Med school not as bad as everyone says?

[Detailsmatter]

People study differently...I am one of those who study 12 hours a day...to rank among top 10 of my class...this by no means I am smart...I compensate for being average by spending more time on study...sorry not everyone is as smart as you so just because you don’t think you need to study 12 hours does not mean others are not efficient...I assume you rank among the top of your class?

I assume this was directed at me. Never said everyone who can’t fit all their studying in 8-10 hours a day is inefficient. I said most people who study in excess of that time from what I’ve seen usually are inefficient. Just because you start studying at 8am and finish 10pm doesn’t mean you studied 14 hours. It’s usually much less than that because most ppl are inefficient or take breaks, are on their phone etc. and I specifically said I’m not the tip top of my class. I score consistently in the 90s-95s and that’s good for me. I personally don’t think it’s worth studying more for a marginal difference but to each their own. And truly, maybe it’s that I’m out of touch with others, but I truly don’t believe that anyone could be realistically studying for their classes 12 hours a day most days of the week. I guess it’s possible but i can only imagine it’s rare. Like I’m talking tracking the amount of time you ACTUALLY study and it being 12 hours. Like I said, maybe I’m just out of touch but I just really can’t see that being common. And like I said in the other posts, I respect ppl who need to study that much and do it. I don’t have the sanity to do it

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[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm also not convinced that someone who studies ">10 hours a day" is necessarily going to do better than someone who studies 4 hours a day, or even much better than if that same person studied 4 hours a day. I guess I just really couldn't see myself studying that much every day but maybe people really are that much more dedicated than me. Maybe I'm biased, but I firmly believe most people couldn't accurately gauge how long they really studied, and don't necessarily study efficiently.

I use the pomodoro method. Makes it fairly easy to stay focused and keep track of how long you're studying. It also makes it more efficient, so you don't have to study for as long.

 

[slowthai]

Honestly, I've always found the talk of the number of hours one studies kind of irrelevant. What is your actual workload? As in, from butt to chair, what are you covering in the time that you study? How much are you retaining from those hours that you've put in? The answer to these questions will determine how efficient you are.

The quality of the time that you put in is so much more important than sticking to an arbitrary number of 6 hours a day or whatever.

I've said it before that my workload determines the amount of time I study, not the other way around. If what I'm doing on a given day requires 8 hours of studying, then I'll do 8 hours. If it requires 2 hours, then I'll do 2 hours. There's no guilt about not studying more; I've done what's required, end of story.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I've said it before that my workload determines the amount of time I study, not the other way around. If what I'm doing on a given day requires 8 hours of studying, then I'll do 8 hours. If it requires 2 hours, then I'll do 2 hours. There's no guilt about not studying more; I've done what's required, end of story.

Same. It is much nicer to have a set amount of stuff to do versus a set amount of time to do stuff. I also get more done. There is a tendency to just cruise until the time is up because you know you gotta be there anyway.

 

[RunsOnCaffeine]

Yea, I had some chill weeks/months during med school no doubt. Second half of first year to first half of second year wasn't terrible. On weekends where I didn't have tests, would get out n about with friends/classmates. Went dancing most weeks. Had time for beverages often. But, I also knew when crutch time was and how to get stuff done, so I could turn a 180 and study like mad for a week where all tests lined up at the same time. On rotations, I found the balance between working my ass off, and making the most of my days off. It really is all about balance. Med school was tough no doubt, at least for me, but I had a good time fairly often.

People are different though. I had a couple brilliant classmates who studied ALL the time (and did very well), I also had a couple brilliant classmates who studied occasionally (and still did almost as well). I had classmates who studied all the time and barely passed, and classmates who studied all the time to reach their dreams and make up for any deficit in raw intelligence. Med school is in large part what you make of it for the type of person you are. Not every person is the same, and nobody is going to have the same experience in med school.

If you get into the field you want to with the amount of work you put in, and have a good time in the process, good on you. Never feel like you have to feel like you're struggling all the time, but just be aware there are people that do all 4 years, so you're a lucky (and probably gifted) one, so use your gift for some good.

