MD Incoming MS1, tips for pre-clerkship years

[allthewayup96]

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Hi everyone! I will be an incoming MS1 next year.

I was wondering if any current med students could give me some tips on how to be successful during the pre-clerkship years.

Topics include: best strategies to study for particularly difficult classes (although all of medschool is difficult, I realize), best resources to use for these classes (besides syllabi) and STEP 1, when to start thinking about step 1, finding research/when to start thinking about starting research, good physicians to definitely shadow, what you wish you knew going into med school, things you would change looking in hindsight, and whatever else you may think is helpful to know going in!

I am grateful for all of the help the SDN community has provided me with already!! It is really encouraging to know that there are a bunch of students/faculty out there more than willing to impart advice on those of us who are naive, confused, and seeking out help. Again, thanks in advance! 🙂

 

[masaraksh]

Look into neurosurgery ASAP, don’t look back.

 

[zurc2014]

Have you taken anatomy in undergrad?

 

[jcorpsmanMD]

I'm barely an M1 so my view on this is fresh I suppose, first off, I'd suggest whatever study plan you choose, stick with it. Unless you're doing terribly do not be trying to use different resources every other day or completely changing the way you study from week to week. What I do recommend though is FLEXIBILITY with your studying, sounds silly after telling you to stick with your study plan, but do not be afraid to study SLIGHTLY different from subject to subject. Every subject might require you to slightly tweak your studying, for example, I started using Anki from the beginning and it took me about 1-2 months to really get it down and maximize my studying with it but when we started doing Micro I began watching some SketchyMicro vids as well and realized I was not retaining much just watching the videos and correlating it to my powerpoints (honestly so much time scrolling up and down looking for stuff).. so I began watching SketchyMicro vids and taking notes to help maximize retention, and now when I go through my Anki cards I just look at my notes, etc. has helped me a lot, and it took me a minute to get out of the "DO NOT WRITE NOTES BC THEY ARE LOW YIELD MENTALITY" Whether you decide to use Anki or not, I'd recommend you use a pre-made deck and just supplement with your own cards when you feel like something is missing or you want to see a question on a specific topic more than once, saves you a lot of time studying which you can use for other things. Also, I'm glad I ended up doing this my second block but I wish somebody would have told me about it my first block, use Anki to study ANATOMY. Whatever your structure list may be, make Anki cards for all of your structures (which can take time, but I split it up with 3 others)..this has been GOLD for me. I'm constantly studying anatomy everyday, so when my practical is around the corner I do not have to cram 80% of the structures in a couple nights..I just sit back and relax.

Sorry for writing so much, I'm not great with brevity. Lastly though.. if you do not do so hot on your first exam(s), DO NOT be hard on yourself. I made this mistake and then I was definitely down on myself for a bit even though I tried to convince myself not to be. I was out of school for a year and I expected that because I was studying mindlessly all day that I'd do well, I was WRONG. I did much better my second exam(s) by slightly tweaking my studying and I studied less, give yourself time to adjust to medical school (and the fire hose of information, knowing what is important, whats not, etc.), may'be you'll adjust well off the bat and do well on your exams which is great but if you don't.. that is okay too. When it comes to research and stuff, I'm not sure what the best plan is but I know I've had classmates start shadowing, and I recently just reached out to a Urologist to begin shadowing and I am meeting up with a 4th year this week to start doing some chart reviews (I've heard this is the best way to dip your toes into research at medical school).

If you have any questions or want me to clarify anything, let me know. Again, my apologies for the lengthy response.


EDIT: In regards to Step 1, if you use the Zanki deck along your courses, all the cards are basically taken out of First Aid, Pathoma, Costanzo, etc. (STEP 1 resources). I started Immuno / Micro this block and I've began using my FA 2017, annotating and trying to learn all of the "high yield" material. I like it a lot, especially annotating extra information to help some things make more sense in the book (as it is obviously very condensed).

 

[allthewayup96]

Have you taken anatomy in undergrad?

yeah i have taken it!

 

[Coupd'Cat]

learn how you learn. it's supposed to suck sometimes & that's no rap on you.

 

[allthewayup96]

I'm barely an M1 so my view on this is fresh I suppose, first off, I'd suggest whatever study plan you choose, stick with it. Unless you're doing terribly do not be trying to use different resources every other day or completely changing the way you study from week to week. What I do recommend though is FLEXIBILITY with your studying, sounds silly after telling you to stick with your study plan, but do not be afraid to study SLIGHTLY different from subject to subject. Every subject might require you to slightly tweak your studying, for example, I started using Anki from the beginning and it took me about 1-2 months to really get it down and maximize my studying with it but when we started doing Micro I began watching some SketchyMicro vids as well and realized I was not retaining much just watching the videos and correlating it to my powerpoints (honestly so much time scrolling up and down looking for stuff).. so I began watching SketchyMicro vids and taking notes to help maximize retention, and now when I go through my Anki cards I just look at my notes, etc. has helped me a lot, and it took me a minute to get out of the "DO NOT WRITE NOTES BC THEY ARE LOW YIELD MENTALITY" Whether you decide to use Anki or not, I'd recommend you use a pre-made deck and just supplement with your own cards when you feel like something is missing or you want to see a question on a specific topic more than once, saves you a lot of time studying which you can use for other things. Also, I'm glad I ended up doing this my second block but I wish somebody would have told me about it my first block, use Anki to study ANATOMY. Whatever your structure list may be, make Anki cards for all of your structures (which can take time, but I split it up with 3 others)..this has been GOLD for me. I'm constantly studying anatomy everyday, so when my practical is around the corner I do not have to cram 80% of the structures in a couple nights..I just sit back and relax.

