struggling in medical school

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I wouldn't stress yourself out about the boards as a first year. They're important but I'd focus more on classwork as a first year than trying to study for a test that's over a year away.

Many people will probably tell you that you need to figure out what works for you. For me, that's reading the things over and over again until I can't stand it anymore (I hate the week before a test for this reason). You're in your second semester, so I'm guessing you've experimented with a few different study methods. If not, you might take a day or two to see if different methods work better for you.

Ultimately, doing well enough in medical school to feel comfortable is a bit of a process. Keep plugging and hope that something works well. Hope this helps.
 
First, put the time in. Next, make sure you are making the best use of your time. For me that meant going to lectures and reading the class notes thoroughly (no books for the most part). I didn't do most of the "recommended" and "required" readings that we were assigned. Doing so would have meant working from the time I got up to the time I went to sleep and I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice.

Most importantly keep yourself mentally healthy. Don't get too down on yourself. Everyone in your class was a great student in college and half of them will be in the bottom half in medical school. If you find that you are passing but not as good as you wanted to be, maybe you should make peace with that (unless your heart is set on an incredibly competitive field).

Take all of this with a grain of salt, I am one of those who made peace with average grades.
 
My first recommendation will be to find out what motivates you to study - is it going into a competitive field? is it to get a certain rank in your class? is it for learning the material for future clinical use? is it to do your best? Since you said you're struggling, I'd definitely work on not only study techniques but figure out how to best motivate yourself (which relates to mental health, mentioned above).

I agree with above posters that boards shouldnt be your primary concern at this point. Right now, focus on solidifying good study and motivation techniques that you can use 2nd year when you'll be learning the most important/relevant material for boards. A lot of my friends who are struggling blame it on volume of information, distractions, family problems, personal issues,... I think, as long as you have the motivation to study and work and get better, you will be able to overcome whatever obstacles you are faced with. Don't stress too much, keep moving ahead! Goodluck!! 🙂
 
My first recommendation will be to find out what motivates you to study - is it going into a competitive field?
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what would your advice for someone in this position be?
 
I think it's all fine and good to "find the method of studying that works best for you," but sometimes the best studying method varies by course. For example, in my physiology class, all you had to do was read the BRS book and you were golden. Other times, you had to look at the transcripts. For me, doing old exams question were INVALUABLE, so if you can find a way to do that, I bet it will help a lot.

Use upperclassmen as a resource and ask them what the best way of approaching each class is. Also, I agree it's too early to worry about the boards, but next year, you might want to try to get QBank early and do questions through the year so you can focus your studying to board-oriented stuff.
 
its important to realize that you are among the best, and just passing medical school is admirable. not everyone will get good grades. that being said, you could certainly do better if you address your weaknesses. for me the first step towards bringing up my grades was recognizing that i would do just fine by passing. once the anxiety was lifted a little, i was more free to enjoy the subject matter, which caused me to to better.

i also have trouble with the vast amount of material. my best advice to you is to focus your energy on high yield materials. get board review books an read the relevant section before your exam. talk to your classmates who are doing really well and ask them which areas are really important to know cold. getting A's is somewhat a game, and some people are just better at figuring out what to do . and definitely talk with your professors, they will give you clues about which concepts are key for exams and practice.
 
Make sure you have access to some tutors who can help you if you continue to struggle. Also, a tutor or an educational consultant may be able to help you identify your weak spots and help you improve your studying habits.
 
First question is are you failing? If the answer to that is yes, you need to immediately seek out the dean of students and get some serious intervention going. If you are not failing, you need to take a deep breath and relax. You may be able to improve your study technique or the hours you are putting in to do better. There is no shame in passing medical school though, my friend. You are competing with the cream of the crop, not all the scrubs who got weeded out of your premed classes.
 
I'm currently failing one course, but for the rest of my classes I am barely passing. It seems like I'm borderline dissmissal every semester. I think my problem is retention of the information, is there anyway to improve this. Or to get through my notes faster with higher retention?
 
Spend less time organizing and "cleaning up notes" (ie, I really like my notes to be really NEAT and organize, but I just told myself to be less OCD) and spend more time learning, memorizing and thinking about the the material...