 

[IMG69]

I kind of agree with you OP, all my friends who study 8+ hours a day really struggle at some point mentally regardless of their grades, some of them are literally top of the class while others manage to get 10th decile. I myself study 2-3 hours a day (always have since MS1) and am in the top quartile and i'm content with that.

I think there's a lot of factors to take into account, attention span, efficacy, resources used, overall well-being and mentality. The biggest factor is probably innate ability to understand and pick things up, you probably won't ever be able to judge this until you start rotations and see students asking attendings to repeat things several times or show them the technique multiple times etc because in pre-clinical years everyone lies about time spent studying etc.

Discipline and resourcefulness are probably the other two most important things, i'm very lazy but also very pragmatic which is why I constantly ask which resource is best/what to do etc etc. I think this is important because for example I have my 16k cards for step 2/MS3 but my best mate has 410 pages of notes for peds alone.. he just blindly follows what the school says, he passes but gets destroyed by burnout. Discipline is the other thing that matters, motivation comes and goes but you've gotta be disciplined and stick to your plan. There's a big difference in someone studying 8 hours periodically vs someone like myself who literally does 2-3 hours everyday no matter what. I suppose you could look at total hours then.

Just gotta find what works for you and if it's draining you step back and think about where you could improve something idk half hour break to go for a run/exercise.

 

[deleted889094]

I'm in the same boat as OP, although I attribute it more to enjoying the material a lot so I'm more engaged when I study. A lot of classmates complain about most of what we learn. Makes me wonder why they're even here.

But since this is a terminal degree of higher education, maybe we shouldn't be surprised that there's a normal distribution of how people do. I think it's a hot topic because struggling academically is a novel experience for many

 

[Mass Effect]

That’s a given. Just like every other opinion

It's actually not always a given. On a board where there's a post a few threads down about someone fearing being dismissed, you can never go wrong adding that disclaimer in a thread about med school tests being "boring."

 

[Detailsmatter]

It's actually not always a given. On a board where there's a post a few threads down about someone fearing being dismissed, you can never go wrong adding that disclaimer in a thread about med school tests being "boring."

then when that happens that persons a dick

 

[Mass Effect]

then when that happens that persons a dick

Huh? That did happen, in this thread. The first post talks about how boring med school tests are. Meanwhile, on the forum, there is a thread about dismissal. I'm just saying, adding that disclaimer is never a bad thing, even if it's assumed.

 

[Detailsmatter]

Huh? That did happen, in this thread. The first post talks about how boring med school tests are. Meanwhile, on the forum, there is a thread about dismissal. I'm just saying, adding that disclaimer is never a bad thing, even if it's assumed.

Dude this a whole thread just dedicated to this. I thought you meant like on a thread about someone being dismissed having someone reply that med school is easy. I see no issue with this thread. No ones talking down to others or implying their stupid etc. just ppl talking about the realities of med school for them. To your point, I guess you can add the disclaimer but tbh seems pretty self evident unless you’re actively putting others down for studying more than you

 

[deleted889094]

Huh? That did happen, in this thread. The first post talks about how boring med school tests are. Meanwhile, on the forum, there is a thread about dismissal. I'm just saying, adding that disclaimer is never a bad thing, even if it's assumed.

Maybe. But it's also important for readers to be able to recognize an opinion when they read one without being blatantly told.

 

[Mass Effect]

Dude this a whole thread just dedicated to this. I thought you meant like on a thread about someone being dismissed having someone reply that med school is easy. I see no issue with this thread. No ones talking down to others or implying their stupid etc. just ppl talking about the realities of med school for them. To your point, I guess you can add the disclaimer but tbh seems pretty self evident unless you’re actively putting others down for studying more than you

As some did (i.e. if they don't have mental health issues, they don't need to study more).

 

[Detailsmatter]

As some did (i.e. if they don't have mental health issues, they don't need to study more).

