MS1 - Urg!

[surferdude123]

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Hi everyone


if you want to get a greater understanding of this post, please feel free to click track back on my profile to see my previously posted threads...


my issue:


I am not finding medical school content to be "rocket science" it's not so much the difficulty of the content, it's the amount of material in short order combined with memory and concentration troubles....


Does anyone have any suggestions to improve memory and concentration?



Cheers guys!
Robert

 

[meddoc1]

what do you mean by concentration trouble?
I am MS1 and my classes starts in a week. I am starting to get nervous.
Is it really this hard???? I know it will be tough but not to the point where you are studying day and night and still not pass.😱

I am sorry that I can't give you much input. Did you study very hard? Maybe you need sometime to find the most efficent way for you to study?

 

[Tiger26]

It's not any harder than the material you've done in college. Period. The issue is that the material comes so fast and heavy that you've got to be really good at memorizing and regurgitating all that info in a meaningful way.

 

[khadija]

the material isn't difficult, so much as the vast amount of it and the short time you have to memorize & understand it all. one thing that helped me was going over the material several times before the test.
1)use the syllabus to pre-read the topics the night before
2)the next morning go to lecture (or listen to the recording if u don't go to class)
3)that same night go over the topic again making thorough notes
4)later that week, review your notes

 

[Law2Doc]

I know it will be tough but not to the point where you are studying day and night and still not pass.😱

At most med schools, there will be some people who will fail tests, courses, and even have to repeat first year. So yeah, plan on studying as long as it takes to not be one of these people. You will know where you stand after the first couple of exams. For some, keeping your head above water will be easier than for others. Plan on working a lot harder than in undergrad.

 

[babel]

It would help us if you could clarify what sorts of problems you are having (and we'd therefore be able to give you more useful advice) - are you just freaking out? Have you actually taken a test yet? What subject are you on?

That being said, I STRONGLY agree with the previous poster that REPETITION IS THE KEY!!! The first 1-2 times I go over material it is just for COMPREHENSION - just reading through the notes and trying to understand the words in front of me - which for me involves a lot of looking up key terms etc. online and annotating the notes. Then the last push right before the test is when the MEMORIZATION occurs. Just as everyone says, it is the amount of info that is the problem. I think in undergrad, the amount was manageable enough that you could sit down the weekend before a test and really study the material very thoroughly - i.e. make the outlines or notecards AND memorize them. That is no longer possible in medical school. The key is to stay on top of things - especially when your school likes to have 2-3 new lectures up until the day before the test - cramming is just that much more difficult.

 

[Yakko]

Don't get bogged down in minutiae. Most of the time when I see people freaking out, or when I'm personally having a tough time studying, it's due focusing on tiny details that are not usually asked. If I find myself rereading a paragraph or page more than 3-4 times and just barely getting it, I just skip it and move on. If I see it addressed in earnest later in the reading, meaning that it actually is important, only then will I go back and work on memorizing it. I'm of the mind to study to do well on tests, not become a PhD, (unless that's your track, in which case no doubt).

It's gonna be hard for you to figure out what really constitutes useless details, at least before you've had a few exams under your belt. The best advice I can give is that 1-2 hours of efficient, motivated study, is better than 6-7 hours of multi-color-highlighterific marathon extravaganzas. If you find yourself zoning out or feeling like you're running underwater, take a break, walk around, watch TV, etc., for however long it takes before you feel guilty about not studying.

My method is to go to every class, try to take good notes and pay attention, and then dick around until exam time comes. It keeps me sane in the interim. Then I'll set aside 3-4 days to cram. It tends to come back to me from lecture. That's not to say that this method doesn't bring its own physical and mental stress, but that's life. Btw, this is pretty crappy for long-term memory, which means working a little harder to remember and rememorize at the end.

Oh, and sleep. Sleep is vital! If I'm tired, studying becomes exponentially worse and is all but useless. I know lack of sleep is a badge of honor in med school, but some things I try not to compromise on. Plus there are studies out there that link poor concentration and lack of sleep. So if you find yourself struggling, try to get a good night's sleep the day before (even if it means cutting into styudy time).

