Medical school easy?
Started by ktran17
Of course.
I find negotiating international freight contracts easy, but I doubt most would. Likewise, my little brother enjoys flying Blackhawk's for the Army; again I doubt many would say that it is easy other than him.
Why would medical school be any different.
It's really not that bad. I wouldn't call it easy, but I would say any somewhat intelligent motivated individual can get through it. The key is motivation, it's a long process.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Dude you have 8 kids?
anyway, of course its not easy, but I think everything in life is about balance. Lifestyle is most important thing imo. Learning to wake up early, study to a decent hour and get as much exercise and sleep as you can are important not just for medical school but for life.
It is probably hard
see crunch berries' avatar for my thoughts exactly.
In all seriousness. Its never 'easy'. But there are four sort of students. 1) The ones who it all comes easily to, but they are neurotic beyond belief about perfection. If I were to stereotype (and it is a bit of an unfair stereotype) these are the hopkins and harvard kids and the top few in each class. They could never do a damn thing, but their own sense of ineptitude at getting a low 90 instead of a high 90 (despite it all being High honors) drives them up the wall. They'd tell you its "very hard." They're not good representatives of reality in that sense
2) The people who get it all but don't work so hard. I guess I fall here. I work probably half as hard as most of my other classmates. I dont get the A's in every class, but I can tell you that medical school keeps me very busy but never crazy (except boards). We work hard and study a lot, but we call it quits when it starts stressing us out. We'd call medical school "not hard". We're not good representatives of reality either, because few people are lucky enough to get things as quickly as us (Though our lack of insane motivation brings is to the center of the pack, grade wise)
3) People who it doesn't come easy to, and they work their ass off. They are representative of most people in medical school. They get the passing grades. They struggle when they dont work hard, they feel proud and do well when they do work hard. They'll honestly tell you that medical school is a challenge unlike anything you've ever seen, but with strict discipline its doable, just make your sacrifices. These people are good measurements as the majority are this
4) then there are people who can't cut it. usually (but not always) they never adapt to the study schedule. This is their undoing as there is no way around it, no matter how gifted you are, this takes hours of effort a day nearly every day. They'll tell you its impossible. And to them it is.
My two friends who are docs said that getting in is the hardest part... 2nd hardest is flunking out... But that's what they said... I don't know for myself yet... 😉
I can promise you that neither of these things is true. The second one might be school dependent, but there are quite a number of schools that dismiss students every year for academic problems. It isn't as hard to fail in med school as people like to pretend.
I have heard its hard to fail out too. Just because the schools work hard so you don't fail.
The first two years is pretty easy if you're smart. I had more free time (and much more flexibility) during that time than I did working a regular 40 hours-a-week job. Step 1 is the exception - studying for that test was one painful grind.
The second two years are difficult. The hours are much, much tougher. Studying takes place at the end of long days after you're spent. The questions you get wrong are no longer silent on the page but broadcast to an audience of students, residents, and attendings. There's sleep deprivation, hunger, awkwardness, and anger in spades. People yell at you for good reasons and/or for no good reason. Your grades are no longer directly proportional to the amount of work you put in, but are put through the random number generator of subjectivity and personal opinion.
There are good things too, but it's hard. That said, if you make it to third year it'd be hard to fail if you showed up and didn't directly offend anyone important.
The second two years are difficult. The hours are much, much tougher. Studying takes place at the end of long days after you're spent. The questions you get wrong are no longer silent on the page but broadcast to an audience of students, residents, and attendings. There's sleep deprivation, hunger, awkwardness, and anger in spades. People yell at you for good reasons and/or for no good reason. Your grades are no longer directly proportional to the amount of work you put in, but are put through the random number generator of subjectivity and personal opinion.
There are good things too, but it's hard. That said, if you make it to third year it'd be hard to fail if you showed up and didn't directly offend anyone important.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
I didn't think the first two years were that hard, material wise. I thought some of the concepts from undergrad classes were harder to understand. The main thing that makes the first two years hard is the amount of material and being able to keep up. If you can do that then you will be fine.
