How much FUN do you have in med school?

[gaikokujin]

I hear people talk about a lot of things on this board: tests, studying, politics, dating, etc -- but I'm wondering how much time you actually have to have FUN in med school. I know it's not going to be easy -- and i know 1st year is going to be hell for me since im really awful at memorization, but i plan to approach it like a full time job.

i guess im just wondering, do you have time to both do well at school and have some fun? do you socialize, date, party? do you ever have time to just see a movie with friends or go shopping or get a cup of coffee? what do you do for fun? how much time would you say you spend doing these things per week?

i guess im just getting a little frightened at the prospect of not having a life again. ive worked so hard to get here, but im getting a bit freaked out at the prospect of 4 years of all-nighters and enormous pots of coffee.

cheer me up please

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[Iwy Em Hotep]

Med students (speaking as one myself) are notorious whiners.

Look at it this way - in a 24 hour day:
- at MOST 6 hours of class (and this is a LOT - I swear I'm at the only school that does this)
- 6-8 hours of sleep
- 3-4 hours of study
- 2-3 hours to eat, do chores, do morning/evening routines, etc..

That leaves 4+ hours to do whatever you want. Likely, you'll have a lot more time. Most people are able to work out, eat well, sleep enough, and still go out with friends every couple of days.

[big caveat: I'm an MS1. I have no idea how bad MS3 gets, but it's probably much different from the above]

 

[Loopo Henle]

Don't sweat it. You will find that you will rapidly get into a groove. I had a ton of fun as a M1. We played intramural softball, soccer, indoor hockey, volleyball. I spent plenty of time with my wife. Probably too much time. Third year is a little time intensive occasionally, but again you get used to it and there is plenty of time to dork off. Worry about your intern year. That is what I am worrying about.

 

[Blue Scrub]

Don't sweat it. You will find that you will rapidly get into a groove. I had a ton of fun as a M1. We played intramural softball, soccer, indoor hockey, volleyball. I spent plenty of time with my wife. Probably too much time. Third year is a little time intensive occasionally, but again you get used to it and there is plenty of time to dork off. Worry about your intern year. That is what I am worrying about.

Would you say the surgical rotation takes up the most time, while psych rotation takes up the least? Which rotations take up the most and least time?

 

[jennie 21]

The first two years at least aren't that bad. I'm just finishing MS2, so I don't know about after that, we'll see soon enough I guess. I'm married so obviously don't spend my free time dating, but I feel like I have plenty of time to have fun with my husband and to hang out with friends. Usually the week before an exam I study pretty much non-stop and everything else goes by the wayside, but other than the week before the exam things are pretty laid-back and I have plenty of free time. We have exams every three-four weeks so it's not so bad. Of course it depends on how quickly you are able to memorize material and also on your particular school...I have some friends down at GW where they seem to have exams every week and I have to say they don't seem too happy. My own experience hasn't been bad though.

You do have to prioritize and make choices, and learn to be efficient with your time. I don't go to very many lectures because I've found from experience I don't get much out of them and am better off spending the time studying on my own, but of course that's different for everyone and some people find going to lectures to be a good way to learn the material (in fact, one guy in our class learns almost exclusively from lectures...he goes to every single lecture and I don't think he studies much at all outside of that, I wish I had that sort of auditory memory!). I do make a point of going to all conferences, small-group seminars, etc. because I think those are worthwhile.

I also decided it was worth paying to have my laundry done at a wash-and-fold place for $0.85 a pound because there's no laundry in my building and I don't want to spend what free time I do have dragging my clothes to the laundromat and waiting till they're done...and it's really almost as cheap to send it out as to wash it myself, maybe $10-15 more every two weeks than doing it myself. Of course I'm in NYC so it's different if you're living in a house rather than an apartment and have your own washing machine...or even if your apartment building has laundry. I order groceries online for delivery most of the time and buy a lot of pre-cooked meals (i.e. lasagna that's pre-made that you just pop in the oven) and we eat a fair amount of take-out too...not healthy, I know, but I just don't have time to cook from scratch on a regular basis. With these various trade-offs--not going to lectures all the time, sending my laundry out, etc.--I find I have plenty of free time for friends and family and still get all my work done. I've done better than average these first two years, certainly not at the top of the class or anything, but I've had fun doing it for the most part. It's not really as bad as it's made out to be IMO.

