Serious about Pre-studying for Med School

[KoalaT]

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Gunner - A person who is competitive, overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his/her peer relationships and/or reputation among peers in order to obtain recognition and praise from his/her superiors.

Ex: That dude in the front of the class is a gunner. He began studying for medical school 6 months early, he spends his free time in the library rather than intramurals or socializing, and wrote a 200 page thesis that only required 100 pages. He is now still average in his medical class and does not take part in sharing stories with his peers of the good times they had traveling prior to school and all the fun times they had in college.

Don't be a gunner. I don't want my doctor to be a gunner. They aren't nice people.

 

[partypantss]

Gunner - A person who is competitive, overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his/her peer relationships and/or reputation among peers in order to obtain recognition and praise from his/her superiors.

Ex: That dude in the front of the class is a gunner. He began studying for medical school 6 months early, he spends his free time in the library rather than intramurals or socializing, and wrote a 200 page thesis that only required 100 pages. He is now still average in his medical class and does not take part in sharing stories with his peers of the good times they had traveling prior to school and all the fun times they had in college.

Don't be a gunner. I don't want my doctor to be a gunner. They aren't nice people.

I seriously don't understand how me wanting to spend some down time reading over the stuff I'm going to be learning in medical school makes me a gunner.. I'm still thoroughly enjoying this year, I'm traveling and spending lots of time with my girlfriend going out and trying new restaurants around NYC and LI. I'm also working to make a bit of cash. I've never been one to suck up to profs or do extra unnecessary work.

Just because I want to get the gears turning a bit by looking over some actual medical school material makes me an as*hole? I don't get the hostile reaction to the idea of pre-studying on this site. My brother is finishing up his last year of dental school and is studying for step 1 so he can be a dental surgeon and he recommended I start looking stuff over when I'm bored. My mother is a med school professor and she too thought it was a good idea to start reading stuff if I have the time for it... For some reason everyone I know in "real life" thinks I should do it while everyone on SDN thinks it's the worst thing ever. I wouldn't be forcing myself into anything, I would just be looking stuff over for the fun of it.. I sometimes literally have a solid hour of down time at work, how is it so awful if I open up a med school book during that time?

 

[WedgeDawg]

I seriously don't understand how me wanting to spend some down time reading over the stuff I'm going to be learning in medical school makes me a gunner.. I'm still thoroughly enjoying this year, I'm traveling and spending lots of time with my girlfriend going out and trying new restaurants around NYC and LI. I'm also working to make a bit of cash. I've never been one to suck up to profs or do extra unnecessary work.

Just because I want to get the gears turning a bit by looking over some actual medical school material makes me an as*hole? I don't get the hostile reaction to the idea of pre-studying on this site. My brother is finishing up his last year of dental school and is studying for step 1 so he can be a dental surgeon and he recommended I start looking stuff over when I'm bored. My mother is a med school professor and she too thought it was a good idea to start reading stuff if I have the time for it... For some reason everyone I know in "real life" thinks I should do it while everyone on SDN thinks it's the worst thing ever. I wouldn't be forcing myself into anything, I would just be looking stuff over for the fun of it.. I sometimes literally have a solid hour of down time at work, how is it so awful if I open up a med school book during that time?

I haven't really been following this thread recently, but as I think was said before, go ahead and do it then come back in a year or two and tell us what you thought about it. Who knows, maybe it will help you and maybe you'll change opinions. If you don't want to listen to recommendations of people here, then don't. People (at least the ones who have any idea what they're talking about) aren't telling you to not pre-study because it's "unfair" or because you're "being a gunner", they're saying don't do it because it'll be a waste of time. But again, if you think it'll be helpful to you, then do it (and report back!). No one knows you like you do and if you think it will help against the recommendations of people on SDN, then go ahead and pre-study.