 

[sendwich]

your'e right, medschool is not rocket science. it's more like, throwing in a bunch of people in the ocean and seeing how many are left afloat treading water at the end of the year. the hardest part of M1 for me (and probably will be an issue as an M2) was keeping up the motivation through the end of the year. Come Jan/Feb, I was absolutely BURNT OUT and no amount of $$/grades/anything could get me to study more than I had to (which surely reflected on my average grades...not that ther'es anything wrong with being average but I knew my potential and was sure as heck that I wasn't anywhere near it). Getting past the "I don't care" attitude wasn't easy. So I advise incoming M1's to make sure you get all your hobbies/family/friend time in, in between all that studying you're going to do.

 

[surferdude123]

I think I started a good post here.

I really appreciate everyone's insights.

But I can tell you that the cramming method does NOT work.

You need to stay on top, and I found this out the hard way.


I am currently working through motivation issues combined with concentration, procrastination, and memory difficulties. It's not easy, but it will be worth it in the end.


Pre-reading helps, and nightly reviewing.....from the sounds of it I need to start doing this.....


Any other thoughts?

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

Hi everyone


if you want to get a greater understanding of this post, please feel free to click track back on my profile to see my previously posted threads...


my issue:


I am not finding medical school content to be "rocket science" it's not so much the difficulty of the content, it's the amount of material in short order combined with memory and concentration troubles....


Does anyone have any suggestions to improve memory and concentration?



Cheers guys!
Robert

Ask your upper classmen or TAs what to study and what's usually on exams, if you can get old exams that would help alot. There's no sense in memorizing something you won't be tested on.

 

[sirus_virus]

Ask your upper classmen or TAs what to study and what's usually on exams, if you can get old exams that would help alot. There's no sense in memorizing something you won't be tested on.

Good point, a bulk of the so called "large volume" medstudents cry about is self inflicted, because most medstudents are overachievers. Pick any topic and you will find that there is a finite amount of things you actually need to comitt to memory, yet people sit in the library memorizing all sorts of junk. OP, find board review books, past questions, and ask upperclassmen for tips.

 

[njbmd]

Review books are only useful if you have mastered the material in the first place. You can't "review" what you have not "learned".

The key to medical school is organizing your time and organizing the information that you are presented. This means that your syllabus is your first stopping point. It directs your time-management and mastery of subject matter. In addition, you have to organize the material that is presented in syllabus, lecture and supplement with text. This means that you never, never attend any lecture that you have not previously previewed -a change from undergrad for most folks. You cannot expect that all of your mastery of a subject or course will come for walking into a lecture, taking notes and memorizing those notes. This approach invites becoming bogged down in details that you can't get into your knowledge base.

Organization, preparation, active learning and regular review are the keys to mastery of a large volume of information. You also have to have the confidence and adaptability to shift your strategy if what you are doing does not work for you. I have seen too many medical students become discouraged and depressed when they fall behind by using a system that can't be "ratcheted-up" for the volume of information that they need to master.

Consult the upperclassmen at your medical school to find out how they managed specific coursework. Consult the course director for strategies in coursework mastery. Be prepare to change or adjust as you need and work for efficient mastery rather than attempting to find more books and more resources other than syllabus, lecture and text.

 

[psipsina]

I suggest setting up a study schedule and sticking to it. You get used to the fact that at certain times of the day you are studying which helps with the motivation. I personally can only go for 45 minutes before my mind starts to wander, other peeps I know do crazy 5 hour long pushes all at once. Try variations on this and figure out what works best for your brain. Work out every day! This really really helps concentration. Have a set of goals each day for what you want to get thru. I have a little white board at home that has a checklist of what I need to do for the block and I keep track of what I should be doing that week/day on it. It makes me feel more guilty if I don't do it if my goals are in writing somewhere.

