Med school reality check at PCOM

[EvieMed]

I am taking the summer start program at PCOM right now, which is a two week course in mostly metabolism from the "cell and tissue" course that 1st years take in the winter. I start my 1st year in august, this course is designed to get your feet wet in biochem if u really havent had it or have been out of school for a few years. There are second years sitting in on the class bc they need to take notes so they can tutor the people who failed it last year. they said the class is "nothing" and that the info we are covering in two weeks is basically taught in a couple lectures during the school year. basically i am freaking out, because they are throwing TONS of info at us, and we have class 7 hours a day! i dont know what i will do to make it if this is really "nothing" compared to what we have to take in during the real class. i knew that i needed to really study my a** off in med school to succeed....but this just seems like way too much to ever be able to fit in my brain. does anyone have any suggestions or can tell me if what i am feeling is normal? jphazelton....give me some of your famous advice!

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[JustPlainBill]

but this just seems like way too much to ever be able to fit in my brain. does anyone have any suggestions or can tell me if what i am feeling is normal? jphazelton....give me some of your famous advice!

First off -breathe/relax, breathe/relax.

Yes, the information comes at you hard and fast in medical school. Yes, there is an incredible amount of it. But like using any muscle, you will adapt,improvise and overcome.

First - don't try to jam it all in at once. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. One way to do this - learn the big concepts first and be able to recall them from memory w/o any prompting. Then go back over the material repeatedly and fill in successive layers of detail. Quiz yourself with sample questions - from the internet, old test bank, old tests, wherever you can get your hands on them. Review what you have trouble with, possibly make up flashcards, crib sheets to study from while standing in line at Wal-Mart, whatever. Only flashcard and review what you have trouble with, not the stuff that makes sense and is locked into your brain.

There's no point in studying intensely the fact that fat soluble vitamins are A,D,E and K. However, knowing that hypervitamin A syndrome causes arthralgias, etc. is worth putting on a flashcard if you can't recall it (or whatever review material you decide to use).

Another method that a professor told me about was:
1) Before class, go through the chapter and spend some time looking over the pictures/figures/tables. It costs an average of $250/$300 to put a figure/table in a textbook so it must stress/summarize something important.

2) Go to class and pay attention. Anything the prof seems to stress, revisit, spend a whole lot of time on - pay attention to and mark somehow for review.

3) After classes are over for the day, review the material for that day rather intensely.

4) If there's a lab involved, go to lab and PAY ATTENTION and review the pertinent material from lecture as it is shown in lab.

5) Before the exam, review the material again and quiz yourself. Shore up those areas you have trouble with.

It's basically 5 exposures. If you can't get it after 5, you're doing something wrong.....

Remember this (I got this from a radiology resident who graduated from one of the top schools in the S/W) - Medicine is not about who's the smartest or the best qualified - it's about who can endure the most. There is no substitute for hard work. As one of our professors has said repeatedly - If you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep/night, you're doing something wrong.....

 

[JohnDO]

Remember, you're talking to second years. They've had a year to figure things out, and so they're rather unphased by what may seem like a daunting course to you.

Just work hard, you'll find your groove and end up just fine.

 

[JustPlainBill]

Remember, you're talking to second years. They've had a year to figure things out, and so they're rather unphased by what may seem like a daunting course to you.

Just work hard, you'll find your groove and end up just fine.

He's absolutely correct!!!! No one can really tell you how to study
or what to do, but can only offer suggestions. You'll hear some
people say - just read the (insert noun here) 4 or 5 times and
you're golden. Well, that's cool for them because they learn
by reading. For audio learners, it stinks.

Realize that several thousand people have done this before you
successfully and adcoms are pretty good at selecting people
who will be successful. Work hard and you'll be fine....

 

[JonnyG]

First off -breathe/relax, breathe/relax.



Another method that a professor told me about was:
1) Before class, go through the chapter and spend some time looking over the pictures/figures/tables. It costs an average of $250/$300 to put a figure/table in a textbook so it must stress/summarize something important.

At PCOM we dont have text books, so that out.

