Need sleep, can I survive med school?

[closertofine]

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Hmmm, I don't know how relevant this is, or if this is the right forum, but anyway...I have a question...

Is it possible to be a person who really needs her eight hours of sleep at night, and still survive med school? This issue came up again today, when I had to wake up after only 7.5 hours of sleep (oh, the horror!), and ended up having to take two naps during the day!

I dozed through a lot of college classes, and also skipped a lot and studied on my own...but I don't know if those techniques would cut it in med school. And strangely enough, I absolutely abhor the taste of coffee (and even when I take migraine medication with caffeine, it makes me very jittery and nervous), so I don't think there's much that will keep me awake when I haven't slept enough.

Residency, I know, would be even more of a challenge. I am relatively sure that I want to go to med school (still a tiny bit torn between that and a career in photography!), but I am worried that I wouldn't be able to handle it well. I've never even pulled an all-nighter in college...always just went to bed and winged the test without having learned all the material...so I'm not sure about trying that route for med school.

Any thoughts? Besides illegal drugs, of course?!

Thanks,

Karen44

 

[Downhill Racer]

Well my perspective...

Generally, having a fixed sleep schedule is healthy. Regarding the academic demands of med school, most of my friends in medschool have told me that they generally planned their own schedule, skipped most classes and did just fine. I think if you are organized in your study habits or absorb information quickly you should be fine, just plan your studying... or sleeping 🙂 Incidently, most schools have been cutting down class times or introducing PBL curricula, although the jury's out from my perspective whether that actually saves time (you still have things to do: self-study/group meeting/etc).. so you may prefer a traditional curriculum.

Residency is a different story from what I've heard, so you may want to be judicious in selecting which discipline/program you pursue, but thats too far down the road to worry about... or should I say lose sleep over (sorry I couldnt resist!)

G'Luck!

 

[DW]

Originally posted by karen44
I dozed through a lot of college classes, and also skipped a lot and studied on my own...

pretty much what i along with a pretty substantial percentage of med students do

 

[skypilot]

With a student at U Pitt. He said it is not a problem as long as you are willing to sacrifice other activities to get your 8 hours.

I think it could become an issue in residency if you pick the wrong one. Just don't take a residency in Surgery!

Radiology, Path, Psych or maybe Family Practice might be good bets.

😉

 

[closertofine]

Thanks, you all, I really hope it's true that I can still get my 8 hours...otherwise I'm pretty much non-functional...I was trying to talk to someone today (before my naps!) and she asked me what was wrong...I guess it looked like I kept staring off into space... when really I was just close to falling asleep! Not good...

But I am pretty efficient when it comes to studying, and am lucky enough to have a good visual memory, so I usually don't need to read things more than once to remember most of them...on the other hand, my auditory memory stinks, so getting my sleepy brain to remember any part of a lecture is hard 🙁 ...oh well, I guess I'll see when (or if) I get to med school...