The key to memorization is multiple passes thru the material. The hard part is figuring out how exactly to make those passes that works best for your brain. Some people swear by review books but I can't learn from them personally. Other people swear by reading/annotating the course syllabus over and over again. Some people read the text book over and over. I personally make my own notes from a variety of sources (depending on the individual course) and then study those. I'm pretty good at weeding out low yield material so I like to cut all that out from my view from the get go. As you go you'll get a better eye for what is high yield. I also like making colorful charts to study from.

The trick of the first block of the first year is to figure out what works for YOU. No one else can tell you that. Just keep trying new things until you find that things are sticking instead of slipping away. Be willing to keep tweaking your study habits throughout 1st year. You'll get more efficient as the year goes on. Remember that everyone else around you is going thru the same adjustment period, you are not alone, even if they look cool and collected in public.

 

[badasshairday]

your'e right, medschool is not rocket science. it's more like, throwing in a bunch of people in the ocean and seeing how many are left afloat treading water at the end of the year. the hardest part of M1 for me (and probably will be an issue as an M2) was keeping up the motivation through the end of the year. Come Jan/Feb, I was absolutely BURNT OUT and no amount of $$/grades/anything could get me to study more than I had to (which surely reflected on my average grades...not that ther'es anything wrong with being average but I knew my potential and was sure as heck that I wasn't anywhere near it). Getting past the "I don't care" attitude wasn't easy. So I advise incoming M1's to make sure you get all your hobbies/family/friend time in, in between all that studying you're going to do.

Didn't you feel much less stress though after you got to this point? I mean stress just comes from uncertainty. People stress out and study insanely because they want to match in something competitive. But if you are a person that isn't going for the Derm, plastics, optho, then wouldn't you feel much less pressure and stress? If you know you would be happy in IM or EM ect, then why kill yourself to get into the top 10% of the class? I know already I'm not going to try to gun my way into plastics or derm, I feel like I may be more intrested in moderately competitive specialties.

 

[GreenShirt]

your'e right, medschool is not rocket science. it's more like, throwing in a bunch of people in the ocean and seeing how many are left afloat treading water at the end of the year. the hardest part of M1 for me (and probably will be an issue as an M2) was keeping up the motivation through the end of the year. Come Jan/Feb, I was absolutely BURNT OUT and no amount of $$/grades/anything could get me to study more than I had to (which surely reflected on my average grades...not that ther'es anything wrong with being average but I knew my potential and was sure as heck that I wasn't anywhere near it). Getting past the "I don't care" attitude wasn't easy. So I advise incoming M1's to make sure you get all your hobbies/family/friend time in, in between all that studying you're going to do.

OMG, I felt the same way MS-1! I think it came from studying too hard the first half of the year without proper balance in the other aspects of my life. Yeah, you can kill yourself trying to get to the top of the class, but what good does it do if you burnout for the rest of the year and get mediocre grades? I think it's best to study within your own ability, even if that means you are a B/C student, and have time for friends and exercise.

OP: Does your school have an educational expert or social worker on staff? My school had one for students who helped people study better and manage their time. You might want to check with your student services if there's something of this sort available. Always helps to have a coach.

 

[Monica Lewinsky]

Review books are only useful if you have mastered the material in the first place. You can't "review" what you have not "learned".

The key to medical school is organizing your time and organizing the information that you are presented.

I have to disagree. Review books organize and condense information so that it can be understood quickly and effectively. If you don't understand most of the content in the corresponding review books after attending lecture, then you really have some deficiencies in intelligence. Like others have said in this thread, its not rocket science, and its not like (e.g.) BRS Physio is written in such an obtuse code that you can't understand endocrine physio from it. You are right though about time management, and the right review books allow for better time management during med school.

