omniscient classmates in MSI/MSII

[PoorMD]

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I can't help but feel at a bit of a disadvantage to some of the all knowing classmates, that profess their great grades without hesitation (much less any inquiry from others), who want to know what I'm studying or how, only to subsequently list their agenda, their study plan, and how they are going running for 7 miles before they sing and play piano at church because "its something to do on the side" when they aren't reading 100 pages a night from their biochem text on top of their course material...

Lynard Skynard sang "Be a simple man".. that really goes for all walks of life.. Im really one of those types- more or less a jack of all trades, simply put you know- can't exactly cure cancer but I have a good jump shot. Not the best at weight lifting but I have a real interest and feel for physics. Pretty good at having fun on a thursday night, but not good with the ladies.. You get the idea.. ......except Im not very good at medicine yet either.. for some reason that part stings worse than any other shortcomings.... In our small groups and PBL things like that, I always feel like a total idiot compared to the classmates, who spout off "it's obviously thrombocytopenia secondary to massive macrocytic anemia" 😕

Where I come from, i.e. engineering, a group meeting involved drawing your idea out on the dry eraser board or powerpoint, showing the calculations to back it up, and then discussing costs and timelines and such. In medicine, it's a new language. If you don't know about albumin and bilirubin, then those are just meaningless words.. Sometimes I just feel like an idiot for not knowing the medical language too well yet, as an MSI.. I think in MS3/MS4 I will be able to adapt to the clinical setting, using these terms every day with clinicians..

anyone else here feel like their classmates are already doctors somehow and they sometimes unconsciously overuse their linguistic 'art' to belittle others?

 

[ShyRem]

Just wait until they get to 3rd and 4th years, poorMD. A good didactic students does not necessarily equal a good clinical student. Many poor didactic students have turned out to be great clinicians. Hang in there.

 

[cdql]

I almost expected that kind of stuff to go on. Many of these students were the ultra-competitive type pre meds (stereotype I know I know).

But eventually, I find that it peters out during 2nd year.

By the time 3rd and 4th year rolls around, everyone's almost on equal footing. Nobody can know everything about all the rotations. While some of the booksmart kids may be succeeding now, who can tell whether they will enjoy the same level of success later on? (Again, not generalizing...it can be a difficult transition for those who stay in their room and study all day long...not an impossible transition though!)

I would say keep plugging on until you finally find an area of medicine/med school where you excel. And then be sure to rub it in everyone's face at that point in time 🙂

 

[Samoa]

What is it with you engineers and the "language" of medicine? It's like you think of words as just a symbol of a concept, and you have to do an extra step in your heads to connect the two. To me the word and the concept are one.

BUT, I do know how you feel about words for which you have no concept yet. Even coming from a health profession, there were relationships I memorized between various things without actually having a clue what any of it meant. I could talk the talk, but my understanding was very shallow. And I'm quite certain almost everyone else in my profession was in exactly the same boat. So med school, for me, was this long series of epiphanies; "oh, so THAT's what that is!"

Still, your classmates who talk like everything is obvious are just being jackasses. given my own background, I'm very aware how easy it is to sound knowledgeable based on sheer memorization without any true understanding. So people who just sound smart don't intimidate me, or even impress me.

Now, if someone can explain what they're saying in a simple and easily understandable way, without making me feel like an idiot, THAT impresses me. There's a person who truly understands the topic.

 

[Megalofyia]

What is it with you engineers and the "language" of medicine? It's like you think of words as just a symbol of a concept, and you have to do an extra step in your heads to connect the two. To me the word and the concept are one.

Words are the enemy.

 

[hobs]

I can't help but feel at a bit of a disadvantage to some of the all knowing classmates, that profess their great grades without hesitation (much less any inquiry from others), who want to know what I'm studying or how, only to subsequently list their agenda, their study plan, and how they are going running for 7 miles before they sing and play piano at church because "its something to do on the side" when they aren't reading 100 pages a night from their biochem text on top of their course material...

