If I just want to get by with a graded school how much do I have to study?

[Eren.Yeager]

If I just want to go into primary care or another non-competitive specialty how much do I have to sit down and study? I keep reading some students study 10+ hours a day for 6 days a week.

I won't lie I want to study 5 hours at most and have a life beyond that learning other things in life and spending time with people. I don't want to give up gym either which requires a lot of eating/cooking/grocery shopping beyond just the 1-2 hours in the gym.

EDIT: Get by as a good/mediocre student. Not absolute bottom.

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[cj_cregg]

I am in primary care, got average to below average grades/step scores, and studied just as many hours as my classmates who went into competitive specialties and had top percentile test scores, if not more.

 

[Dral]

No good answer I'm afraid. It really depends on what type of learner you are or brain you have. There were people in my class who I swore had photographic memories and could nail every exam. I don't think I would be able to do that regardless of how much I studied. Some people really get it, some people really don't, and a lot of are in between. The in between still has gradations. I guess you could start out and see how you do based on how much studying you want to do. It could come down to whether you get to be a doctor or not if you don't keep up though.

 

[lanzhou_lamian]

Studying 5 hours a day sounds reasonable. I’ve always approached med school as a full-time 8-6 job during pre-clinical. Occasionally I have to go beyond that during exam prep, but once you find an efficient study method, I don’t see why you’d be studying 10+ hours a day outside of boards dedicated periods.

 

[JimKimSlim]

Med school is hard. Like really hard. Everyone learns at different pace. But my suggestions are to do as many practice questions as you can and start devising strategies for spaced repetition .

 

[mrbreakfast]

The answer is "it depends on how smart your are." The general advice, as noted above, is to treat med school like a full-time job, with hours you clock in and out of. I would say the majority of students are going to study more than 5 hours/day.

Keep in mind:
-You may have more than 5 hours of lecture/day alone, which may be mandatory attendance
-Once you get to clinicals, your time obligations may vastly increase
-The price to pay for under-studying is much, much steeper than over-studying

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Agree with the above. Depends on how good of a student you are. I had to grind away to finish in the top half. My wife went to class to socialize and graduated top 10%. It's all up to you. The goals you set aren't very lofty.

 

[Billiam95]

Sounds like you're setting yourself up for failure tbh

 

[Goro]

If I just want to go into primary care or another non-competitive specialty how much do I have to sit down and study? I keep reading some students study 10+ hours a day for 6 days a week.

I won't lie I want to study 5 hours at most and have a life beyond that learning other things in life and spending time with people. I don't want to give up gym either which requires a lot of eating/cooking/grocery shopping beyond just the 1-2 hours in the gym.

EDIT: Get by as a good/mediocre student. Not absolute bottom.

Shoot for 80th %Iles +

We have learned from bitter experience that the people who are at 70-75% have trouble with Boards.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

My advice would be to start with more and see how it goes. Once you start to fall behind in medical school, it's very hard to catch up. One thing that separates med school from college is that everything builds upon what came before. In college, if you don't do well in a single course, once it's over usually you can just move on to something else. You'll (often) find in medical school that if you don't learn the basics (i.e. physiology) then trying to learn pathophys or pharmacology gets much more challenging. If all is going well, then you can back off your study time.

Even if you're 150% certain you want primary care, if you want it in a specific location, or at a well known institution, you may need "better than minimum" performance.

 

[cj_cregg]

My advice would be to start with more and see how it goes. Once you start to fall behind in medical school, it's very hard to catch up. One thing that separates med school from college is that everything builds upon what came before. In college, if you don't do well in a single course, once it's over usually you can just move on to something else. You'll (often) find in medical school that if you don't learn the basics (i.e. physiology) then trying to learn pathophys or pharmacology gets much more challenging. If all is going well, then you can back off your study time.

Even if you're 150% certain you want primary care, if you want it in a specific location, or at a well known institution, you may need "better than minimum" performance.

I will also add, primary care (and similar specialties where an undifferentiated patient walks into your office/ER, and you are the one generating initial differentials, deciding on the first steps of workup and management if not managing this problem completely yourself, etc.) requires an extremely broad knowledge base to do well. M1/M2 are the foundation for that. I would certainly not advocate for people to study hard enough that it compromises their mental and physical health. But it is important to recognize that the point of medical school and the material you learn is not just to match to your residency of choice in four years, but also to become a good physician and care for your patients well for the rest of your career.

 

[operaman]

Echoing the others here: start strong and then titrate to sanity.

Go overboard in the beginning doing more than you think you need to do. Aim for top of the class. See what happens. If you’re crushing it easily, then slowly back off the effort. Many people find that even with maximal effort they’re struggling to hit the mean. If that’s the case you may not be able to cut back so much.