 

[KoalaT]

I seriously don't understand how me wanting to spend some down time reading over the stuff I'm going to be learning in medical school makes me a gunner.. I'm still thoroughly enjoying this year, I'm traveling and spending lots of time with my girlfriend going out and trying new restaurants around NYC and LI. I'm also working to make a bit of cash. I've never been one to suck up to profs or do extra unnecessary work.

Just because I want to get the gears turning a bit by looking over some actual medical school material makes me an as*hole? I don't get the hostile reaction to the idea of pre-studying on this site. My brother is finishing up his last year of dental school and is studying for step 1 so he can be a dental surgeon and he recommended I start looking stuff over when I'm bored. My mother is a med school professor and she too thought it was a good idea to start reading stuff if I have the time for it... For some reason everyone I know in "real life" thinks I should do it while everyone on SDN thinks it's the worst thing ever. I wouldn't be forcing myself into anything, I would just be looking stuff over for the fun of it.. I sometimes literally have a solid hour of down time at work, how is it so awful if I open up a med school book during that time?

I thought it was clear my post was more satirical than serious. Didn't mean to offend. Also, I don't think I implied it's gunner-esque to casually read over medical related subjects. That's perfectly normal, in my opinion. If you enjoy reading medical material, that's great to follow your passion. When I hear "pre-study" I image the kids who are making A&P flash cards and quizzing themselves.

Pretty sure people backlash against it because we get a lot of high-anxiety/overly paranoid posts on here of pre-meds trying to get ahead or worried about what they need to do. It just fuels the flames. My opinion is just follow your passion and don't make it about "what they want" and "what I need to do". That sort of attitude is (I believe) what leads to physicians who care more about the reputation/finances of being a physician and less about the actual passion.

In the end, you shouldn't listen to anyone on here. Do what you thinks best

 

[partypantss]

I thought it was clear my post was more satirical than serious. Didn't mean to offend. Also, I don't think I implied it's gunner-esque to casually read over medical related subjects. That's perfectly normal, in my opinion. If you enjoy reading medical material, that's great to follow your passion. When I hear "pre-study" I image the kids who are making A&P flash cards and quizzing themselves.

Pretty sure people backlash against it because we get a lot of high-anxiety/overly paranoid posts on here of pre-meds trying to get ahead or worried about what they need to do. It just fuels the flames. My opinion is just follow your passion and don't make it about "what they want" and "what I need to do". That sort of attitude is (I believe) what leads to physicians who care more about the reputation/finances of being a physician and less about the actual passion.

In the end, you shouldn't listen to anyone on here. Do what you thinks best

Okay, I think I slightly misinterpreted the meaning behind your post! All good and best of luck to ya👍

 

[Username555]

Here's why most people, including myself, don't recommend prestudying, even though it might seem like a good idea going into med school or a new semester.

Any form of prestudying you do is going to wind up being incredibly inefficient. Because let's say you take a solid chunk out of the summer before med school to prestudy for the first semester. Of everything you teach yourself, let's say you need to know like 30% of it for your class. Of that 30% you did learn and would need, you won't remember everything, you're going to forget some stuff. And of course, there's no guarantee that you learned that 30% in the proper context in order to answer questions about it that your med school would give you on tests. So at the end of the day, does losing a chunk of your last real summer justify getting a few extra questions right on each test the first semester of med school, if that?

Although you need to memorize a lot for med school, you will have very few regurgitation questions. You're gonna have more application stuff. So a lot of time, our lectures will contain things we need to know, but there will also be context provided and other pieces of information that tell us HOW we should be memorizing and learning the information, so that we can answer questions about it if asked on a test, if that makes sense. You don't know what your med school will consider important and unimportant and in what context they expect you to know the material, so your studying will be inefficient.