Lynard Skynard sang "Be a simple man".. that really goes for all walks of life.. Im really one of those types- more or less a jack of all trades, simply put you know- can't exactly cure cancer but I have a good jump shot. Not the best at weight lifting but I have a real interest and feel for physics. Pretty good at having fun on a thursday night, but not good with the ladies.. You get the idea.. ......except Im not very good at medicine yet either.. for some reason that part stings worse than any other shortcomings.... In our small groups and PBL things like that, I always feel like a total idiot compared to the classmates, who spout off "it's obviously thrombocytopenia secondary to massive macrocytic anemia" 😕

Where I come from, i.e. engineering, a group meeting involved drawing your idea out on the dry eraser board or powerpoint, showing the calculations to back it up, and then discussing costs and timelines and such. In medicine, it's a new language. If you don't know about albumin and bilirubin, then those are just meaningless words.. Sometimes I just feel like an idiot for not knowing the medical language too well yet, as an MSI.. I think in MS3/MS4 I will be able to adapt to the clinical setting, using these terms every day with clinicians..

anyone else here feel like their classmates are already doctors somehow and they sometimes unconsciously overuse their linguistic 'art' to belittle others?

there's a lot of fragile ego going on in medical school, and people do a bit of regression to 4th grade behavior to defend that ego. So i wouldn't let it get to you on a personal level.

 

[Hurricane]

Where I come from, i.e. engineering, a group meeting involved drawing your idea out on the dry eraser board or powerpoint, showing the calculations to back it up, and then discussing costs and timelines and such. In medicine, it's a new language. If you don't know about albumin and bilirubin, then those are just meaningless words.. Sometimes I just feel like an idiot for not knowing the medical language too well yet, as an MSI.. I think in MS3/MS4 I will be able to adapt to the clinical setting, using these terms every day with clinicians..

I understand how you feel. When I first started med school, I came from the grad student way of thinking where you learn a set of basic concepts, then are tested on your ability think up experiments to test hypotheses based on those concepts. Then I get to med school, where you aren't tested on your ability to think so much as your ability to give back the name of the artery that feeds the spleen or whatever. Took some getting used to. You'll get it eventually too.

As for the annoying students who like to talk about how much they study and how well they do... find other people to hang out with. Those types will only drive you and everyone else around them crazy. Plus they're not very interesting to talk to either. And when you walk out of an exam and they are all huddled together comparing answers, walk the other way and go have a beer or whatever you do to relax instead. Don't let them get you worked up. It's pointless.

 

[Chronic Student]

Posted by Samoa:

Now, if someone can explain what they're saying in a simple and easily understandable way, without making me feel like an idiot, THAT impresses me. There's a person who truly understands the topic.

You speak the truth!

-Mike

 

[Brainsucker]

I can't help but feel at a bit of a disadvantage to some of the all knowing classmates, that profess their great grades without hesitation (much less any inquiry from others), who want to know what I'm studying or how, only to subsequently list their agenda, their study plan, and how they are going running for 7 miles before they sing and play piano at church because "its something to do on the side" when they aren't reading 100 pages a night from their biochem text on top of their course material...

Wow, my class is really not like that. We've got an unspoken kind of rule here not to talk about how well we do. People will talk about being afraid to do poorly but I have no idea who the top students in the class are. I can infer things based on study habits, but I can't tell. The 2nd years tell me that they don't know who's honoring at all.

 

[Nittany Lion]

Wow, my class is really not like that. We've got an unspoken kind of rule here not to talk about how well we do. People will talk about being afraid to do poorly but I have no idea who the top students in the class are. I can infer things based on study habits, but I can't tell. The 2nd years tell me that they don't know who's honoring at all.

See for me, the people who brag about how they know everything have always been easy to shrug off, because in my mind, they just seem like big obnoxious snobs and I got used to ignoring people like that back in undergrad, so it's easier for me to let their comments go in one ear and out the other.

On the other hand though, especially in the beginning of the year, I got way more psyched out by people freaking out about how badly they're going to do as opposed to the people who act like they know everything. Because from my experience, it's usually the people who are actually really prepared who are the ones running around in an unwarranted, perpetual state of panic before a test because that's just how their personalities are. "Oh my god, I feel like I don't know anything!!!..." they would say, (when meanwhile you've seen them in the library for 12 hours a day every day). Either I would just get disgusted because it's obvious that they just want someone to puff them up and tell them how well they're going to do, or I would start to think "wow if they're panicking, maybe I should be panicking too". But now, I just try really hard to just worry about me and not to get involved with those kinds of games.

