How accurately does this (taken from Quora) describe med school?

[ThatSerb]

Question:

"What are some life hacks for a medical student?"

Answer:


"Yes. The secret is to realize that it is NOT difficult - it is just a TON of things to memorize. There is nothing to “understand” about biochemistry or anatomy - you just have to grasp that you MUST MEMORIZE ALL of it.

So hopefully you have a note-taker that you all pay to take class notes so you don't have to waste time in lecture.

Then you get a study group of 3–5 people, and you each take turns pacing back and forth going over and over and over and over those notes, repeating out loud the question and the answer. Then take a break to toss the football or whatever, have a light meal, and regroup and start pacing again. Take the same stack of notes and slam it again and again until you can spout the answer as soon as the question is asked.

It takes time - it is boring - but it’s EASY. There is nothing to scratch your head about - no essays to write - just get together in a group (so as to prevent procrastination) and slam those facts down so they stick.

In every class there are a few who don't realize this simple fact. All it takes is to put in time EVERY DAY slamming those facts. You don't even have to read the textbooks - or even buy the textbooks. GET THE NOTES. What do I mean by notes? The list of cranial nerves. The connections of the radius bone. The tendons of the biceps. MEMORIZE. DRILL, baby, DRILL."

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[ArteryStudyPainting]

Eh. At some point, you won't know all the fun facts. But it could be said they're mostly integral to a foundation.

But when you start having to put together concepts, then the people that drilled facts just to drill facts can run into problems if they can't put things together. A 2nd or 3rd order question is really common, especially in real medicine.

I'd argue that you memorize those facts, but then have to understand why those facts interact.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Moving to pre-med

 

[Goro]

Question:

"What are some life hacks for a medical student?"

Answer:


"Yes. The secret is to realize that it is NOT difficult - it is just a TON of things to memorize. There is nothing to “understand” about biochemistry or anatomy - you just have to grasp that you MUST MEMORIZE ALL of it.

So hopefully you have a note-taker that you all pay to take class notes so you don't have to waste time in lecture.

Then you get a study group of 3–5 people, and you each take turns pacing back and forth going over and over and over and over those notes, repeating out loud the question and the answer. Then take a break to toss the football or whatever, have a light meal, and regroup and start pacing again. Take the same stack of notes and slam it again and again until you can spout the answer as soon as the question is asked.

It takes time - it is boring - but it’s EASY. There is nothing to scratch your head about - no essays to write - just get together in a group (so as to prevent procrastination) and slam those facts down so they stick.

In every class there are a few who don't realize this simple fact. All it takes is to put in time EVERY DAY slamming those facts. You don't even have to read the textbooks - or even buy the textbooks. GET THE NOTES. What do I mean by notes? The list of cranial nerves. The connections of the radius bone. The tendons of the biceps. MEMORIZE. DRILL, baby, DRILL."

While there is a crapton of stuff to memorize in med school, there's a difference between memorizing and knowing. You have to be able to apply. The patients, drugs and microbes do not read the textbooks or Powerpoint, after all.

 

[Detailsmatter]

I think people the people that tend to focus exclusively on memorizing tend to do worse on exams. I found that people who focus on trying to understand the material and focus less on the exam and more on how the different systems interact tend to do much better. Straight up memorizing doesn't work out well for exams with more complex questions

 

[Rogue42]

I do not think this post accurately reflects medical school. My experience is this:

Medical School is not hard in the traditional sense that the information is really difficult to understand. But it is hard due to the amount of information there is to know. Medical school is all about being able to take this literal conglomerate of the most information that you can imagine, digesting it, and then being able to regurgitate it in a manner that shows you can apply it to a patient.

For example, you need to know that G6PD deficiency is the most common enzyme disorder, that it is clinically brought on by fava beans, certain medications, and infections, and that it is usually seen in most in people of African decent. But ultimately, the underlying defect is that these patients don't produce enough glutathione to protect red cells from oxidative damage. In med school, you might spend hours understanding why this happens in this manner, looking at the physiology, etc. But then add on top of this that you also need to know 30 other enzyme disorders and their processes for your test. You can then easily see how time consuming it is, but not necessarily difficult.

As for the post, if you just hammer facts, then hey you might do alright when your asked point blank about a fact, but when you are given nothing more than, "Patient A presents with scleral icterus. All labs are normal except for liver labs. Patient drinks once daily. Patient recently started on a new medication. Whats the cause? A. G6PD deficiency B. Acute alcoholic liver C. New drug interaction with P450 enzyme D. Other enzyme disorder" then you can see how screwed you'd be if you didn't spend the time to know all of the facts, diseases processes, and most likely causes / differential diagnosis list of a simple case presentation.

At the beginning of med school, it might take you hours to get through this stuff to really understand it. It might take you spending time with other students. But as time goes on, you learn how to handle the volume of information, the time it takes gets significantly shorter, and you may or may not use groups anymore.

 

[DameJulie]

Maybe the residues of your MCAT knowledge will carry through the first month of so, but after the first few exams it's no longer about just memorization.

You will start reading question stems that are >100 words long with x-rays, labs, pathology slides and try to figure out what the heck they are asking for. Faculty are smart about writing questions that memorization alone won't get you the right answer. However, you need strong memorization skills before you can start applying.

 

[Rachapkis]

Medical school presents students with too much information to engage in rote memorization—although memorization plays a large role in your success. You need to understand what you are learning, so that you have the necessary context to order the information you are given. Once you have that context, Anki and other tools are really helpful because they present you with the information through spaced repetition, which is a helpful tool for many students.