It does take a lot of time to get good grades in med school, but the efficiency with which you study is in my mind so much more important than the time you spend studying. If you set aside an 8 hour period on a Saturday to sit at the library and study, you might find yourself getting distracted and wasting time because you know you have so much time to work with. So studying for 8 hours with less than ideal efficiency might leave you worse off than studying for 4 hours with maximum efficiency. Outside of a few exceptions, the students who do the best at our school are the ones who work hard and play hard. If you bust your butt during school and use your full effort to learn the material really well, you should give yourself a break and do NOTHING during time off. That'll get you mentally prepared to start studying again anyway, it all goes hand in hand.

TL;DR: don't prestudy. It's super inefficient and will probably give you ZERO advantage over your classmates who don't prestudy

 

[KoalaT]

Here's why most people, including myself, don't recommend prestudying, even though it might seem like a good idea going into med school or a new semester.

Any form of prestudying you do is going to wind up being incredibly inefficient. Because let's say you take a solid chunk out of the summer before med school to prestudy for the first semester. Of everything you teach yourself, let's say you need to know like 30% of it for your class. Of that 30% you did learn and would need, you won't remember everything, you're going to forget some stuff. And of course, there's no guarantee that you learned that 30% in the proper context in order to answer questions about it that your med school would give you on tests. So at the end of the day, does losing a chunk of your last real summer justify getting a few extra questions right on each test the first semester of med school, if that?

Although you need to memorize a lot for med school, you will have very few regurgitation questions. You're gonna have more application stuff. So a lot of time, our lectures will contain things we need to know, but there will also be context provided and other pieces of information that tell us HOW we should be memorizing and learning the information, so that we can answer questions about it if asked on a test, if that makes sense. You don't know what your med school will consider important and unimportant and in what context they expect you to know the material, so your studying will be inefficient.

It does take a lot of time to get good grades in med school, but the efficiency with which you study is in my mind so much more important than the time you spend studying. If you set aside an 8 hour period on a Saturday to sit at the library and study, you might find yourself getting distracted and wasting time because you know you have so much time to work with. So studying for 8 hours with less than ideal efficiency might leave you worse off than studying for 4 hours with maximum efficiency. Outside of a few exceptions, the students who do the best at our school are the ones who work hard and play hard. If you bust your butt during school and use your full effort to learn the material really well, you should give yourself a break and do NOTHING during time off. That'll get you mentally prepared to start studying again anyway, it all goes hand in hand.

TL;DR: don't prestudy. It's super inefficient and will probably give you ZERO advantage over your classmates who don't prestudy

This makes a ton of sense... It's like studying for a college class test prior to receiving the syllabus or test review. Massive waste of time. and yada yada yada whatever else you said, but I only read the first paragraph and the TLDR. ha

 

[mcloaf]

I seriously don't understand how me wanting to spend some down time reading over the stuff I'm going to be learning in medical school makes me a gunner.. I'm still thoroughly enjoying this year, I'm traveling and spending lots of time with my girlfriend going out and trying new restaurants around NYC and LI. I'm also working to make a bit of cash. I've never been one to suck up to profs or do extra unnecessary work.

Just because I want to get the gears turning a bit by looking over some actual medical school material makes me an as*hole? I don't get the hostile reaction to the idea of pre-studying on this site. My brother is finishing up his last year of dental school and is studying for step 1 so he can be a dental surgeon and he recommended I start looking stuff over when I'm bored. My mother is a med school professor and she too thought it was a good idea to start reading stuff if I have the time for it... For some reason everyone I know in "real life" thinks I should do it while everyone on SDN thinks it's the worst thing ever. I wouldn't be forcing myself into anything, I would just be looking stuff over for the fun of it.. I sometimes literally have a solid hour of down time at work, how is it so awful if I open up a med school book during that time?

It's worth pointing this out early in your med school career: med school professors by and large have no idea how you should study for step 1 and following their advice is at least as likely to be a hindrance as a help.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using SDN mobile

 

[Doggo]

Crap I'm starting to read scientific papers in Najeeb's voice in my head lol. Has anyone on here tried Lecturio? I watched one ep and found the presenter to be awkward af but the info and quiz questions seemed pretty decent. Any opinions on that series? I'm trying to find other sources haha since I figure I shouldn't just rely on one and I'm running out of videos.