Lol good job taking it out of context and manipulating it. If you say someone needs to study more how is that putting them down. It’s a fact. I’m not saying: if they need to study more it’s that they’re stupid and inferior to me. Get a grip lol

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Let’s keep the thread on topic please.

 

[Mass Effect]

Lol good job taking it out of context and manipulating it. If you say someone needs to study more how is that putting them down. It’s a fact. I’m not saying: if they need to study more it’s that they’re stupid and inferior to me. Get a grip lo

It isn't out of context nor is it manipulated. Look, you can say whatever you like. I have no skin in the game. I'm an attending. I just speak up every now and again when people turn their experience into what others should or should not expect which the mental health statement did. Hard to believe me simply adding an "in my experience" disclaimer caused a problem.

 

[deleted1079620]

Honestly, I've always found the talk of the number of hours one studies kind of irrelevant. What is your actual workload? As in, from butt to chair, what are you covering in the time that you study? How much are you retaining from those hours that you've put in? The answer to these questions will determine how efficient you are.

The quality of the time that you put in is so much more important than sticking to an arbitrary number of 6 hours a day or whatever.

I've said it before that my workload determines the amount of time I study, not the other way around. If what I'm doing on a given day requires 8 hours of studying, then I'll do 8 hours. If it requires 2 hours, then I'll do 2 hours. There's no guilt about not studying more; I've done what's required, end of story.

Can you elaborate a little on “workload determining study time”? I sometimes struggle with knowing when I’m “done” for the day...there is always one more resource I could look at, something else I could read, or another practice problem set I could do. I usually just go until I either feel brain fried or until I run upon exam day. I’m doing very well in my classes but my method isn’t sustainable, and I don’t know how to fix it.

 

[Detailsmatter]

Can you elaborate a little on “workload determining study time”? I sometimes struggle with knowing when I’m “done” for the day...there is always one more resource I could look at, something else I could read, or another practice problem set I could do. I usually just go until I either feel brain fried or until I run upon exam day. I’m doing very well in my classes but my method isn’t sustainable, and I don’t know how to fix it.

I think this brings up a great point. I think it’s beneficial for ppl to take a task oriented approach. Divide up all the things you need to do for an exam( all the lectures, BnB videos, anki etc whatever it is that you use) and set an equal amount of tasks for every day leading up to the exam. That way no matter how long it takes you get what you need done. Like you mention, there’s always gonna be something more you can do. But if you do it this way you’re setting goals for what you want to accomplish and once you finish them, you know you’re done for the day and can just relax and do whatever it is you feel like doing

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Can you elaborate a little on “workload determining study time”? I sometimes struggle with knowing when I’m “done” for the day...there is always one more resource I could look at, something else I could read, or another practice problem set I could do. I usually just go until I either feel brain fried or until I run upon exam day. I’m doing very well in my classes but my method isn’t sustainable, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Look at your schedule for the block and then you just set a to do list for each day. You can either do it all at the beginning of the module or just as you go. I used a system that uploaded my lecture slides to my calendar so I could check stuff off as I went. So like each day I would run through the slides for the lectures we had. Then I’d do my anki and like 10-20 questions.

 

[deleted1079620]

Ok, maybe my questions wasn’t completely clear. I do all that, but I don’t always feel ready for exams, so I feel like I need to do more. Maybe it’s because I just finished my first semester, but I haven’t yet hit the point where I know that X amount of work results in X grade and I’m satisfied with that result. I never walk into an exam feeling like I’m prepared enough to make an A, or whatever. When I get my scores back it’s always a surprise, lol.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Ok, maybe my questions wasn’t completely clear. I do all that, but I don’t always feel ready for exams, so I feel like I need to do more. Maybe it’s because I just finished my first semester, but I haven’t yet hit the point where I know that X amount of work results in X grade and I’m satisfied with that result. I never walk into an exam feeling like I’m prepared enough to make an A, or whatever. When I get my scores back it’s always a surprise, lol.

Yeah that’s just med school. You get used to it. There’s literally always more you could learn. At some point you just learn to be happy with whatever you get based on your level of effort.