When I started doing this my efficiency with studying and grades improved. The amount of time I spent "studying" I realized was a waste because I wasn't really learning anything -- I was just shuffling papers and information around absentmindedly.

FYI... For your point of referance, I have not started med school yet.
 
ducki303 said:
FYI... For your point of referance, I have not started med school yet.
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:laugh:

A good number of us were 4.0 students in college. What worked then in terms of academics, more often than not, doesn't really hold up now.
 
Haha, yes yes. I know Med School is a different ball game, hence the disclaimer. Just trying to give some helpful comments.
 
my advice:
at the beginning of a given subject, grab a high yield or BRS book related to the topic. Do a quick read over it in a day or two and just try to understand the MAJOR concept. That's gonna help you in the long run.
 
hoqhuuep said:
:laugh:

A good number of us were 4.0 students in college. What worked then in terms of academics, more often than not, doesn't really hold up now.
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no this is the dumbest thing i see parroted on these boards -- its still studying science theres just more of it, there is no paradigm shift in your studying when you get to medical school (this is a ******ed concept anyway, how can you study "differently", you either cram the information into your head or you don't and whether or not that happens is a function of how much time you spend).

if you're not getting it you're not spending enough time. if you literally can't spend any more time on studying because that would mean its every waking moment then sorry you can't handle medical school.
 
VoiceofReason said:
no this is the dumbest thing i see parroted on these boards -- its still studying science theres just more of it, there is no paradigm shift in your studying when you get to medical school (this is a ******ed concept anyway, how can you study "differently", you either cram the information into your head or you don't and whether or not that happens is a function of how much time you spend).

if you're not getting it you're not spending enough time. if you literally can't spend any more time on studying because that would mean its every waking moment then sorry you can't handle medical school.
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I disagree. In undergrad, I didn't have to memorize much. Some things, sure, but even my General Bio I class was all conceptual. If you understood the concepts, you'd do well on the tests. In medical school, concepts in a lot of subjects go out the window. You have to memorize drugs for pharm, bugs for micro, diseases, symptoms, and treatments in things like the musculoskeletal block. I've never had to memorize so much in all my life and my study skills most certainly HAVE changed since entering med school. If yours haven't, that just means you and I went to two very different undergrads.
 
Gabby said:
I disagree. In undergrad, I didn't have to memorize much. Some things, sure, but even my General Bio I class was all conceptual. If you understood the concepts, you'd do well on the tests. In medical school, concepts in a lot of subjects go out the window. You have to memorize drugs for pharm, bugs for micro, diseases, symptoms, and treatments in things like the musculoskeletal block. I've never had to memorize so much in all my life and my study skills most certainly HAVE changed since entering med school. If yours haven't, that just means you and I went to two very different undergrads.
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sorry information is information the line that people draw between 'concepts' and 'facts' gets so blurry as to be meaningless in any honest analysis. Whats the real difference between the 'concept' of intracellular second messenger interplay and the apparent 'list of facts' that comprise the laboratory diagnosis algorithm for gram positive germs? You either remember the algorithm branches or the branches in the messaging pathway or you don't.

you're given a volume of information, asked to digest it, and then apply it. whats the main difference between UG and medical school? time spent.
 
whats the main difference between UG and medical school? time spent.
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When I advise people, that's what I focus on when I say they'll need to study differently. If you spent 6 hours a day studying in undergrad, you're going to have to change to survive med school. If you put in an hour a day, you'll be fine just increasing your efforts proportionally.
 
Review books such as goljan RR path, first aid for USMLE, micro made ridiculously simple, and others are the key to success.
 
I learn by talking aloud while walking ... I spend walking several km a day :laugh: ...
I've tried just to read the books, but my attention is lost very soon, so mostly I read it and try to retell it aloud ... I do it until I manage to actually retell it fluently.
 
VoiceofReason said:
sorry information is information the line that people draw between 'concepts' and 'facts' gets so blurry as to be meaningless in any honest analysis. Whats the real difference between the 'concept' of intracellular second messenger interplay and the apparent 'list of facts' that comprise the laboratory diagnosis algorithm for gram positive germs? You either remember the algorithm branches or the branches in the messaging pathway or you don't.

you're given a volume of information, asked to digest it, and then apply it. whats the main difference between UG and medical school? time spent.
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I disagree.

