Incoming student, feeling a bit scared

[Piglet2020]

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Hey everyone, I’m an incoming MS1 and I’m feeling a bit scared about medical school. I just remember hearing things like: “oh you wont have time for anything when you’re in med school” and just general depressing things.

I know I’m going to work hard but I dont want to get to the point where everything in my life is medicine. When I wake up in the mornings sometimes, I ask myself whether the adcom chose the wrong person for this... I love learning about human conditions & this career, but I’m worried about mental health as well.

To tell you the truth, I will be moving away from everything that is familiar to me to a city (with apparently has lots of crime). I’ll be rooming with strangers and just starting a huge new direction in my life. Thinking about it almost gives me anxiety attacks. I feel like home is most comfortable and I’m going to miss it A LOT (I guess I’m the type to get homesick).

Anyone think they cant do it, but somehow managed to make it through?

 

[Osminog]

Don't be scared, Piglet:

 

[pawprint]

I'm a graduating M4 (next week woohoo!), the "you wont have time for anything" isn't true. I will say that the hardest part for me over the past 4 years was definitely adjusting at the beginning. The first few months you are trying to figure out which study habits work best for you to retain the information, its different for everyone and all these people are throwing a ton of resources at you and you feel like you need to use all of them but you don't. Figure out which ones work best, you will find your rhythm, and will have plenty of time for things outside of medical school. Even during 3rd year clerkships, its all possible.

I would make a list of things you aren't willing to sacrifice during medical school, even when times get tough, and stick to it. For me, I drove home and had dinner with my parents (1 hour away) 1x a week no matter what. I am not married or have a significant other, so I wanted to maintain my relationship with my parents and my younger brother who was still at home. Even if I had a big test coming up, didn't matter, I still had that 1 dinner a week with them. I also was unwilling to give up going to church during the first 2 years, even if I had a big test the next day. I also made time to exercise every day.

Go in with an open mind, set your boundaries, and find your rhythm. Best advice I can give.

 

[mw18]

Plenty of time for other things, but your schedule won't be wide open any more like it was in undergrad. You've got to chip away at the mountain of info pretty much daily in the preclinical years. You can take an afternoon/night off, no problem really. But two days in a row, three days in a row? You're going to get behind. You can recover from doing things, but the best policy is to set goals for work each day. Meet those goals. Chill the rest of the time. Take Friday or Saturday night off, and one of the weekend early afternoons too, at least (unless your test is Monday or something).

 

[poloboy]

I agree with the comments above. During the first few months of med school, it'll feel like you've been thrown into a place of crushing pressure and oppressive darkness. Quite frankly, it doesn't get any easier from there, but you just learn to adapt to the increasing difficulty and demand. You'll realize, by the end of your first year, how the heck you managed to keep up with all that study material and still have time to go to the gym, socialize, hook up, and sleep. If you've been accepted into a med school, it's because you're built for this life. It's the marathon we all decide to do when we're only trained for a 5K.

Now go enjoy the summer and have fire when school starts! You got this.

 

[Gurby]

So far M1 has pretty much felt like summer camp to me. There is a lot of studying to do, but a lot of fun/cool stuff, and you make time for what's important to you. I have some trepidation about 3rd year, but so far so good.

 

[NavyDoc23]

I second the idea of taking a day off. I would go to class Friday morning, get done at Noon, and wouldn’t study until at least noon on Saturday. Make time to do things you enjoy. If all you are doing is eating, studying, and sleeping, you are doing medical school wrong. I like to golf and I always got at least 2-3 rounds/week in in the first 2 years. 3rd year was a different story because your time is less flexible.

 

[Mr.Monster]

My Epidemiology professor shared this video with my class in undergrad because we were all graduating. Hope it can help you some!

 

[Oso]

I didn't think I could do it ... at multiple points during each year. Yet somehow I graduate in 12 days.

Believe in yourself, create a support system, try to keep in touch with your folks, work hard, make time to do things you enjoy, and remember to sleep.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

So far M1 has pretty much felt like summer camp to me. There is a lot of studying to do, but a lot of fun/cool stuff, and you make time for what's important to you. I have some trepidation about 3rd year, but so far so good.

I would agree with this. I think unless you spent undergrad doing 12 credits a semester and went away every weekend the “horrors” of med school is largely overblown.