 

[Detailsmatter]

Ok, maybe my questions wasn’t completely clear. I do all that, but I don’t always feel ready for exams, so I feel like I need to do more. Maybe it’s because I just finished my first semester, but I haven’t yet hit the point where I know that X amount of work results in X grade and I’m satisfied with that result. I never walk into an exam feeling like I’m prepared enough to make an A, or whatever. When I get my scores back it’s always a surprise, lol.

I get you now. I don’t think this is something we can answer for you. You have to keep going and getting experience and it’ll click with you what works. It can be helpful to keep track of all the tasks you get done so you can correlate what you did to prepare with how the exams went. Eventually you’ll know what resources you have to go through to get the grades you want. For example for me after first semester I realized that as long as I do relevant BnB/sketchy/pathoma, do all the anki for each video, skim the lectures for anything I don’t know, and do USMLE Rx questions that I’ll do well on the exams. So now that’s the stuff I focus on

 

[slowthai]

Ok, maybe my questions wasn’t completely clear. I do all that, but I don’t always feel ready for exams, so I feel like I need to do more. Maybe it’s because I just finished my first semester, but I haven’t yet hit the point where I know that X amount of work results in X grade and I’m satisfied with that result. I never walk into an exam feeling like I’m prepared enough to make an A, or whatever. When I get my scores back it’s always a surprise, lol.

I agree completely with everything that the two previous posters said. I've got nothing to add, lol

 

[slowthai]

Can you elaborate a little on “workload determining study time”? I sometimes struggle with knowing when I’m “done” for the day...there is always one more resource I could look at, something else I could read, or another practice problem set I could do. I usually just go until I either feel brain fried or until I run upon exam day. I’m doing very well in my classes but my method isn’t sustainable, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Actually, what do you do on a typical day? I just want to know so that we can maybe help you so that you can make your study method sustainable.

 

[deleted1079620]

So basically I need to set up an n=1 experiment this semester...list all the stuff I’m doing, then reflect after exams as to whether I over or understudied, and titrate accordingly.

 

[datboi_58]

I kind of agree with you OP, all my friends who study 8+ hours a day really struggle at some point mentally regardless of their grades, some of them are literally top of the class while others manage to get 10th decile. I myself study 2-3 hours a day (always have since MS1) and am in the top quartile and i'm content with that.

I think there's a lot of factors to take into account, attention span, efficacy, resources used, overall well-being and mentality. The biggest factor is probably innate ability to understand and pick things up, you probably won't ever be able to judge this until you start rotations and see students asking attendings to repeat things several times or show them the technique multiple times etc because in pre-clinical years everyone lies about time spent studying etc.

Discipline and resourcefulness are probably the other two most important things, i'm very lazy but also very pragmatic which is why I constantly ask which resource is best/what to do etc etc. I think this is important because for example I have my 16k cards for step 2/MS3 but my best mate has 410 pages of notes for peds alone.. he just blindly follows what the school says, he passes but gets destroyed by burnout. Discipline is the other thing that matters, motivation comes and goes but you've gotta be disciplined and stick to your plan. There's a big difference in someone studying 8 hours periodically vs someone like myself who literally does 2-3 hours everyday no matter what. I suppose you could look at total hours then.

Just gotta find what works for you and if it's draining you step back and think about where you could improve something idk half hour break to go for a run/exercise.

You study 2-3 hours a day? So conservatively, you spend at max 21 hours in a 7 day week on med school?

 

[deleted1079620]

Actually, what do you do on a typical day? I just want to know so that we can maybe help you so that you can make your study method sustainable.

1. Pre-lecture: look at slides for like 10 min to get an idea of what we’re talking about
2. Watch lecture & take notes (100% professor written exams). I can usually do this on 1.6-2x speed, I don’t attend anything in person that’s not mandatory.
3. BnB + cheesy lightyear for relevant videos that correlate with class material (or sketchy if it’s micro/pharm)
4. Practice questions on the weekends, and look over class notes for stuff not covered in BnB. If I’m still confused on something physiology related I’ll read that chapter in Costanzo.