 

[s4r]

im starting M1 in a couple of weeks and im starting to freak out.....i think my problem is during undergrad i was the type who needed to understand everything inside out...i basically had to understand everyline in the book before i felt i understood a topic...i understand in medical school this will not be possible..i dont know how im going to get over it...im also worried about anatomy, i do well with concepts but not so great on memorizing, i just dont know how im going memorize that much detail in that little time...🙁
whooosaaa

 

[alfonzarel]

im starting M1 in a couple of weeks and im starting to freak out.....i think my problem is during undergrad i was the type who needed to understand everything inside out...i basically had to understand everyline in the book before i felt i understood a topic...i understand in medical school this will not be possible..i dont know how im going to get over it...im also worried about anatomy, i do well with concepts but not so great on memorizing, i just dont know how im going memorize that much detail in that little time...🙁
whooosaaa

you better get comfortable not knowing everything.

 

[badasshairday]

im starting M1 in a couple of weeks and im starting to freak out.....i think my problem is during undergrad i was the type who needed to understand everything inside out...i basically had to understand everyline in the book before i felt i understood a topic...i understand in medical school this will not be possible..i dont know how im going to get over it...im also worried about anatomy, i do well with concepts but not so great on memorizing, i just dont know how im going memorize that much detail in that little time...🙁
whooosaaa

Take a deep breath. First of all, as soon as you accept the fact that you CANNOT know everything like how you did in undergrad, the sooner you will feel less stressed out.

Just say it with me: "I cannot (and neither can anybody else) know every detail inside out during medical school because it is like drinking water out of a fire hydrant." Repeat 10x a day for maximum effectiveness. 👍

 

[Elixir86]

I'm about to be an M1 and I was reading this post and it seems that the best method that everyone brings up is to read and reread your syllabus a couple of times during the week and go all out 3-4 days before the exam. The method I hope to use (and I'm sure it'll be changed around to fit with my time, activities) is to pre-read the night before, go to class and listen and add to my notes, read my notes again that evening and make a "Summary Page" of each lecture, and pre-read for the next day's classes.

A lot of people say that pre-reading is extremely helpful but hard to keep up. Have any of you been able to keep up this practice? Has it been helpful? How is your normal day structured in terms of studying/eating/class/exercise/sleeping? Like a lot of soon to be M1 students, I am starting to get nervous and I'm the kind of person that wants to try and get as much helpful hints as possible and then figure out which ones I will use or not use. Thanks a lot.

 

[Orthodoc40]

I'm about to be an M1 and I was reading this post and it seems that the best method that everyone brings up is to read and reread your syllabus a couple of times during the week and go all out 3-4 days before the exam. The method I hope to use (and I'm sure it'll be changed around to fit with my time, activities) is to pre-read the night before, go to class and listen and add to my notes, read my notes again that evening and make a "Summary Page" of each lecture, and pre-read for the next day's classes.

A lot of people say that pre-reading is extremely helpful but hard to keep up. Have any of you been able to keep up this practice? Has it been helpful? How is your normal day structured in terms of studying/eating/class/exercise/sleeping? Like a lot of soon to be M1 students, I am starting to get nervous and I'm the kind of person that wants to try and get as much helpful hints as possible and then figure out which ones I will use or not use. Thanks a lot.

So - the big message is to stay really organized and use your time effectively, not to read the syllabus a bunch of times and then 'go all out' a few days before the exam!!

Use the syllabus to organize your study schedule. It isn't a great idea to plan on simply going all out a few days before the exam. Why? You aren't taking one class at a time, with one exam at a time. There will be many weeks you have two or even three exams - and all the while, every class will be adding on new material each day leading up to those exams. If you put aside pharm (as an example) to go all out for say, neuro, you will be behind in pharm FAST. Really fast.

Pre-reading & especially pre-labbing is really important for most people I've talked to.

Also, you can get ideas now of how you're going to approach things, but you'll probably find that you won't really know exactly what is going to work for you until you're underway.

 

[grandslam521]

Review books are only useful if you have mastered the material in the first place. You can't "review" what you have not "learned".

The key to medical school is organizing your time and organizing the information that you are presented. This means that your syllabus is your first stopping point. It directs your time-management and mastery of subject matter. In addition, you have to organize the material that is presented in syllabus, lecture and supplement with text. This means that you never, never attend any lecture that you have not previously previewed -a change from undergrad for most folks. You cannot expect that all of your mastery of a subject or course will come for walking into a lecture, taking notes and memorizing those notes. This approach invites becoming bogged down in details that you can't get into your knowledge base.