Also my PI suggested using wikipedia as a supplement. Thoughts?

NOTE: I am not studying for a test/grade/resume boosting or whatever so lets get all that BS out of the way. I am studying purely for the sake of knowledge and I don't understand why that's such a mindblowing concept to grasp on here.

 

[piii]

Crap I'm starting to read scientific papers in Najeeb's voice in my head lol. Has anyone on here tried Lecturio? I watched one ep and found the presenter to be awkward af but the info and quiz questions seemed pretty decent. Any opinions on that series? I'm trying to find other sources haha since I figure I shouldn't just rely on one and I'm running out of videos.

Also my PI suggested using wikipedia as a supplement. Thoughts?

NOTE: I am not studying for a test/grade/resume boosting or whatever so lets get all that BS out of the way. I am studying purely for the sake of knowledge and I don't understand why that's such a mindblowing concept to grasp on here.

Because all the knowledge you are getting right now is pretty much worthless. It isn't going to make you a better doctor. It isn't going to make medical school easier. It isn't going to help your grades. Let's be honest, all it is doing is allowing you to circlejerk your ego.

 

[Doggo]

Actually Lecturio seems pretty decent and the app is not bad. Haven't gotten the full version (a bit pricey and they have quite a few free videos) but so far it's pretty good and the quizzes throughout the videos help keep you focused. Their promo emails are a little aggressive but not too big of a deal. Normally not a fan of ppt lectures but they use them pretty well.

Randomly checked out EdX too and they have some random neat global health courses and other ones that explore the social side of medicine. Might try them out later. Not sure yet if I'm gonna try some of the foreign language medical courses for practice but I might. If anyone else has tried them I'm curious to know what you thought of them.

 

[Pepe18]

Crap I'm starting to read scientific papers in Najeeb's voice in my head lol. Has anyone on here tried Lecturio? I watched one ep and found the presenter to be awkward af but the info and quiz questions seemed pretty decent. Any opinions on that series? I'm trying to find other sources haha since I figure I shouldn't just rely on one and I'm running out of videos.

Also my PI suggested using wikipedia as a supplement. Thoughts?

NOTE: I am not studying for a test/grade/resume boosting or whatever so lets get all that BS out of the way. I am studying purely for the sake of knowledge and I don't understand why that's such a mindblowing concept to grasp on here.

Ohhhh, you sound like a wonderfully arrogant person. Many of us study/read/etc for the sake of knowledge, so stop tooting your own horn.

There is a lot of straight forward memorization in medicine, but a lot of it has to do with making connections. I think hammering down normal physio is useful, but the other stuff will probably not help you and may cause you to burn out. You'll see. In school now, I'll feel like I have a good grasp, then someone throws a question that requires me to make a bunch of connections that I never would have thought of. I get it wrong because my knowledge was superficial, and then learn from that how to think on a deeper level. You are going to be learning a bunch of random facts and you will not be making the connections you need to 1) remember long term 2) use the knowledge in a useful way. There is nothing wrong with being curious and wanting to study early, except you do run the risk of burning out.

You learn basic science yr 1-2. 3rd and 4th year, you relearn everything from the first 2 yrs except you approach it from a new angle and add more info. Intern year you repeat everything and add more knowledge/solidify things. Residency you repeat things and add more specialized knowledge and skills. And on and on. There is no rush

Edit: I'm not trying to discourage you from prestudying because it has no effect on me, but you seem overly aggressive about the studying and your last comment made me think "he's going to be one of those people" so I'm just offering up my observations.

 

[deleted1092328]

$20 says you spend 9 months prestudying and still end up average in your class.

I'll message you in 5 years for my $20 lol.

Hey it has been 5 years 🙂 who owes who money