So, looking at all this, I’m always confident if I get through this in a week I’ll pass, no problem. It’s knowing when I’m good enough for a higher grade that’s an issue (we’re graded, ranked after 2nd year). Exams every two weeks, started systems in November.

Systems are all structured in the same order: anatomy, embryo, physiology, immunology, microbiology, pharm, some basic path...we go through all systems in second year too focusing on in depth pathology. They throw in some clinically relevant PBL type stuff every week too. Blocks are 4 weeks.

 

[ThatSerb]

It depends what you want....my personal experience is kind of similar to yours. I studied about 6 hours a day for m1/m2. Life got tough studying for Step 1 and doing school but that was definitely the worst of it so far. But, compared to undergrad I feel the stress is less BUT, if you want a competitive specialty...things start being different. For competitive specialties you need to worry about being ranked well in your class, having research/pubs, extracurriculars, building relationships with attnedings in your field of interest. That stuff can be very time consuming. Thankfully, that wasn't me M1/M2 so I felt pretty good about things, like you do! Also, I'm just an average joe...just trying to pass. For the gunners, it becomes more stressful.

what do you consider to be the competitive specialties?

 

[Detailsmatter]

1. Pre-lecture: look at slides for like 10 min to get an idea of what we’re talking about
2. Watch lecture & take notes (100% professor written exams). I can usually do this on 1.6-2x speed, I don’t attend anything in person that’s not mandatory.
3. BnB + cheesy lightyear for relevant videos that correlate with class material (or sketchy if it’s micro/pharm)
4. Practice questions on the weekends, and look over class notes for stuff not covered in BnB. If I’m still confused on something physiology related I’ll read that chapter in Costanzo.

So, looking at all this, I’m always confident if I get through this in a week I’ll pass, no problem. It’s knowing when I’m good enough for a higher grade that’s an issue (we’re graded, ranked after 2nd year).

I think that’s pretty solid. One thing that I would try if were you would be to do the boards resources before the in house lectures. It’s a bit of a pain finding out which boards resource videos are relevant since you haven’t gone through the lecture, but for the most part it shouldn’t be too bad. I used to go through in house first but I noticed that if I did the boards resources first, then the anki based off that, I was able to focus better during the in house lectures and was able to make note of the things that weren’t covered by anki/boards resources. When I did in house first I was getting upper 80s low 90s consistently but doing it this way got me over that hump and I’m now in the 90s and a good bit of the time above a 95. I also noticed my performance on qbanks increased too. I think it’s worth a shot to try this out and see how you do

 

[deleted1079620]

I think that’s pretty solid. One thing that I would try if were you would be to do the boards resources before the in house lectures. It’s a bit of a pain finding out which boards resource videos are relevant since you haven’t gone through the lecture, but for the most part it shouldn’t be too bad. I used to go through in house first but I noticed that if I did the boards resources first, then the anki based off that, I was able to focus better during the in house lectures and was able to make note of the things that weren’t covered by anki/boards resources. When I did in house first I was getting upper 80s low 90s consistently but doing it this way got me over that hump and I’m now in the 90s and a good bit of the time above a 95. I also noticed my performance on qbanks increased too. I think it’s worth a shot to try this out and see how you do

I’ll try that with this block, thanks!

 

[MedScat]

what do you consider to be the competitive specialties?

https://mk0nrmp3oyqui6wqfm.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Charting-Outcomes-in-the-Match-2020_MD-Senior_final.pdf

If you didn't know already, the charting outcomes is a great resource to show you average number of research experiences needed, step scores, etc. needed to match for particular specialties. Some of the most competitive are surgical subspecialties, dermatology, ENT, Interventional rads. This is a good guide to determine competitiveness since it encompasses many factors of admission to residency.

