremely important.
What to do about textbooks???? This is a vexed question! My views have evolved here.
My first recommendation is to find out from your senior classmates if the Faculty actually test from them, or even use them. There are indeed Faculty who will tell you “Read Chapter 8 from Robbins because that’s what I’ll test you on”, and sure enough, that’s where the test questions come from.
If Faculty only recommend books, then you’re probably safe with using PPTs and outside resources. There is a trend with the shift to e-books to include more useful content like videos and test question banks, so this might be some justification for buying books.
Board review books are exactly that; do NOT use them in place of a required text, unless your Faculty are so poor that they provide no guidance on what is important material.
At my school, we’ve found that our weakest students always try to make do with just review books. In fact, the weakest students have an attitude that “if it’s not in FA, It’s not important”. WRONG. Every one of my students who have taken Boards tell me that there’s stuff on Boards that is NOT covered in FA. FA is the barebones minimum of what you should know. Sadly, for some people, FA generates near religious devotion. Go figure. Some SDNers may be interpreting this as "if you don't buy textbooks, you're a bad student". I hope that's not what they're thinking.
Review books are for review, and that’s it. And BTW, First Aid for USMLE I still has errors in it!
Study with your friends, unless they’re too distracting. Otherwise, seek out the people in your classes who really impress you, and ask them “how they do it?” Even if you get a single tip that helps, that’s worth it.
What makes medical students fail? The most common reasons at my school are mental health issues, especially depression, or poor work ethic; less seen is an inability to separate outside life issues from med school (ie, poor coping skills), or repeated failure on Boards. A handful simply lost interest in Medicine, or never were fully committed to the path in the first place.
But to quote Queen Victoria, “We are not interested in the possibility of failure!”
And to quote my wise colleague Angus Avogadro: Don't wait to be spoon fed everything, have some intellectual curiosity. This is what you are going to be doing for the rest of your life anyway, looking up things for cases you have and are not sure how to handle,. etc.
Most of you are where you are right now because you love learning about the human body. Don’t ever lose that.
And good luck to you all!