What I found in med school is that I have to actually spend more time "conceptualizing" the info presented to us for myself. In undergrad, the professors (or perhaps simply the structure of the course itself) did that for me, so I didn't have to do it for myself. The info in undergrad was presented in the concept of overarching "theories" or concepts and we were constantly called upon to think of those concepts. So even when we had to memorize miniscule facts in undergrad, we always knew how to group them under the overarching concepts.

In med school, at first I was floundering (hello Gross Anatomy, antithesis to theory?!). But as year is wearing on, I found more and more ways to "structure" or "conceptualize" the info for myself, which made the memorization easier.

For example, in histology, we were constantly thinking about why structures looked the way they do (i.e. why are there granules/proteins there, why does this stain that way, etc.), so I found it a lot easier to ID histo slide structurs than gross anatomy structures. Consequently, I did a lot better in histo than gross. Even in micro, I find it easier to organize info- for example drawing huge flow charts of RNA vs DNA viruses, or Gram + vs Gram - bacteria, etc. Organizing all the organisms we have to memorize in that way went a loooong way toward retaining the material.

And the thing is... no lecturer organized the info like that for us! I don't know if that just speaks to the teaching or what. (Only very occasionally will a professor emphasize flow charts and organizing info. Most of the time a lecturer will just go up there and spew a bunch of semi-organized facts.) So I had to learn to do that for myself.

Once I learned to do that, however, I did a lot better in med school. So... no, med school is not simply an accelerated version of undergrad. Undergrad courses ARE definitely more conceptual, and the thing is, for some of us who need that framework, we will have to learn to adapt and create that framework for ourselves... otherwise it just doesn't work.

Others are just superb memorizers who don't need that structure. Perhaps you are like that, so you don't need to adapt your study strategy.
 
unsung said:
I disagree.

What I found in med school is that I have to actually spend more time "conceptualizing" the info presented to us for myself. In undergrad, the professors (or perhaps simply the structure of the course itself) did that for me, so I didn't have to do it for myself. The info in undergrad was presented in the concept of overarching "theories" or concepts and we were constantly called upon to think of those concepts. So even when we had to memorize miniscule facts in undergrad, we always knew how to group them under the overarching concepts.

In med school, at first I was floundering (hello Gross Anatomy, antithesis to theory?!). But as year is wearing on, I found more and more ways to "structure" or "conceptualize" the info for myself, which made the memorization easier.

For example, in histology, we were constantly thinking about why structures looked the way they do (i.e. why are there granules/proteins there, why does this stain that way, etc.), so I found it a lot easier to ID histo slide structurs than gross anatomy structures. Consequently, I did a lot better in histo than gross. Even in micro, I find it easier to organize info- for example drawing huge flow charts of RNA vs DNA viruses, or Gram + vs Gram - bacteria, etc. Organizing all the organisms we have to memorize in that way went a loooong way toward retaining the material.

And the thing is... no lecturer organized the info like that for us! I don't know if that just speaks to the teaching or what. (Only very occasionally will a professor emphasize flow charts and organizing info. Most of the time a lecturer will just go up there and spew a bunch of semi-organized facts.) So I had to learn to do that for myself.

Once I learned to do that, however, I did a lot better in med school. So... no, med school is not simply an accelerated version of undergrad. Undergrad courses ARE definitely more conceptual, and the thing is, for some of us who need that framework, we will have to learn to adapt and create that framework for ourselves... otherwise it just doesn't work.

Others are just superb memorizers who don't need that structure. Perhaps you are like that, so you don't need to adapt your study strategy.
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maybe you should reread this to yourself as many times as you have to in order to realize that you're just playing word games.

"conceptualizing" is, like you implied, just a cognitive trick that helps you remember discreet pieces of information. Anatomy just doesn't lend itself well to organization by general principle so its more difficult to remember everything. What is a 'general principle' anyway but just another discreet piece of information that relates other pieces. In that sense the mnemonic for the cranial nerves is simply an artificial, extremely abstract 'concept' that ties together the 'facts'. A cognitive trick.
 