2) Go to class and pay attention. Anything the prof seems to stress, revisit, spend a whole lot of time on - pay attention to and mark somehow for review.
At PCOM that is really pointless in cell in tissue, its all in the packet. Besides the scribes do a good job

3) After classes are over for the day, review the material for that day rather intensely.
only do this if its less than two weeks before the test. You'll forget it all if you start to early

4) If there's a lab involved, go to lab and PAY ATTENTION and review the pertinent material from lecture as it is shown in lab.
no lab except anatomy and some very basic ones. Not really on the test (except anatomy(

5) Before the exam, review the material again and quiz yourself. Shore up those areas you have trouble with.
Use the back test to figure out the style


.....

PCOM has probably produced the most osteopathic physicians hands down. Many have come before, many come after. You figure it out really quickly. Don't listen to second years, they think they know everything. Now third years, are great if you can find them.

 

[NJWxMan]

My claim is that you want to learn just enough biochem/cell molec. just to get by in your core classes. In the end, the COMLEX has almost zero biochem on it. I think I had maybe 3 biochem q's on my exam.

 

[surrender903]

i stopped studying for the summer biochem classes after the 2nd day.

just enjoy the free food and the campus.


also if you find JP on campus, revere him as a God he is.

 

[xTinaBna]

He's absolutely correct!!!! No one can really tell you how to study
or what to do, but can only offer suggestions. You'll hear some
people say - just read the (insert noun here) 4 or 5 times and
you're golden. Well, that's cool for them because they learn
by reading. For audio learners, it stinks.

well said! i'm definitely a visual learner, i generally dont feel like i get anything out of listening in lecture other than taking notes. but i always will go to lecture b/c i'm the type to feel guilty or worry that i'm missing something. when i re-read my notes later is when i finally get it.

 

[Dr JPH]

I am taking the summer start program at PCOM right now, which is a two week course in mostly metabolism from the "cell and tissue" course that 1st years take in the winter. I start my 1st year in august, this course is designed to get your feet wet in biochem if u really havent had it or have been out of school for a few years. There are second years sitting in on the class bc they need to take notes so they can tutor the people who failed it last year. they said the class is "nothing" and that the info we are covering in two weeks is basically taught in a couple lectures during the school year. basically i am freaking out, because they are throwing TONS of info at us, and we have class 7 hours a day! i dont know what i will do to make it if this is really "nothing" compared to what we have to take in during the real class. i knew that i needed to really study my a** off in med school to succeed....but this just seems like way too much to ever be able to fit in my brain. does anyone have any suggestions or can tell me if what i am feeling is normal? jphazelton....give me some of your famous advice!

Listen...everyone in the entire school from the Dean to Gene in the cafeteria knows youre not going to get all the material. Thats a given. The 2nd years know it which is why they laugh at you guys. The professors know it which is why they repeat themselves over and over. The school Psychiatrist knows it which is why he extends office hours during the first 2 months of school.

The only people who seem to expect to go to class and rock things like they did in high school and college are the naive first years.

Remember...EVERYONE is in the same boat. Whether you majored in French Art or Physics, medical school doesnt play favorites. We had people in my class who thought they knew everything. Great MCATs, undergrad research, they discovered new genes and named diseases from the time they were in diapers. Didnt matter. Somehow you will all get through it and you get to a point where you look back at those "tough times" in the anatomy lab and studying Cell & Tissue and realize that it wasnt so bad.

Sometime during your 3rd year when youre on call for the first time and youre doing a rectal at 3am in the ER with an intern who is cranky and doesnt like to teach...you realize that youre not so bad off after all. Suddenly the 8a-4p first year curriculum doesnt seem so bad.

Listen...youre going to screw up. You might fail a test. You will get pimped by professors, attendings, residents and interns and you wont know the answer. You will make mistakes on patients that will literally make you sick to your stomach because if YOU were the attending, the patient would be dead.

You WILL see someone die. You WILL pronounce someone dead in your lifetime. You may even have a part in their death...intentional or not. You will deliver a healthy baby and you just may deliver a stillborn. You will see patients cry, kick and become violent over a diagnosis and you might see an old woman who tried to commit suicide because her husband died last month.

