I'm starting a program with a one-year preclinical soon. What can I expect?

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Maybedoc1

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Hello.

I'll be starting my program in about 2 weeks and my class will be the first under a new curriculum. The first year will be a 52 week preclinical with 2 weeks off in December and 1 week off in April. Since we will be the first class to be doing this, I'm not able to ask upperclassmen about their experience. There's obviously a TON of information to cover, so I'm wondering how it is all done and what it's like? It kind of blows my mind that you can cover all of this information in just a year tbh. I'm guessing that it'll be very intense, but other schools do it so it is possible.

Thanks
 
No experience here but that is pretty cool. Good luck!
 
Hey! I go to a school with a one-year preclinical curriculum. There are pros and cons to the system, and it will be very school dependent. At my institution, we were given a lot of free time outside of lecture to digest material and learn using our own methods. We had a PBL-like session from 8-10 every MWF, followed by 2 hours of non-mandatory lecture from 10-12 after on those days. I found it nice because it gave me a lot of time to learn things on my own, but at the same time the curriculum did leave out some things I've had to go back and learn on my own time. I think we learned the basics of what we needed to know for clinical year, and it gave a good foundation to build on the fundamental concepts learned during our preclinicals. It's definitely hard work and very self-directed, but I have no regrets about it and in my experience has been very positive. We are also a P/F school for our preclinical year, and I think that also took a lot of pressure off needing to learn every minute detail the first time around. I hope this helps!
 
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