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the point is there is no real advice to give the OP except to work harder unless he or she was actually unaware of the existence of mnemonic devices or that organizing information makes it easier to remember

if either is the case then lol because i cant even imagine how this wouldn't be second nature for a successful matriculant
 
I came from a PBL business/tech program and a german lit program. It IS a radically different way to study for some people. You DO have to analyze your study approaches. Some people learn better by talking, some by writing, some by reading and some by listening. Most are some combination and order of those things. What you were able to jam into your head using one of those techniques may not work for you now with the increased volume, but you don't know because you never tried anything else. Learning is learning but whether you believe it or not, there are different methods.

I can't do words or equations. It doesn't work for me. When you tell me to find the stroke volume, my first thought isn't an equation. It is an imagine in my head of the heart pumping. If I turn that off, I won't remember it and won't learn. I can't think of numbers as just numbers. I have to think of them in different colors and sizes in order to remember things. Yes, mildly autistic of me I know. Sometimes it is as easy as adjusting time. Some people are capable of churning out 15 hour days for the week before a test and get A's. Others have to frontload their stuff and put less time in test week.

Truth is, there isn't one set way a person learns most efficiently. If there was, every school would be using it right now.
 
I've found that making flashcards on the computer has been massively helpful in all the memorization required in med school. I suggest a free program called Mnemosyne. Its easy to make the flashcards, and then when you are testing yourself, if you keep getting the question right then you are tested on that question less frequently. That way you are only practicing the questions that you don't know. It's probably too late to start doing this for this school year, but it might be something to consider for next year.
 
I'm not sure how my studying is different now, but I know I study differently for medical school. Maybe I'm just using the same study method I used in undergrad, but just a lot more of it. Who knows.

In undergrad though, I could get an A in the class by doing minimal studying. I have taken quarters with only science classes, so I did know what it's like to just do science. I guess what's different now is that to pass, you need to know the material from the back of your head. It's really hard to explain, and it gets even more confusing because each person does it differently.

Random note: M1 is almost done, and I still think anatomy was hands down the hardest class I've ever taken. Not sure if I'll feel the same way in M2.
 
I agree that there is something fundamentally different about how you study for medical school. I was an engineer in undergrad, so it wasn't even the amount of studying that was different. If anything, there's less of a workload here. The way I learned the information, though, definitely needed to change. Engineering is about learning to apply a few concepts in hundreds of difficult ways. Medical school is more like memorizing a dictionary. You need to treat it less like a science class and more like a language class.

What worked for me was flashcards (which I bought, not made), BRS, repeating what I learned outloud while writing on white boards in empty rooms, having study partners quiz me and lots and lots of review questions. Basically I realized I needed to repeat each concept half a dozen times, but never more than once from the same source. Also lots of mnemonics.
 
I getting tested for learning disabilities. But, I'm not sure how the school would take that, given I excelled in undergrad and on the mcat without any special conditions. Is it even possible to have a learning disability at this age (26 years old) and have gotten into medical school before finding out?

I'm only thinking of this, since it seems like i'm working twice as hard as everybody else and doing much worse than everybody else. But, I also don't want the school to think that I have an apparent weakness.
 
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slick27 said:
I'm in my second semester and I have really been struggling. I had a good gpa and mcat score, but thus far I have not found a good way to deal with the loads of information I have to learn quickly. And then, be able to retain this info for boards. Any ideas?
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I'm not sure what the policy is at your school, but are you able to look over your old exams and determine why you are getting certain questions wrong. Obviously there are many reasons for getting a question wrong: too much info to recall (you mentioned this might be a problem), not covering the material or knowing info needed to answer the question, improper reasoning of the question, miss reading the question, anxiety, etc. Once you determine that, I think you will be able to find the answers/advice you need to help you succeed. Having a tutor is not always helpful. At my school, they are just classmates who did particularly well in the class the year before. Sometimes a "learning-specialist" is what is truly needed. Good luck. I know this experience is hard, and sometimes there is no easy answer. Best of luck :luck:
 
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VoiceofReason said:
sorry information is information the line that people draw between 'concepts' and 'facts' gets so blurry as to be meaningless in any honest analysis. Whats the real difference between the 'concept' of intracellular second messenger interplay and the apparent 'list of facts' that comprise the laboratory diagnosis algorithm for gram positive germs? You either remember the algorithm branches or the branches in the messaging pathway or you don't.