 

[deleted889094]

@Dame_Maggie The only thing I would add to this discussion is that I've learned that the most beneficial thing for my learning has been to focus more on maximizing the number of times I encounter a point of information rather than how long I spend on it. So I try to focus on studying a broader range of things while spending less time on each thing - even if I don't get it. It's like when you're trying to solve a problem and you just can't think of anything, but when you look at it the next day it seems obvious. Every time you engage with material is a new state of mind and another chance to make connections and commit it to memory.

 

[IMG69]

You study 2-3 hours a day? So conservatively, you spend at max 21 hours in a 7 day week on med school?

Yeah my course is insanely clinical so from MS1 we've had to learn all about certain conditions/disease/drugs etc and we learn all the basic sciences that way, we're a PBL based degree. Second year was basically step 1 but clinical based and now 3rd year is step 2 basically.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Yeah my course is insanely clinical so from MS1 we've had to learn all about certain conditions/disease etc and we learn all the basic sciences that way, we're a PBL based degree. Second year was basically step 1 but clinical based and now 3rd year is step 2 basically.

Do you not study outside of those sessions? Are you counting the time in PBL and preparing for it? My school is very clinical and I had like 20+ contact hours a week in preclinical, just for the lectures and sessions.

 

[IMG69]

PBL was nothing I used to prep an hour before PBL, others used to stay up all night, idk I just found it straight forward to memorize a disease basically. Sure initially in med school I panicked but once I learnt the process and resources to use it became much easier. I didn't attend a single lecture in first year but we did have I think 4 hours of mandatory skills sessions a week. First year was lucky because it was only 4 exams 2 Med exams 2 social science/population health exams. Much easier than second year with 1 big exam covering the whole year.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

PBL was nothing I used to prep an hour before PBL, others used to stay up all night, idk I just found it straight forward to memorize a disease basically. Sure initially in med school I panicked but once I learnt the process and resources to use it became much easier. I didn't attend a single lecture in first year but we did have I think 4 hours of mandatory skills sessions a week. First year was lucky because it was only 4 exams 2 Med exams 2 social science/population health exams. Much easier than second year with 1 big exam covering the whole year.

Oh, I am on my computer now. You're in the UK? Might explain things.

 

[IMG69]

Oh, I am on my computer now. You're in the UK? Might explain things.

I mean it could but I literally just studied step 1 and step 2, I didn't open a single lecture through 1st and 2nd year and I still only did 2-3 hours a day. My class does pretty well in step 1 it seems so idk what's going on lol since everyone seems to study differently. I did 500 cards a day to be precise. Like I said some of my friends study 10+ hours a day.

 

[ScrubswithnoSleeves]

Wanted to ask this online since I feel it'd be too crass to ask to any of my classmates... but does anyone think that med school is not as bad as everyone says? Maybe it's because i spent too much time online before, but I just haven't had the experience that I heard so much about before I started.

My friends told me they study 8-9 hours a day, dont have time for other stuff, etc... I wake up at like 10 every day, screw around for a little, do anki, go to the gym, etc. I feel like there's plenty of time to do non-school things, and if I woke up at a reasonable time (not to mention early) there'd be a lot of time in the day. I'm glad because I do not think I could legitimately study 8-9 hours every day; I did that the day before my block test and it sucked. Are people really doing this every single day? 8-9 hours of real concentrated studying? I feel like on an average day you don't really need to study more than 3 actual hours maximum. I still watch lecs at 2x speed, but I doubt I need to, and anki and bnb is such an efficient way to study compared to how I'm assuming others do it.

Med school is definitely hard, and in the beginning I felt like I was constantly studying, but I think I was giving myself too much work back then. I'm sure it'll get harder in the future as I want to add research and volunteering to my plate, etc, but the first semester just wasn't too bad. I even feel like the tests aren't that bad; they test a lot of stuff but they remind me of the psych MCAT part where I'm just bored during it. Compared to an undergrad physics/math test when I felt serious anxiety and like I never had enough time, or even just the other parts of the MCAT, it's way less stressful.

What do you guys think? Maybe this can be a thread to calm premeds down before they start med school! Personally, I felt a lot more anxious/stressed in college where I had to get an A on everything, and it felt like every class was just trying to weed you out.