Kinda disagree... I felt that the hardest part is getting the residency of your choice. You pretty have one shot. For med school, you can reapply over and over...not so with residency. Getting in can be long and arduous, but there are multiple opportunities.
Well I can tell you that it is very hard to fail out of the Touro system. We will do some crazy stuff to make sure you are keeping up. and if you do fail in the end, we'll give you the option to repeat with all sorts of planned support to make sure you dont fall through the net again (and of course, we will charge you for it, but who wouldn't).
I always heard no one failed medical school, you simply chose to give up. It may not be totally correct from current med student anecdotes i'm hearing, but it does seem mostly correct. A few DO students have commented (and they werent in the touro system) that one of our flaws is that we will never cut a student, we'll keep re-educating them til they've got it just barely together enough to be judged competent and ready to just barely pass the boards. IDK if i necessarily like that characterization as they put it, but I do appreciate that we are known for not giving up on anyone and how we do crazy stuff to keep the weaker students in the pack.
I always heard no one failed medical school, you simply chose to give up. It may not be totally correct from current med student anecdotes i'm hearing, but it does seem mostly correct. A few DO students have commented (and they werent in the touro system) that one of our flaws is that we will never cut a student, we'll keep re-educating them til they've got it just barely together enough to be judged competent and ready to just barely pass the boards. IDK if i necessarily like that characterization as they put it, but I do appreciate that we are known for not giving up on anyone and how we do crazy stuff to keep the weaker students in the pack.
I don't understand the people who "get it all but don't work so hard". My only theory is that they've burned out from undergrad and the application process and they're too spent to go for that awesome residency. I probably fit somewhere between that category and the one that works really hard to get it. It always seems a shame to me though the people who are complete geniuses but are content to make C's and be a half ass for the sake of laziness.
I could be saying the same thing though here pretty soon though so I guess I'll find out.
I could be saying the same thing though here pretty soon though so I guess I'll find out.
speaking for myself only, I'm content to study til 9 or 10pm every day and then watch hulu and go to sleep. Its gets me a lot of B+s and A-s. I could be a straight A student, but I save that "work til 1 am and be sleep deprived" effort til finals and boards. Its not that i'm not studying, its that i'm not killing myself. most of the students are killing themselves with studying more often than not. (though we all take whole days off now and then)
I hope to get by as well with studying at a pace that will keep my sanity. Are residencies bigger on GPAs or board scores? I think it'd be a good idea to not kill oneself during most of the semester and then just enter destroy mode a few months before boards.
Board scores>Clinical rotation evaluations>>>>basic sciences GPA.
The first two years you learn the material as solid as you can, no need to kill yourself for A+. And, by the way, I find that a lot of the B+'s tend to know the material better than the ones who got A+'s. The former studied the fundamentals and didn't sweat the crazy details/eccentricities of each faculty member.
Also, "a few months" is ridiculous for boards. 1.5 solid months of studying is plenty for step 1 and prob excessive for step 2.
They say 2 months of studying for step 1. 2 weeks for step 2, 2 days for step 3 (some say 2 hours of term review. I think thats unfair). It is just a saying though.
But totally agreeing with what Kuba said up there. The whole thing. Residencies work this way:
If they dont know you: Boards > Clinical grades >>> Pre-clinical
If they do know you: Boards > Experience rotating with you > Clinical Grades >>> pre-clinical
Good to know, thanks Kuba and DocEspana.
intriguing statement, if you dont mind sharing, what's a typical day like for you docespana?
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Well now it is board time so it is literallly wake up. boards. eat lunch. boards. meal replacement liquid slurry. boards. call the gf to tell her I'm still alive. sleep.
But if it was 1st year It would be class from 8-5 (okay, some days ended at 3, but usually went til 5). Then I'd find a nice cozy spot in the school library (or my apt) and review everything covered that day til 8. grab something at 8-8:30 and spend the last either 30 or 90 minutes reading up on what i'd be facing the next day so I'd be slightly ahead of the curve for then. After that, at 9 or 10, i'll watch whatever TV is best on hulu (or a torrented movie) and be asleep before 12:30 to start it all over again.