But you will see people get better. Patients will come off the ventilator. You will remove a lung tumor or repair a major vessel injured in a car accident. A family will thank you for all you have done...when all you did was give them a sympathetic look when they got bad news. You will get cards and gifts...and be offered money by patients because they dont know how they can thank you. And all you did was make them feel better. You will sign a Do Not Resuscitate order and bring closure to a family by being a trusted voice in a decision that no one wants to make for their loved one. You will make a diagnosis that sounds scary to a layperson...but your know its just a fancy way of saying "you have an ear infection." If youre really lucky you get to deliver a baby, hand it to the mother and recite words in a foreign language as part of a Kenyan birth ritual...you might not understand it, but the parents asked that you do it because you were the first person to touch their new son. You will be someones doctor.

What am I getting at here? I dont know really...maybe just reflecting a little.

My point is this. Every physician in history has been in a position where they were scared and didnt know how they were going to go on. But they looked at the wall in front of them and started climbing. They didnt run around looking for an open door...they didnt try to break down the wall. They took their time, built a ladder with a solid foundation and climbed upwards.. Take things one step at a time.

You are a physician...a student physician, true...but you are still part of the club. PCOM has a "Doctors from Day One" attitude. They wouldnt give you a task to complete if they knew that you couldnt do it. Youre part of the family now. We at PCOM take care of eachother. People who rotate at our sites comment on it all the time...we look out for one another. You will have classmates, upperclassmen, professors and advisors. You will all get through it. You will pass your classes and your boards. You will start rotations and forget every single fact you learned in first and second year. But its OK. You will perservere.

Welcome to PCOM and welcome to the first step in a difficulty but rewarding journey.

 

[Dr JPH]

also if you find JP on campus, revere him as a God he is.

Agreed.

Tuesdays 10a-1p for Surgery Grand Rounds.

 

[HarveyCushing]

As one of our professors has said repeatedly - If you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep/night, you're doing something wrong.....

I don't know if I would agree with this. While I haven't started med-school yet, I still plan on getting 8hrs of sleep a night. There is no way that I will be able to retain the information unless I am well rested. Learned in my neuroscience classes that sleep (good sleep at that) is the only way that your brain can consolidate and form new synapses between the new things you have learned. So to act all tough and say that you shouldn't get more than 4hrs of sleep is idiotic. Sleep + exercise + healthy food will make your academic life much easier.

 

[arsenewenger]

I don't know if I would agree with this. While I haven't started med-school yet, I still plan on getting 8hrs of sleep a night. There is no way that I will be able to retain the information unless I am well rested. Learned in my neuroscience classes that sleep (good sleep at that) is the only way that your brain can consolidate and form new synapses between the new things you have learned. So to act all tough and say that you shouldn't get more than 4hrs of sleep is idiotic. Sleep + exercise + healthy food will make your academic life much easier.

Since you are going to KCUMB, you can afford to do that. Gluck with complex.

 

[Pansit]

Since you are going to KCUMB, you can afford to do that. Gluck with complex.

Is this suppose to be funny...

 

[TheFish005]

Absolutely great post by JP. I agree 100%. I also would like to say that I've made it through 3 full years and I can count on one hand the number of nights I HAVEN'T gotten at least 8 hours sleep. Call nights during 3rd year can be tough, especially for surgery. other than that, I made sure to get enough sleep to function and think straight. It's all about time management, and figuring out what works best for you. For me, 8 hours sleep before an exam is far more effective than cramming all night long. Of course, what works for me may not work for anyone else - med school is all about you, and no one can tell you what's best for you. Good luck, work hard, play hard.

 

[MaximusD]

Is this suppose to be funny...

That was awesome. kidding.

OK now I am officially scared ****less. Hey EvieMed, I will be a fellow-first-year at PCOM with you in about a month. Are you excited for orientation?

Try not to stress the summer course. It's just supposed to be helpful... Relax when you need to because it's not going to get better anytime soon with SPOM coming up. You'll get it just digest it a little bit at a time and get as much of it as you can without driving yourself crazy.

Oh and an important thing about PCOM -- don't go it alone! There are a ton of people who can help you along the way and not just on SDN

 

[surrender903]

i think he is saying he is single and wants to date you.

im not sure though.