So preface with my girlfriend is in Medical School and I am just living with her and applying right now, but it is honestly less difficult than our undergrad was and she is acing all of her tests. She was Biochem and I was Microbio, but she was also working part-time. Regardless, her schedule right now is less stressful than either of ours was during undergrad. I think this depends a lot on what school you go to, where you went for UG, and what major/electives you had during UG. She also is not doing any EC's right now, so that will probably make it harder, but we are able to cook dinner almost every night and do fun stuff on the weekends.

 

[MD.Loading]

Med school has been pretty easy for me (so far). Easier than undergrad. Agree with the above poster, if you are just chilling trying to be an average med student its really not that bad. I was lucky to find a good study strategy early that works very well for me. I study from about 8-3 with a few breaks and do a little research here or there. Rarely do much on weekends

Caveats:

I am interested in mild to moderately competitive specialties
P/F school with NBME tests

If you are interested in super competitive specialties and need to be top in everything you probably aren't gonna have a good time.

How do you know which specialties are more competitive? I'm interested in ob/gyn with subspecialty in infertility and endocrinology.

 

[medbuddha]

It depends what you want....my personal experience is kind of similar to yours. I studied about 6 hours a day for m1/m2. Life got tough studying for Step 1 and doing school but that was definitely the worst of it so far. But, compared to undergrad I feel the stress is less BUT, if you want a competitive specialty...things start being different. For competitive specialties you need to worry about being ranked well in your class, having research/pubs, extracurriculars, building relationships with attnedings in your field of interest. That stuff can be very time consuming. Thankfully, that wasn't me M1/M2 so I felt pretty good about things, like you do! Also, I'm just an average joe...just trying to pass. For the gunners, it becomes more stressful.

My personal take: there's two different things going on when people study for med school. The first is building a general schema of how things work, and the second is filling it in with discrete details. Schema-building generally takes much longer than detail-filling, and trying to learn a bunch of details without having a schema scaffold takes even longer.

Trying to learn about mutations in bacterial peptidoglycan transpeptidases that confer resistance to penicillins is a lot easier if you're very comfortable in in your knowledge that bacteria generally have a peptidoglycan cell wall and what the difference in Gram+ / Gram - is. It's a lot harder when, during lecture, you think to yourself "oh yeah, bacteria have a cell wall, I remember learning that." You'll have students at both ends of the spectrum, and everywhere in between, in your class and that's why people's opinions on how much to study for med school vary so much.

This!!! I’m not in med school yet but I always do better when I complete the schema-building before the detail-filling. I call it learning the macro level stuff (i.e. the big picture) and then the micro level details. How to do this differs depending on the subject but I definitely think it helps.

 

[Konigstiger]

Personally I find medical school to be just as difficult as advertised. I went to a pretty tough and prestigious undergrad but was still able to get straight A's with almost no studying except for cramming the night before, but in medical school, I have to study 5-6 hours a day just to pass exams.

Of course, 5-6 hours really isn't that terrible since I have time for hobbies and the gym almost every day, but it still feels kind of bad being in the bottom half of the class when I'm studying more than I ever have in my life so far. I guess it's a combination of not enjoying most of the material that's being taught and not having found the 'right' way to study yet... I basically just read through the lecture slides and do Anki, which saves some time but has not yielded good results on exams.

 

[datboi_58]

Personally I find medical school to be just as difficult as advertised. I went to a pretty tough and prestigious undergrad but was still able to get straight A's with almost no studying except for cramming the night before, but in medical school, I have to study 5-6 hours a day just to pass exams.

Of course, 5-6 hours really isn't that terrible since I have time for hobbies and the gym almost every day, but it still feels kind of bad being in the bottom half of the class when I'm studying more than I ever have in my life so far. I guess it's a combination of not enjoying most of the material that's being taught and not having found the 'right' way to study yet... I basically just read through the lecture slides and do Anki, which saves some time but has not yielded good results on exams.