The exceptions being anatomy weekends and friday night. Anatomy and neuroanatomy was something I would keep up with after every class (just like any other class). But when it was test week for one of those two, I would be studying just for that class from end of class until about midnight or 1am for 6 days before the exam.
Fridays: Fridays I had a half day at my school, so I felt I could put in about 4 hours of studying after class and then go out and party in the evening. And if there was not a anatomy or neuroanatomy test coming up I would go off and have some beers and relax. Friday is a nice day to go out and unwind. I'd die if I studied every day til late every day (actually, apparently not: since I'm doing that now for boards and i'm fine).
Weekends are also their own thing: how much work I did saturday and sunday depended wholly on if I was behind or ahead by friday on all my subjects and if there were any other tests coming up. Obviously test coming up meant all day studying. No test coming up meant I could relax.
The moral of the story, except for fridays, I would put in 5 hours of studying (up to 8) even after attending lecture all day. Yet I refused to be panicked or to study until crazy hours unless anatomy or neuro (which i respect and fear). Most other people were panicking about all sorts of stuff every day. And they did well, either it kept them doing well, or it made them the top of the class. Those who weren't freaking out were either 1) lucky enough to have some natural ease and a moderately strong work ethic like myself or 2) failed a lot of classes and earned a lot of Cs.
The hard work is par for the course for 75% of the people. the 25% who don't freak out with the weight of it all (for at least a little while) are the ones who really need to have their **** together or else they'll likely fall in the failing category. Absurd effort is to be expected, dont assume you're the one who wont have to work *as* hard. We all assumed that, 75% of us were wrong.
P.S.: even the ones who are breaking their backs to keep up (aka the majority) go out drinking on fridays. Everyone needs to unwind. They just work a few hours longer than me the rest of the days and are always more stressed. I'm thankful and blessed to be able to do it without the stress. I would implode if I was that stressed over pre-clinical basic science.
Docspanas days are brutal IMO! Maybe I'm not the typical student, but so you all don't freak out that you have no free time. My school had exams almost every week the first two years. Monday post-exam was time to rest/party that night. Tues-Thurs I would go to class (~50% of the time) 8-4ish, go to the gym for an hour or two, go home and eat dinner, then head to library for ~2-3 hours, go home and mess around online. Friday I would spend more like 4-5 hours in the library and then maybe go out that night. Sat/Sun were brutal 12h/day type study sessions(with lots of breaks and socializing of course.) Repeat every week 😀.
Yea we have the monday is test day (and tests nearly every week) thing. tues-wed-thurs are long days and friday is a half day. I used to go out and party on mondays, but second year sort of eliminated that. Second year had a slightly modified testing schedule that didnt allow for 2 nights of partying a week: and friday was always my night off no matter what.
I also should say that I spoke of myself as if I never checked facebook. All of these studying hours are done with some level of distractions open. But its 100x more focused than any studying i did in undergrad, even with facebook or gawker open in the background.
I'm AT school all the time, but I'd be full of crap if I said I actually worked the entire time. Most of my food was stored there. I had a practice pad and drumsticks and high speed internet.
I probably work harder than average, but I enjoy it for the most part and I honestly don't know what else I'd do with that time. Play videogames and watch dvds? I stockpiled hours on that for my life.
I probably work harder than average, but I enjoy it for the most part and I honestly don't know what else I'd do with that time. Play videogames and watch dvds? I stockpiled hours on that for my life.
Doc, isn't it easier to keep up with the material if you don't attend class? Or are you an auditory learner? I'm an auditory learner but I have decided that I am not going to ruin my life over basic science gpa. Saving that insanity for boards. I'm gonna try skipping as many classes as I can get away with and see if I can modify my learning techniques. I guess ill know by the first or second tests if it will be effective.