The truth is there is plenty of time in Med school for things outside class. I had a job all through school, took lots of music gigs, did research, lots of ECs that I really enjoyed.

Here’s the key difference though: in Med school, you have to diligently schedule your “free” time. You’ll have to schedule that gym time carefully as well as the other lifestyle needs that go with it. I had a classmate who was a professional body builder and competed through med school, so it’s totally doable. But she was maybe the most organized hard working and meticulously scheduled person I’ve met. She made it work and did well both in competition and in school, but she approached it all like a professional.

 

[efle]

You should be able to make 2 hrs/day of gym time in preclinicals

That will go out the window completely in clinical years, residency and fellowship

You can go back to 2 hrs/day of gym as an attending depending on the field and income level you're after

 

[AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson]

Some people barely put any work in and wind up in the top 10% of the class, some put in an abundance of hours daily and on weekends just to pass.

It's very individual-dependent.


If you are somewhere between these two types of people I'd say do the best you can do while still being able to do what it is that makes you human (taking care of yourself, hobbies, socializing, etc).

 

[NeuroMed6]

I’m not an expert and I’m not implying that OP doesn’t value primary care physicians.

But, the more I learn about medicine the more I realize how crucial PCPs are and how difficult their job truly is. I understand that it’s not a competitive field but that doesn’t mean that students should do the bare minimum just because they want to go into FM, Peds, etc. Why not strive to be the best physician that you can possibly be no matter which field you’re choosing? And who says that you can’t be one of the best/most competent students without not having a life outside of med school?

 

[mistafab]

To put it lightly, this is a field where it takes regular work. It needs to get treated like a full time job.

Plenty of people have full time jobs - they have families, hit the gym, go out, etc (like me). If you dont want to be a master/aoa, you dont need 10 hour days like those no lifers in the library. Nor do you have to be those ineffective, time-wasting losers gabbing in the hall but ”studying” for “14 hours” a day (pro tip: they are lying, barely studying, with poor boundaries, and worse mental health).

5 total hours will have you barely passing (if at all). If you take it serious, and fit all school time (classes, studying, workshops, etc) between 8-5, 5 days a week, you will do fine. Not great, but fine. And you can even take a 1 hour gym or lunch break and you’ll still do fine.

Wake up and smell the roses - this is a job. Treat it like a job, give yourself good boundaries, and you will do fine. You will have time for whatever else you want to do as well, just not as much as a college student. My recommendation is treat it like a job, see how you do, and dial it up or down as necessary from there. You dont want to fall behind at the start - I promise.

 

[bGMx]

To come at this less authoritatively, I'm now an ms4 and had the attitude you had when I was in ms1. Very similar situation. I decided for the advice of sdn to buckle down and go hard, because the job of medicine means you have an ethical duty to do so by my measure. Every extra ounce of knowledge you have is going to help your patients. Now that I'm on the other side, I'm very glad that I studied hard and prioritized learning. You picked a hard field my brother or sister, and that means you have to step up to the challenge. You may view that as unfortunate now, but when you look back you'll likey be very pleased with your decision.

For reference, I took the Anki route which at its worst was 2,000 cards a day, and involved multiple weeks of putting aside the things I thought to be important. 3 years later I get to return to those things as a more competent clinician, which I would argue is more valuable to patients than a less competent clinician. No board failures, straight middle of the pack med student here!

 

[Eren.Yeager]

To come at this less authoritatively, I'm now an ms4 and had the attitude you had when I was in ms1. Very similar situation. I decided for the advice of sdn to buckle down and go hard, because the job of medicine means you have an ethical duty to do so by my measure. Every extra ounce of knowledge you have is going to help your patients. Now that I'm on the other side, I'm very glad that I studied hard and prioritized learning. You picked a hard field my brother or sister, and that means you have to step up to the challenge. You may view that as unfortunate now, but when you look back you'll likey be very pleased with your decision.

For reference, I took the Anki route which at its worst was 2,000 cards a day, and involved multiple weeks of putting aside the things I thought to be important. 3 years later I get to return to those things as a more competent clinician, which I would argue is more valuable to patients than a less competent clinician. No board failures, straight middle of the pack med student here!

Thank you - I'm so caught up trying to do everything possible so I was just thinking if I could side hustle at all 15 hours a week and have time for gym. I think I will take your advice and hone in on academics.

 

[bGMx]

Thank you - I'm so caught up trying to do everything possible so I was just thinking if I could side hustle at all 15 hours a week and have time for gym. I think I will take your advice and hone in on academics.

I was able to keep up with 1 hobby throughout, which was the gym. I went 3x a week even during my surgery clerkship. Also got into meal prepping. I would do Anki at the gym though, so it wasn't like I had any real separation between work and play. You can do it, you got this!