 

[JustPlainBill]

You are a physician...a student physician, true...but you are still part of the club. PCOM has a "Doctors from Day One" attitude. They wouldnt give you a task to complete if they knew that you couldnt do it. Youre part of the family now. We at PCOM take care of eachother. People who rotate at our sites comment on it all the time...we look out for one another. You will have classmates, upperclassmen, professors and advisors. You will all get through it. You will pass your classes and your boards. You will start rotations and forget every single fact you learned in first and second year. But its OK. You will perservere.

Welcome to PCOM and welcome to the first step in a difficulty but rewarding journey.

We're not like that as much at our school and I really wish we were.....There's still an attitude of competitiveness to some degree
and the individual classes are very clique-ish. Would you mind - either
through PM or whatever - explaining a little bit more of the 'Doctors from day one' philosophy and how to foment more of the 'we take care of our own' philosophy on campus - I'd like to be part of the change rather than part of the 'sit in the stands and whine' crowd. It sounds like a really cool environment at PCOM.

 

[NjD00]

In my experience, 6 is the golden number for sleep. (and no, I don't mean sleep number as in bed softness). Basically, as you get less and less than 6 hours of sleep, you tend to retain less of your material, but if you really need to study your ass off, then anything over 6 hours is wasting study-time.

then again, maybe at PCOM 2 hours is the golden number. What do I know

 

[USArmyDoc]

Good luck, you will do great! Take this from someone who is not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to biochem and I did decent. You will figure it out and you will be better for it come the rest of first year.

I wish you the best

 

[DOCTORSAIB]

Welcome to PCOM!

All great advice, especially JP's.

My only advice to you, besides what has already been said by others, to figure out your learning style. Do you learn best by listening (auditory) or seeing (visual) or both?

If it's the latter, then SKIP CLASS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! It seems scary at first. You will think that you're missing out on "key info" from lecture. But in reality you MAY be wasting your time/energy, rotting away in one of those chairs in Ginsberg auditorium. I say "may be" b/c if you're actually an auditory learner, then going to class will prove beneficial to you. Otherwise, skipping classes allows you to get adequate sleep, study on your own schedule, and you'll have PLENTY of time to workout, run errands, etc.

As a PCOM student, you have the great benefit of scribe notes. Pay the fee and use them as your main study source. Repitition is the name of the game. If you're confused about something, refer to either board review books and/or textbooks. A week before your exams, print out the old exams (called "back tests" at PCOM) and go through them. Learn the style and high yield topics that repeatedly get tested year after year. Then go through your notes again and again until you have them memorized.

I followed this approach and it worked out very well for me. I scored high academically, slept 8+ hours/night, and managed a very low-stress/balanced lifestyle.

Hope that helps. G'luck!

 

[mitawa]

I am taking the summer start program at PCOM right now, which is a two week course in mostly metabolism from the "cell and tissue" course that 1st years take in the winter. I start my 1st year in august, this course is designed to get your feet wet in biochem if u really havent had it or have been out of school for a few years. There are second years sitting in on the class bc they need to take notes so they can tutor the people who failed it last year. they said the class is "nothing" and that the info we are covering in two weeks is basically taught in a couple lectures during the school year. basically i am freaking out, because they are throwing TONS of info at us, and we have class 7 hours a day! i dont know what i will do to make it if this is really "nothing" compared to what we have to take in during the real class. i knew that i needed to really study my a** off in med school to succeed....but this just seems like way too much to ever be able to fit in my brain. does anyone have any suggestions or can tell me if what i am feeling is normal? jphazelton....give me some of your famous advice!

There will be a lot of info, but just make sure you learn how to practice effective time mananagement this summer. The course this summer is not to discourage you, but to help you adjust your study habits so that you can maximize the results. Like others have stated, there's no way for you to know it all. However once you get the key points down you'll find that the rest complete the picture. DO NOT LET the 1st years scare you before you even get to Cell & Tissue. Everyone is their own individual, and you may find that C&T is not as bad for you as other courses. Don't fall behind is my only advice. Pace yourself! Welcome to PCOM!!

 

[mitawa]

Get to know the study aids in the library well. And you might want to ask about what review books are a good buy in the bookstore.

 

[EvieMed]

thank you so much guys for all your responses...i do have to just *breathe* and realize that the road is going to be long and tough and HOPEFULLY gratifying. i cant imagine myself doing anything else...and i am so happy that i am joining the PCOM fam, everyone seems freaking awesome