What about early clinical experiences? Learning to do H&P early? Learning how to use the equipment early on? I have been told that our school allows us to do all of these things and we can obviously seek out shadowing opportunities on our own. I hear a lot of students begin to hate the first two years only to finally enjoy themselves a lot more when they reach third year and are applying what they've learned. What about early preceptorships? Do these help at all? I'm just trying to find a way to really get the most out of my first four years and learn as much as I can that will be applicable in residency.
I felt like my preclinical preceptorships (and free clinics, and medical conferences) felt like trying to do Calculus before you learned how to add and subtract. Learning H&Ps and procedures sounds fun, and it will be later on, but when you don't have the knowledge base they take 10 times as long to learn as they would take if you waited for third year. I would view them as primarily as motivation rather than education, and schedule accordingly. Things I wish I had done, though:
1) Research. It seems like everyone I know is in a scramble for a low quality publication before the match. I wish I had taken the time to get a publication or two back in the first two years (especially the first year) when my time was more fungible and the education was less valuble so I didn't need to scramble now.
2) Learned more, especially in second year and ESPECIALLY microbiology and it's associated pharm. This stuff does carry over, and I feel like I spend a lot of my free time in third year reading through basic books like Case Files and Blueprints to relearn conditions that were, in fact, thoroughly covered and tested on Step 1.
3) Shown up to third year with a thorough knowledge of suturing, basic radiology (espciall, and EKGs. These are skills that come up on many rotations, that you can learn from any one of a variety of books/videos, and which I didn't get around to learning until I was almost done with third year. I would especially emphasize this if you're going to have more than a week between step 1 and the start of third year. Various people told me that these skills were easy and that you pick them up as you go. Well they were easy enough once I took some time (maybe a week between all three) to learn and practice but I definitely didn't learn them by osmosis.
4) Listened more to the class ahead of me. When the class ahead of you says that a rotation is worthless, odds are they're right and odds are, if you're assertive willing to travel, you can weasel your way onto a different service. I basically flushed at least half of my surgery rotation down the drain by first going to and then sticking with an awful service.