Getting in a was joke compared to actually being in school. Although they do make it hard to get kicked out.
well.... I have a feeling on all of this and my opinions are sort of transmitted through it. So if you disagree, my comments may be less useful. But most people (though not all by any means) feel the way I do: Everyone comes into medical school having mastered either studying or "in class learning." It probably boils down to if you have an inclination towards reading/writing learning or if you're more inclined to audio visual, the the point remains: med students tend to be people who either learned it all on their own in undergrad, or people who attended every class, took great notes, and then did comparatively little studying outside of class in undergrad.
Everyone comes into medical school convinced their skills will be sufficient, and they never are without some of the other. People who study all the time learn all these minute details of everything but cant put it together. They can tell you the most obscure receptor for each particular biomechanic, and they can give you every mnemonic under the sun.... but they can't answer a question that reflects "actual presentations". The example is the guy in my class who can rattle off all these obscure facts that will probably get him points on the test, but yet if we describe the same disease's presentation (or even describe the specific symptom without using any 'buzzwords') he is totally lost. He can't connect any of the discrete facts.
On the other end people who are only in class will have great mastery of putting it all together, but its like being a master architect who can only afford 33% of the bricks necessary to build something. Totally useless without a lot of time spent pounding the facts into your lexicon so that you can utilize them in the fluid way the classes teach you to utilize them. I fall in here naturally. If i didnt study on my own I'd have an easy time diagnosing patients and explaining every last related symptom, lab value, or physiology change to be expected: but i'd never be able to "name x receptor" or "name the y pathway" if that was the question at the end. It really requires you to find what your strength is, continue doing it, but actively try to engage your weakness so that it isn't your weakness on test day.
K philosophy done. It definitely would save time to skip classes that weren't useful. I had an entire physiology class where it wasn't useful because she didnt teach how to put it together at all, she only taught the tiny little receptors and pathways. If I wanted that I'd read the book in a study room (and often did just that). But the majority of classes, if you don't go, you are missing out on information that will be on the test and is much harder to make up. You can read the book any time. The clinical understanding only comes from attending the class. And for those who 'stream' the class later, thats fine too... but it always seemed less time efficient to stream afterwards. If you are in class you're less likely to be facebooking than if you are studying during class time. You're also more likely to be facebooking if you're streaming at 6 or 7pm, than if you're attending at 9 or 10am. Since you'll be likely to be distracted in any situation when you're not infront of a professor, its more time efficient to attend first and study later, rather than study during class and stream later, as its 1 independent period prone to distractions vs 2 such periods.
final addendum: The people who do attend class regularly are almost all (one exception. who is literally the bottom of the class) at the top of the class. Its more because a lot of the overachievers are there, though there are plenty of the people like me who just want to take in class and then put in only a few hours of hard work independently. Mind you: there are students at the top of the class who don't attend class ever. But the ones who always attend class are (except one) uniformly at the top of the class, no one attends class and regrets it academically.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
pshh. We're both in NYC. No one believes us anyway. I think its cause they hate the yankees. (btw: if being in florida made you a rays fan, rather than a marlins, by any chance: i'd use this time to switch to yankee fandom)
No way man, Yankee 4 Life!
hahahaha. No. You do spend most of first semester first year working on things in the axial skeleton, so every time you have to be worked on your shirt will be off because palpation through cotton is too subtle for most. But thats still just when you're being worked on and its pretty uncommon outside of the first semester, since you do mostly appendages and neck and head after first semester.
The thing they dont tell you is how many butts you end up palpating. Palpating butts is a big part of OMM (funny as it sounds, thats not really a joke). Pretty much everyone is totally comfortable shirtless (but with sports bras in the case of women) after two or three sessions, but you never quite get over the giggle factor when you palpate a butt academically.
And also, they tend to put people who are religiously opposed to certain contacts and exposures together. The orthodox jewish and the adherent muslim women tend to work together since both dont allow touching by men. It's never been an issue, its just something I observed they automatically did to avoid any complaints.
IDK. one of the three hours per week is lecture so not there haha. Depending on your comfort level between 30 minutes and 2 hours. But the 30 minutes is 5 here 10 here 5 here 6 there. etc. Most of the guys just take their shirt off and call it a day til the end of class. The girls tend to take it off and put it back on as soon as the technique is done.