Personally, I’ve had more free time than ugrad due to the large amount of optional components in the curriculum.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Redpancreas]

I'm a graduating M4 (next week woohoo!), the "you wont have time for anything" isn't true. I will say that the hardest part for me over the past 4 years was definitely adjusting at the beginning. The first few months you are trying to figure out which study habits work best for you to retain the information, its different for everyone and all these people are throwing a ton of resources at you and you feel like you need to use all of them but you don't. Figure out which ones work best, you will find your rhythm, and will have plenty of time for things outside of medical school. Even during 3rd year clerkships, its all possible.

I would make a list of things you aren't willing to sacrifice during medical school, even when times get tough, and stick to it. For me, I drove home and had dinner with my parents (1 hour away) 1x a week no matter what. I am not married or have a significant other, so I wanted to maintain my relationship with my parents and my younger brother who was still at home. Even if I had a big test coming up, didn't matter, I still had that 1 dinner a week with them. I also was unwilling to give up going to church during the first 2 years, even if I had a big test the next day. I also made time to exercise every day.

Go in with an open mind, set your boundaries, and find your rhythm. Best advice I can give.

Sounds like someone has their priorities straight.

 

[Poit]

Ending M3 and the hype is overblown. Med school is very doable. I'd almost go so far as to say that it isn't difficult. This said, I have a great memory and go to a P/F school.

 

[machete fred]

I would agree with this. I think unless you spent undergrad doing 12 credits a semester and went away every weekend the “horrors” of med school is largely overblown.

Personally, I’ve had more free time than ugrad due to the large amount of optional components in the curriculum.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

I did 12 credit hours a semester in undergrad and never studied on the weekend and M1 has been super manageable. That being said, I think taking gap years really helped me with time management because I just see med school as another 9-5 job, albeit one that you have to take work home with you sometimes.

 

[WhittyPsyche]

I did 12 credit hours a semester in undergrad and never studied on the weekend and M1 has been super manageable. That being said, I think taking gap years really helped me with time management because I just see med school as another 9-5 job, albeit one that you have to take work home with you sometimes.

This is real. It seems the common thread with others I’ve talked to that also find it super manageable. Gap year/work history, and treating med school as a job. Hate to say it, but seems like a maturity level issue.

Also the material I find challenging has always been upper level physics and math based topics. The content in med school, for me, all easily digestible. So that may be a difference for people that don’t do well with reading/memory based material.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Goro]

Hey everyone, I’m an incoming MS1 and I’m feeling a bit scared about medical school. I just remember hearing things like: “oh you wont have time for anything when you’re in med school” and just general depressing things.

I know I’m going to work hard but I dont want to get to the point where everything in my life is medicine. When I wake up in the mornings sometimes, I ask myself whether the adcom chose the wrong person for this... I love learning about human conditions & this career, but I’m worried about mental health as well.

To tell you the truth, I will be moving away from everything that is familiar to me to a city (with apparently has lots of crime). I’ll be rooming with strangers and just starting a huge new direction in my life. Thinking about it almost gives me anxiety attacks. I feel like home is most comfortable and I’m going to miss it A LOT (I guess I’m the type to get homesick).

Anyone think they cant do it, but somehow managed to make it through?

All new endeavors are fraught with anxiety...you'll be fine.

And congrats on the accept!
👍👍👍😍😍😍

Now go read this:
Goro's Guide to Success in Medical School (2017 edition)

 

[Anicetus]

Depends on your goals and your overall ability to memorize. It could be easy as some gifted students are alluding to above or it could be the hardest thing you’ve ever done if you haven’t ever been good at memorizing and are shooting for derm.

For me personally i never have been good at memorizing mass amounts of detail so I put 10 hours of studying daily aside from eating etc. banned my fb account and only used YouTube for non lyrical music playlists to get the grades I got (average to above average). For some students, they could easily get my grades with half as much time put in. Some students put in half as much time and failed/got below average. It really just depends on you so personally I think it’s always a waste to ask people on SDN because some people who aren’t as gifted are led astray and fail out when they are told to exercise and cook everyday if that is taking up too much time for their studying. Just be real with yourself, you will know how much time you can put aside for life things and how much to sacrifice to reach your residency goals.

 

[Ho0v-man]

Depends on your goals and your overall ability to memorize. It could be easy as some gifted students are alluding to above or it could be the hardest thing you’ve ever done if you haven’t ever been good at memorizing and are shooting for derm.