I think it also depends on the schools. Some schools are almost exclusively boards focused and only having mostly board material for 1.5-2 years, I can see how students at that school might only study 5-6 hours a day and do fine.

However, many schools try to focus on boards but also teach a lot of extra stuff they think is important for future physicians to know and I think that stuff adds a lot of workload.

 

[jambro]

Huh? That did happen, in this thread. The first post talks about how boring med school tests are. Meanwhile, on the forum, there is a thread about dismissal. I'm just saying, adding that disclaimer is never a bad thing, even if it's assumed.

I wasn't trying to be a dick; i actually read the thread about dismissal and really feel for that person, although I wasnt thinking of them when I posted the thread. I got at it in the post though, I would never ask this to my classmates in person in case it made them feel bad, but I feel like its fair to ask on an anonymous forum. Hopefully its obvious that different people have different situations and the school itself may play a large part in it as well. I have some friends who go to DO schools and the stuff they make them go through on top of OMM would drive me nuts.

Can you elaborate a little on “workload determining study time”? I sometimes struggle with knowing when I’m “done” for the day...there is always one more resource I could look at, something else I could read, or another practice problem set I could do. I usually just go until I either feel brain fried or until I run upon exam day. I’m doing very well in my classes but my method isn’t sustainable, and I don’t know how to fix it.

I think feeling ok with stopping studying when you know theres more you *could* do is one of the most important things in med school. I had that brain fried thing the day before my test, I studied for probably legitimately 10 hours that day and just couldn't stop since I knew I could keep doing more. It felt horrible and there's no way I could do that every day or need to.

Something that helps me is thinking to myself after I take the test, was all that stuff I was killing myself over the last day even on the test? I notice that, when i really think about it, most of the stuff on the test I knew or didn't know just happened over the weeks of the block. At least at my med school I feel like they do a good job testing you on the more important stuff that is learned over the whole block, not crammed for during the last day

 

[jambro]

Nevertheless, med school is definitely next level compared to undergrad. it's super easy to get behind and there is an unbelievable amount of material. I guess what I was trying to get at is that I'm surprised by how I've been able to acclimate to it. It's amazing what people can do when they're forced to do it

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I mean it could but I literally just studied step 1 and step 2, I didn't open a single lecture through 1st and 2nd year and I still only did 2-3 hours a day. My class does pretty well in step 1 it seems so idk what's going on lol since everyone seems to study differently. I did 500 cards a day to be precise. Like I said some of my friends study 10+ hours a day.

How many preclinical years do you have? Also you didn’t answer if you’re including you mandatory stuff.

 

[jambro]

You study 2-3 hours a day? So conservatively, you spend at max 21 hours in a 7 day week on med school?

Ignoring mandatory bs stuff I have to do, I think i definitely don't spend more than 21 hours/week legitimately studying

 

[JibsGuy52]

I dare you to try and match my Covid associated online fourth year. I am truly accomplishing one of the easiest fourth years in the history of time.

 

[jambro]

I dare you to try and match my Covid associated online fourth year. I am truly accomplishing one of the easiest fourth years in the history of time.

What a dream. Honestly i think m1 has been a lot chiller b/c of covid making stuff online. I've missed out on quite a few mandatory in-person things

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Ignoring mandatory bs stuff I have to do, I think i definitely don't spend more than 21 hours/week legitimately studying

Me neither, but that guy seemed to imply he studied 21 hours a week max including mando stuff.

 

[jambro]

Me neither, but that guy seemed to imply he studied 21 hours a week max including mando stuff.

I haven't bothered really timing it seriously, but there are plenty of days where I have nothing mandatory; on those days I can watch all the lectures at 2x (maybe about 2 hours total) and then I probably wouldnt study more than 2 more hours on my own. And if you decided you could ignore lectures completely that would obviously save time too.

Although I'd say <21 hours including everything for school would be tricky... for me though, hours spent watching lecture or doing PBL etc I count differently than hours spent actually learning/studying. Usually mandatory hours are pretty low-key and you can relax