Sorry for writing so much, I'm not great with brevity. Lastly though.. if you do not do so hot on your first exam(s), DO NOT be hard on yourself. I made this mistake and then I was definitely down on myself for a bit even though I tried to convince myself not to be. I was out of school for a year and I expected that because I was studying mindlessly all day that I'd do well, I was WRONG. I did much better my second exam(s) by slightly tweaking my studying and I studied less, give yourself time to adjust to medical school (and the fire hose of information, knowing what is important, whats not, etc.), may'be you'll adjust well off the bat and do well on your exams which is great but if you don't.. that is okay too. When it comes to research and stuff, I'm not sure what the best plan is but I know I've had classmates start shadowing, and I recently just reached out to a Urologist to begin shadowing and I am meeting up with a 4th year this week to start doing some chart reviews (I've heard this is the best way to dip your toes into research at medical school).

If you have any questions or want me to clarify anything, let me know. Again, my apologies for the lengthy response.


EDIT: In regards to Step 1, if you use the Zanki deck along your courses, all the cards are basically taken out of First Aid, Pathoma, Costanzo, etc. (STEP 1 resources). I started Immuno / Micro this block and I've began using my FA 2017, annotating and trying to learn all of the "high yield" material. I like it a lot, especially annotating extra information to help some things make more sense in the book (as it is obviously very condensed).

thanks so much for all of the help man, the length was definitely worth the read!!

im kind of an average student right now which is absolutely fine, but i wanted to go into med school with a priority on maximizing my learning/memorizing within the limited amount of time i will have but also having time to do fun stuff (aka balancing work and play)

i'm reading SDN to come up with some sort of study schedule that is pretty time/learning efficient but is also flexible so that i can tweak the way i study from class to class, but I am also a "big-picture/understand the why and then add in the details" type of person

so far, from scanning SDN i have gathered this understanding:

-first pass: go through lecture slowly and purposefully and make barebones skeleton notes (focus here is to understand the larger processes/bigger picture first before diving into details)
-second pass: go through syllabus/textbook but add details this time and improve understanding of big picture
-third pass: use anki to commit details/info to memory (for step relevant classes use Zanki alongside courses so that i can do little by little each day and not have to cram the thousands of cards during step prep)
-fourth pass: focus on details that i am not understanding (write down on cheat sheet for these harder details to review the morning of the exam)

There is my naive, limited understanding of what I read on SDN, if you all could critique it and let me know if this high yield/time efficient/learning efficient, i would appreciate it greatly! if you could make any edits of how to use my time/change my study schedule for the better that would be great 🙂

 

[allthewayup96]

learn how you learn. it's supposed to suck sometimes & that's no rap on you.

is there anything else i can do to understand how i learn? so far i have been pretty concious of what works and what doesnt for me in class, i think im more of a big picture learner and when i understand the why behind things, they make more sense to me and stick with me, also i like condensed infographics and organized flowcharts of how things are related to each other

 

[Coupd'Cat]

is there anything else i can do to understand how i learn? so far i have been pretty concious of what works and what doesnt for me in class, i think im more of a big picture learner and when i understand the why behind things, they make more sense to me and stick with me, also i like condensed infographics and organized flowcharts of how things are related to each other

Wish I could give you a straight answer, but unfortunately it took a while for me to figure that out as well. Being open to experimenting and trying something new when your method isn't working helps. I moved from note-taking/reviewing to flashcards for pre-clinical years. If I could go back, I probably would have bought First Aid earlier on in MS2 year and annotated it during lectures to save some stress during Step Studying. People at my institution also love Pathoma, SketchyMicro, and SketchyPharm for online review videos.

Big picture learning came more into play for clinical years. I dumped flashcards completely and turned to writing full paragraphs organized by disease, presentation, risk factors, work-up, and management and reviewing these mini-textbooks (truly mini--the longest was probably only 14 pages, for Medicine), annotating them with notes from UWorld questions & notes about patients I met during my rotations. Made a huge difference in my shelf scores. Online MedEd is also a favorite among my peers for MS3 year.

 

[zurc2014]

yeah i have taken it!

Good. This will help a ton with anatomy. Even if it has been a while, it will come back to you quickly.