For me personally i never have been good at memorizing mass amounts of detail so I put 10 hours of studying daily aside from eating etc. banned my fb account and only used YouTube for non lyrical music playlists to get the grades I got (average to above average). For some students, they could easily get my grades with half as much time put in. Some students put in half as much time and failed/got below average. It really just depends on you so personally I think it’s always a waste to ask people on SDN because some people who aren’t as gifted are led astray and fail out when they are told to exercise and cook everyday if that is taking up too much time for their studying. Just be real with yourself, you will know how much time you can put aside for life things and how much to sacrifice to reach your residency goals.

This is probably the most relatable post in this thread for me. Reading sdn prior to matriculation made me think i could just use FA, sketchy, pathoma, and just spend the rest of my time working out and enjoying this free time everyone keeps talking about.

Instead, i just spend longer and longer studying for diminishing returns. Using the above resources alone is a great way to barely pass classes with some luck. I have to spend most of my time burning through lectures and memorizing powerpoints in between mandatory time sucks put forth for reasons no one can explain. Exercise and hobbies fall by the wayside most of the time. I dont know a single person like the people above. The only people i know who have “plenty of time” are really stressed out right now because they’re walking into finals with little/no buffer.

Ive gotten some good info from the site about resources and whatnot but posts like most of the ones in this thread have been very unrelatable in my experience.

 

[Eye-eye]

Depends on your goals and your overall ability to memorize. It could be easy as some gifted students are alluding to above or it could be the hardest thing you’ve ever done if you haven’t ever been good at memorizing and are shooting for derm.

For me personally i never have been good at memorizing mass amounts of detail so I put 10 hours of studying daily aside from eating etc. banned my fb account and only used YouTube for non lyrical music playlists to get the grades I got (average to above average). For some students, they could easily get my grades with half as much time put in. Some students put in half as much time and failed/got below average. It really just depends on you so personally I think it’s always a waste to ask people on SDN because some people who aren’t as gifted are led astray and fail out when they are told to exercise and cook everyday if that is taking up too much time for their studying. Just be real with yourself, you will know how much time you can put aside for life things and how much to sacrifice to reach your residency goals.

Agree 100% with this. The goals aspect is especially important - in some classes I could see exactly how clinically relevant the material was and pushed myself extremely hard, getting above average on just about every component of every test. In other courses, the materials was about as far removed from the clinic as you can get - so I skated by, learning what could actually matter to patients one day and not how many subunits were in each enzyme, and passed at 1-2 SDs below the mean. If it's P/F, you can do either one and be fine; it's just up to your priorities. And then, of course, there's Step I. If you want to go into ortho or neurosurg, then you're going to study your ass off for the test and probably just about every test before it, even if you don't care about the material, because it might be on the Step and you want to learn it well enough the first time that you can recall it when studying again for Step later down the road. If you're going family med, you can probably just focus on what's going to heal your patients down the road and not stress yourself too much about a lot of the other stuff. Also depending on your abilities, of course.

 

[honey0102]

Hey everyone, I’m an incoming MS1 and I’m feeling a bit scared about medical school. I just remember hearing things like: “oh you wont have time for anything when you’re in med school” and just general depressing things.

I know I’m going to work hard but I dont want to get to the point where everything in my life is medicine. When I wake up in the mornings sometimes, I ask myself whether the adcom chose the wrong person for this... I love learning about human conditions & this career, but I’m worried about mental health as well.

To tell you the truth, I will be moving away from everything that is familiar to me to a city (with apparently has lots of crime). I’ll be rooming with strangers and just starting a huge new direction in my life. Thinking about it almost gives me anxiety attacks. I feel like home is most comfortable and I’m going to miss it A LOT (I guess I’m the type to get homesick).

Anyone think they cant do it, but somehow managed to make it through?

I was in a similar situation one year ago. I also moved to another state, away from anyone I knew at all, to a city I hadn't been to much before.
It is true that medical school is a lot of work, more than ever before. There will be, at first a learning curve. But it's possible to overcome it. Immerse yourself in your new school. Go to events, go to class at least in the beginning-you will make friends. If your school has a mentoring program take part in it, knowing M2's can be really valuable as they have good study tips.
We make time for things in med school. In fact, I think I actually became more fun-loving in medical school than in undergrad-I met some really awesome people here who knew the value of hard work, but also knew when to have fun and let loose-and they instilled that in me too. We definitely get together and chill.