Organization, preparation, active learning and regular review are the keys to mastery of a large volume of information. You also have to have the confidence and adaptability to shift your strategy if what you are doing does not work for you. I have seen too many medical students become discouraged and depressed when they fall behind by using a system that can't be "ratcheted-up" for the volume of information that they need to master.

Consult the upperclassmen at your medical school to find out how they managed specific coursework. Consult the course director for strategies in coursework mastery. Be prepare to change or adjust as you need and work for efficient mastery rather than attempting to find more books and more resources other than syllabus, lecture and text.

What is this "syllabus" that everyone always talks about? We have a syllabus overall for the course, but it rarely, if ever, tells us what we need to be studying. Maybe you are talking about a lecture outline? Again, we almost never get solid lecture outlines - maybe just a few key points or something but that is it.

 

[Orthodoc40]

What is this "syllabus" that everyone always talks about? We have a syllabus overall for the course, but it rarely, if ever, tells us what we need to be studying. Maybe you are talking about a lecture outline? Again, we almost never get solid lecture outlines - maybe just a few key points or something but that is it.

Can't say for anyone else, but we always get a kind of syllabus/schedule-y thing that lists what topics/chapters/readings are being covered on each day. What I meant by using it was simply to organize your study time around it.

 

[babel]

What is this "syllabus" that everyone always talks about? We have a syllabus overall for the course, but it rarely, if ever, tells us what we need to be studying. Maybe you are talking about a lecture outline? Again, we almost never get solid lecture outlines - maybe just a few key points or something but that is it.

What I think everyone is talking about - at least, this is what we have at my school - is a set of lecture notes that you get at the beginning of the course. Usually, this consists of ~10-15 pages of notes and images (per 1 hr lecture) put together by the professor giving that lecture. Ideally, it is written like a mini-chapter from a book (full sentences, paragraph format, with images inserted) - though sometimes it's in outline format, or even worse, just a print out of their powerpoint slides.

I learned in my first year to rely entirely on these notes - I don't go to lecture, I don't watch lecture, and I don't read books (except when it's powerpoint only - then I usually have to watch the lecture to fill-in the details). This has saved my sanity and raised my grades. 👍

 

[TheRealMD]

So I've just had my first week here as an MS1 and Baylor and I can definitely tell you everything people have said here is true. The material is not hard. At all. Period. The volume is what will kill you. Particularly anatomy. If you've never had an anatomy course, then you won't know how long it will take you to study all the superficial back and shoulder muscles. You may "understudy" but most likely you'll "overstudy". For example, I'm probably not going to need to know the EXACT phrasing on the back of the Netter's Anatomy Flash cards. That's just crazy. So don't memorize it! JUST DON'T MEMORIZE IT. I think that's a real problem most pre-med turn med students have. They want to memorize everything.

Instead it's much much much much more important to understand how and WHY everything works. Heck, with anatomy, just today I've figured out that based on the origin and insertion of a muscle, I should have a general idea of what the muscle does without memorizing it's action. The muscle is there for a REASON. And if try to find ways around rote memorization where possible, it'll make your life just a little bit easier.

 

[dienekes88]

I start in about a week and a half, and I'm probably totally screwed (as has been the case with most of my adventures in life).

My plan is to study a lot... and race my bike.

I'm definitely looking into everyone's suggestions: multiple runs through material, thinking "big picture," making schedules, figure out the specific stuff being tested...

We're all in it together, fellow MS-1s!

 

[grandslam521]

So I've just had my first week here as an MS1 and Baylor and I can definitely tell you everything people have said here is true. The material is not hard. At all. Period. The volume is what will kill you. Particularly anatomy. If you've never had an anatomy course, then you won't know how long it will take you to study all the superficial back and shoulder muscles. You may "understudy" but most likely you'll "overstudy". For example, I'm probably not going to need to know the EXACT phrasing on the back of the Netter's Anatomy Flash cards. That's just crazy. So don't memorize it! JUST DON'T MEMORIZE IT. I think that's a real problem most pre-med turn med students have. They want to memorize everything.