 

[Loopo Henle]

Would you say the surgical rotation takes up the most time, while psych rotation takes up the least? Which rotations take up the most and least time?

I think it is very institution dependent. My OB/GYN rotation was my most time intensive followed by pediatrics then surgery. Psych rotation had a lot of busy work but no call. Medicine and Family were surprisingly laid back. It all depends how your clerkship director has things set up. For me pediatrics was time intensive because we came in every day on our inpatient month, q 5 overnight call. We had to stay until 3pm post call, and were never allowed to leave before 5 p.m. unless post call even if the place was dead. I think most people would probably rank surgery as the most time intensive but they all have potential (except psych).

 

[USAMD2B]

I think I had more fun 3rd year than 1st and 2nd years. Probably because when I wasn't working, I could go hang out with friends without feeling guilty that I wasn't studying. 1st and 2nd year there was a test almost every week so I couldn't even go to the grocery store without feeling guilty about not studying.

 

[uclacrewdude]

ms2 here.

just finished pathophys final.

have path, path shelf, pharm, and pharm shelf left to do.

brain hurt.

 

[Blake]

I'm finishing my first year in about 6 weeks, and I can honestly say that I've had more fun than during college. My school is PBL, so that means a LOT of free time. I was talking about this the other day with some friends, and we concluded that we can't really complain as med students so far. I don't know, but I feel like people overrated the difficulty of med school. Maybe things will be different next year, who knows ?

 

[wolverine1212]

I'm about to finish my first year too...I can def said i had fun. I ran my first 2 marathons ...hopefully more to come

 

[nightowl]

I'm glad this post is here. Anyone know of schools that do have more down-time/pass-fail grading/PBL? I'm serious about med school, but I don't think it's worth it to have no life outside of school. It is reassuring to hear that life does not stop...

 

[SilvrGrey330]

I'm glad this post is here. Anyone know of schools that do have more down-time/pass-fail grading/PBL? I'm serious about med school, but I don't think it's worth it to have no life outside of school. It is reassuring to hear that life does not stop...

whats pbl?

 

[Loopo Henle]

whats pbl?

Problem based learning. They give you a case or situation. You figure out learning issues and basically self learn. We did it in small groups,but our program is mostly didactic still.

 

[Shah_Patel_PT]

We have PBL at our caribbean school as well. (Ross univ)
We only have it for 3 semesters though.

 

[Elysium]

I think it is possible to have a life outside of med school but it depends on a few things

1) How efficent you are with your studying: if you have crap study habits like I do (read for 20 minutes, fart around on SDN for 30 minuts, talk to friends, read again for 30 minutes, etc) things tend to go rather slowly and you've gotten almost zero accomplished in 6 hours. People that have their sh1t together can do 4 hours of high yield studying done each day and have their evenings off (and sometimes weekends!) and do just fine. I don't mean honors fine, but passing fine.

2) What your background is: if you've never seen a biochemical reaction or memorized the nerves of the brachial plexus, it's gonna take you a bit longer to get up to speed. If you're a science major who has taken most of the first year classes before, you;re going to have more free time on your hands

3) As others have said, its all about scheduling and being organized. If you are efficent and have stuff planned out, you're going to have more free time. I've found, in the main, that my classmates that have kids tend to do better because they're better at organizing

and finally, at least with me, what I noticed is that whenever we would go out (which was fairly often) everyone felt guilty, like they should be studying instead of having a good time. That's the real difference. Med school really does permeate everything you do, in one way or another. It sort of never leaves, no matter what. So you will have the time, but you'll probably still be worrying about school no matter what.