Longer hours = better education?

[humuhumu]

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Hey all, I'm gathering from this forum and other sources that there are striking differences in the hours that different schools expect their med students to put in during the clinical years. Some schools "coddle" their students, others seem to suck the lifeblood out of them, and the rest are somewhere between the extremes. And of course the particular rotation makes a huge difference too.

So, as someone hoping to start medical school next year, I'm wondering which of the following I should weight more heavily: student experience during the pre-clinical years, or student experience during the clinical years? Some clinical schedules sound a lot more appealing than others, and yet everyone ends up learning pretty much the same thing, right? Are students who do overnight calls q6 less prepared for residency than students who do them q4? Do you reach a point of diminishing returns?

 

[Mike59]

There's definitely a point of diminishing returns. Let me tell you, when you've been up >24 hrs straight and running around various of the floors of the hospital on call, you're not learning anymore, you're working. Attendings can explain stuff to you or teach you something in the OR when you're scrubbed and retracting (with hands trembling from being exhausted), but you're not going to retain any more than if you put in a 9-5 day and went home to relax and read.

Med school is really all about "exposure". Just see as much as you can without breaking your back and use residency to become good at mastering what you've been exposed to.

In terms of deciding where to end up, it's not like one school is on a "q 6" schedule and another "a q4". Rotations can very even at the same school depending on the service, how many students/residents they have and other factors. As far as I know, the medical school experience is pretty similar in the clinical years across the board with a good mix of long/short hours (e.g. OB vs. psych). I can't imagine anyone having a completely cushy or completely hellish year3 through all rotations.

 

[dynx]

in the clinical vs. pre-clinical argument there is no controversy....CLINICAL. Anybody who tells you otherwise is a complete idiot...or a second year. The pre-clinical years are a measure of YOUR EFFORT. Anybody can get ahold of the same resources and learn pre-clinical info to kill the boards.

Clinical experience is different, your patient population, how hard they push you, how much they expect of you and let you do are all key.
And I agee with the above poster, there is most definatly a point of diminishing returns. Everyone I know has had that day, or two, or three where they are dead on thier feet and just trying to make it through the day, you can not learn anything in that state other than how to push on...which in an of itself is avaluable skill. That said, a balance between killing the students and coddling them is ideal.