Instead it's much much much much more important to understand how and WHY everything works. Heck, with anatomy, just today I've figured out that based on the origin and insertion of a muscle, I should have a general idea of what the muscle does without memorizing it's action. The muscle is there for a REASON. And if try to find ways around rote memorization where possible, it'll make your life just a little bit easier.

If you think back muscles take a lot of time, then just wait till you get to the nerves and vessels of the abdomen, pelvis, and perineum!

 

[Orthodoc40]

I start in about a week and a half, and I'm probably totally screwed (as has been the case with most of my adventures in life).

My plan is to study a lot... and race my bike.

In NYC??!

 

[dienekes88]

In NYC??!

Yep. This season has been rough... lots of travel.

I got my elite upgrade, though. Nothing like being in the shape of my life before going to medical school to ruin it all.

 

[abooodMD]

the material isn't difficult, so much as the vast amount of it and the short time you have to memorize & understand it all. one thing that helped me was going over the material several times before the test.
1)use the syllabus to pre-read the topics the night before
2)the next morning go to lecture (or listen to the recording if u don't go to class)
3)that same night go over the topic again making thorough notes
4)later that week, review your notes

I'm wondering, can anyone do this with all the different material and classes he has everyday ??

 

[SpinnerOfTruth]

Why does everyone keep saying that you can't learn it all? Has anyone tried?

Just remember that all these things take away from study time
friends
life
sleeping
eating
pooping
sex
showering- this makes not worrying about the previous one that much easier

Just to let you know, after giving all these things up, yes... I do know everything.

 

[majik1213]

today was my first day, and it was great! 🙂

 

[Elixir86]

today was my first day, and it was great! 🙂

First day of class or first day of orientation? I just had my first day of orientation and it was great (although quite exhausting towards the end)!

 

[dienekes88]

First day of class or first day of orientation? I just had my first day of orientation and it was great (although quite exhausting towards the end)!

Really? Ugh. I hope they don't make me do stuff at my orientation. I have to do an 83 mile road race in upstate New York on Saturday, finish packing Sunday, and then move in on Monday.

 

[Kirby175]

today was my first day, and it was great! 🙂

😀 glad to hear!

 

[bola]

I'm about to be an M1 and I was reading this post and it seems that the best method that everyone brings up is to read and reread your syllabus a couple of times during the week and go all out 3-4 days before the exam. The method I hope to use (and I'm sure it'll be changed around to fit with my time, activities) is to pre-read the night before, go to class and listen and add to my notes, read my notes again that evening and make a "Summary Page" of each lecture, and pre-read for the next day's classes.

A lot of people say that pre-reading is extremely helpful but hard to keep up. Have any of you been able to keep up this practice? Has it been helpful? How is your normal day structured in terms of studying/eating/class/exercise/sleeping? Like a lot of soon to be M1 students, I am starting to get nervous and I'm the kind of person that wants to try and get as much helpful hints as possible and then figure out which ones I will use or not use. Thanks a lot.

I haven't read all the posts on here, but I have to agree that pre-reading might be helpful but hard to keep up. I think I did it for just about the first week of classes and have since stopped b/c I just couldn't keep it up. When it came down to either going over the material from today's lecture or trying to prepare for tomorrow's, there just was not enough time in the day for both. (I should probably have prefaced this by mentioning how slowly I study: ~4-5 hrs for every 2 hr lecture)

Pre-reading probably makes things easier but don't feel like a loser if you can't keep it up. My system is going to lecture, making sure I try to look at the material within 0-3 days max after the lecture and then going over it two more times the week before exams or more depending on my efficiency. Do what works best for you. I didn't go in with this formula but rather fell into it. And it has worked perfectly for me so far. We'll see if this still holds true in second year.