Hey Guys,
Can anyone tell me what kinds of and how much information med students actually have to memorize? For example, on a regular day what would a student go through and memorize?
Thanks
Hard to break it down by day. You don't sit and memorize charts and diagrams for the most part (although you do some of that in biochem, anatomy). For the most part you will be reading through a note-set and going over lecture notes each day. You probably cover the equivalent of a college text every few weeks, and have to know the material in much greater detail. So to the extent you remember things well in fewer passes, the better off you are. In med school most people do the multiple pass technique, where you learn everything by doing at least 4-5 passes through the material in some form. For instance you might preread for the lecture (pass 1) attend the lecture and take notes (pass 2), review and organize the notes the night after the lecture (pass 3), re-review and organize on the weekend, reading supplementary material if you have any confusion/gray areas (pass 4) and re-re-review the material the week before the exam (pass 5). By the time you have done this, you probably have a lot of the details down, even with a very average memory. So it's doable, but very time consuming.
Someone with a better ("photographic") memory may be able to cut down on the time required. But I'd say there are only a handful of people per class who actually have this kind of memory. And another handful who
think they have this kind of memory until they see their exam grades and realize they can't coast like college anymore. Most of the rest will have to really spend the time in med school. And again, memorization skills can help. Some learn the details by writing/drawing things out, others use flash cards -- active learning is generally deemed superior to passive. But it's not going to be like "tonight you need to memorize these two tables" -- it never works like this. They hand out the note-set at the beginning of the course and it's your job to know the details by the test, however works for you. Heck, half the folks will stop attending class and simply learn on their own (most med schools allow this). There isn't one way to skin a cat, but there usually is no short-cut to skinning cats either. You will spend whatever time it takes to know the material sufficiently to do well on the exams. Or you will revamp things and try again on the next exam. Some folks work alone, others in groups. Some write things out and others highlight frantically. One thing's for sure, doing exactly what you did in college rarely works with the volume of material they cover in med school. You have to step it up and be prepared to change things up. The first few months are mostly about figuring out what works for you. Which is why residencies put the least emphasis on the early year grades and why the highest yield courses for the boards tend to be reserved for the second year.