Mind if I ask what makes you so curious about that (feel free to not answer. I'm just curious now)? It was a really minor thing to me, but it is definitely all subjective.
i guess i gotta start working on my beach bod for omm class.
I'm curious because I don't like exposing my body at all. Thanks for addressing my questions 🙂
So class is 8-5 every day. Ok.. can someone import a person who did the roll out of bed at noon and watch the online lecture life style? lol
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
hahaha plenty of people do it. and they generally do decent, but they have to bust their ass too hard in the evening to make up lost time.
as long as a few people make it in each morning, no one complains that 1/2 to 3/4 sleeps in most days.
Hopefully I'll be more phase advanced and be more of a morning person. I can imagine waking up for an 8'clock class again like in HS.
Interesting. I imagine out-of shape girls (or even some insecure normal weight girls) would be super self conscious about that sort of thing...
You know... i thought that. And yet, with one big exception, the larger girls (and i say that term as objectively as i can) seem to have no problem at all. There is one larger girl in the class who is an exception to this, but even the girls seem totally fine and comfortable. We all make jokes about it and are totally fine with each others bodies. They tend to take the shirts on and off more due to the cold temperature of the lab room (and thats not a nipple reference, thats a being plain cold reference) and that leaning over a person as the doctor is more comfortable clothed. I dont think they feel uncomfortable in the sports bra for the 'patient' part of it.
I can't speak for the orthodox and strict muslim women, because they probably have stronger opinions, but I've never heard them complain about being able to work with other women only. Given how much everyone-palpating-everyone that goes on, no one seems to have self consciousness after a few session in lab. Its just sort of how it goes. Of course I'm a guy, so someone could argue that my observations are not valid. But I like to think I'm observant enough.
Hi. I was nervous about this too -Found some sports bras at Wallmart that had more coverage than they usually do - most of the ladies went with black or grey sports bras because they look more like workout gear. I was a bit worried as I'm fairly heavy, but when I voiced these concerns when asked by an instructor to be "demo" for a technique, she said privately to me: "you all will be doing these techniques on people of all sizes - don't you think it will be helpful for your classmates to see how the technique can be done on average people" (being a bit generous there 🙂
Truthfully, there ARE people of all sizes and levels of fitness in the classes and the initial uncomfortableness fades quickly. As far as the coldness - well, usually the room was pretty warm. It will be much less uncomfortable in reality than it is in anticipation...
Kate
The amount of time spent in OMM lab and the amount you care about exposing your body seems to exhibit an inverse relationship. By the end of the first year, a large majority of my classmates and I had touched each other in places I never would have dreamed possible prior to getting here lol. I don't say that to be inappropriate, it's just a fact. The first few weeks I was a nervous wreck...you get over it quickly though 🙂
As for med school being easy? I would say it's reasonable to say that it's not as hard as people make it out to be....but I think sometimes hard becomes relative. When it started, I thought it was so hard. With time, it faded. That might have been a combination of adjusting to the rigor, letting go of caring about grades and then the relativity concept I mentioned. Yeah, you're studying ALL the time, unlike undergrad perhaps, but you just get used to it and get through it.
As for med school being easy? I would say it's reasonable to say that it's not as hard as people make it out to be....but I think sometimes hard becomes relative. When it started, I thought it was so hard. With time, it faded. That might have been a combination of adjusting to the rigor, letting go of caring about grades and then the relativity concept I mentioned. Yeah, you're studying ALL the time, unlike undergrad perhaps, but you just get used to it and get through it.
I think its not easy to find the medical school.Because when you have looking for your desire medical school you found their are somethings are missing.When ever you ask some one which one is best everyone answer will their institution.So find yourself what you want?
Translation:
"I strongly believe it is not easy to attend medical school because while searching for the perfect school, one will always find that something is missing. People often express a bias towards their own medical school, so find one that best suits your needs and desires"
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