I know everyone says from day one to just ignore what your classmates say or do, but it's easier said than done. It takes time (and confidence) to be truly comfortable with your own study habits (enough to say to yourself, even if I can't spout out all these terms 2 weeks before the exam doesn't mean I won't be ready when the exam rolls around). And, it takes a good deal of effort and practice to be able to block all those mind games that others unconsiously play because they're feeling nervous. But once you do, life is so much more peaceful.

 

[Brainsucker]

Well, my point is that I'm glad I'm somewhere where the culture forbids the kind of obnoxiousness the OP is mentioning. I knew people in undergrad who did the kind of puff-me-up stuff you're talking about, but the people who are freaking out here are really freaking out.

 

[PoorMD]

... it takes a good deal of effort and practice to be able to block all those mind games that others unconsiously play because they're feeling nervous. But once you do, life is so much more peaceful.

i like that, keep it coming 👍

 

[tupac_don]

What is it with you engineers and the "language" of medicine? It's like you think of words as just a symbol of a concept, and you have to do an extra step in your heads to connect the two. To me the word and the concept are one.

BUT, I do know how you feel about words for which you have no concept yet. Even coming from a health profession, there were relationships I memorized between various things without actually having a clue what any of it meant. I could talk the talk, but my understanding was very shallow. And I'm quite certain almost everyone else in my profession was in exactly the same boat. So med school, for me, was this long series of epiphanies; "oh, so THAT's what that is!"

Still, your classmates who talk like everything is obvious are just being jackasses. given my own background, I'm very aware how easy it is to sound knowledgeable based on sheer memorization without any true understanding. So people who just sound smart don't intimidate me, or even impress me.

Now, if someone can explain what they're saying in a simple and easily understandable way, without making me feel like an idiot, THAT impresses me. There's a person who truly understands the topic.

Exactly!!!!!!! Very eloquently said, coming from the same background as you, I totally understand what you are saying.

 

[Law2Doc]

when meanwhile you've seen them in the library for 12 hours a day every day.

If you've seen them in the library 12 hours a day every day, then you are one of them 🙂 . Probably the smartest thing you can do as exams approach is to find a place to study where you won't see any classmates. Try to keep blinders on until the test.

 

[Nittany Lion]

If you've seen them in the library 12 hours a day every day, then you are one of them 🙂 . Probably the smartest thing you can do as exams approach is to find a place to study where you won't see any classmates. Try to keep blinders on until the test.

Haha...touche 😛 But I also don't go around telling everyone about how much I know, or go around telling everyone that I'm going to "fail". 👍

 

[koma]

I think I am one of those people who obnoxiously tell everyone they are going to "fail" and after the test, say stuff like "what about #43, did you get A or B?" And "I don't believe he put that question about flumavidine!" And to people who I fleetingly know, I might say something like "I am hoping to get a 78 so I can keep my average in the comfortable 82 zone, but oh it would be so nice to get an A in path, bla blah blah". So on behalf of these people, I would like to apologize. Sorry! We are just like the Jennifer Annistons of this world. We can't keep the cat in the bag. We have to spill it to everyone within hearing distance. I wish I could be more Jolie and just keep shush, but I can't. Oh well.
Too balance it out, I am much more eager to talk about how I made a C, then an A. I don't know, it feels good to share bad grades. 🙂

 

[Psychopathology]

Good luck. It gets stressful sometimes depending on the backgrounds of people in your group. Just remember that sooner or later, it will be your time to shine and that you will eventually find an area where you can mature into an expert.

 

[thackl]

Former engineer here. It is quite a change in 'learning' from what we're used to. It's easier and harder at the same time. Intergrative thought will help you in the long run. Let the linear learners do their 12hrs/day of memorization. It doesn't mean they understand any of it.

 

[k_soze]

the name of the artery that feeds the spleen or whatever.

The splenic artery? 😛