you're given a volume of information, asked to digest it, and then apply it. whats the main difference between UG and medical school? time spent.
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Kind of have to agree to a certain extent with VoiceofReason. They say in our school that "repetition is the mother of learning". So the more time you spend the better. However, another thing that came to mind is that if you are spending too much time on material that is not important--then it doesn't matter how much time and hard work you put into it. Determining what's important information and how to apply it in testing situations is key. Working efficiently is way more important than working hard. Which brings me to my post above about going through your old tests to see what questions you missed and why you got the answers wrong. Good luck and be relentless until you are successful!
 
VoiceofReason said:
sorry information is information the line that people draw between 'concepts' and 'facts' gets so blurry as to be meaningless in any honest analysis. Whats the real difference between the 'concept' of intracellular second messenger interplay and the apparent 'list of facts' that comprise the laboratory diagnosis algorithm for gram positive germs? You either remember the algorithm branches or the branches in the messaging pathway or you don't.

you're given a volume of information, asked to digest it, and then apply it. whats the main difference between UG and medical school? time spent.
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I also disagree with you. In undergrad I never actually tried to memorize anything. I just tried to think about how things would work. In anatomy I realized this totally didn't work.

What worked in med school for me was just to reread my our course notes over and over. I no longer took any notes and rewrote them like in undergrad. I didn't really try to understand it. Just read as many times as possible to memorize things. Memorization is a totally different thing than understanding concepts and you can't say its not. Sure you are getting info in your head but there is more than one way to do that. Some work better than others or else there wouldn't be different strategies of studying. People may learn in med school that the one they were using before was less efficient.

My grades came up second year after I embraced memorizing a bit more and actually I didn't increase studying at all. 3rd year too.
 
VoiceofReason said:
maybe you should reread this to yourself as many times as you have to in order to realize that you're just playing word games.

"conceptualizing" is, like you implied, just a cognitive trick that helps you remember discreet pieces of information. Anatomy just doesn't lend itself well to organization by general principle so its more difficult to remember everything. What is a 'general principle' anyway but just another discreet piece of information that relates other pieces. In that sense the mnemonic for the cranial nerves is simply an artificial, extremely abstract 'concept' that ties together the 'facts'. A cognitive trick.
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I'm not sure why you have such a problem with there being a difference between conceptual and factual knowledge (not sure I love those terms for what I'm describing, but I'll go along with it). A lot of what you're saying is reasonable, but there's definitely a big difference. With concepts you work down from general to the specifics, with facts you either know the specifics or you don't.

Take physics for example. At my school at least, there were several different levels of introductory physics, with the most important distinction being physics with calculus vs physics without calculus. If you learn physics without calculus, you end up having to memorize a large number of formulas, and if you see a question that requires a formula you don't know, you're screwed. In the more advanced classes, you would start with far fewer formulas, but have to work much harder to apply them.

A lot of medical school tests are rote memorization that require very little effort if you know the fact in question and are almost impossible to answer if you don't know it. There's a lot of memorizing, and to be honest, not a lot of real thought involved much of the time. That's a huge change from something like an abstract mathematics course where you can enter the test knowing almost no specifics and derive everything for yourself from general principles. So please, stop trying to pretend that this distinction does not exist.
 
Make sure to invest in a tutor. These types of decisions can impact the rest of your career, so you don't want to take this lightly. I know too many medical students who failed out of medical school or Step 1 because they didn't invest the resources required to succeed.
 
You guys better not just be memorizing or you will be in for a rude awakening when you hit Step I and the clinical years. Despite how they teach or test you in the preclin years, you will be required to analyze stuff like lab data and physical exam results to come up with the diagnosis. Medicine isn't regurg, it's critical thinking.

I think, that for most people, you will have to change your study habits in medical school. It doesn't just mean studying more, although the quantity is the driving force behind the change.
 
VoiceofReason said:
maybe you should reread this to yourself as many times as you have to in order to realize that you're just playing word games.

"conceptualizing" is, like you implied, just a cognitive trick that helps you remember discreet pieces of information. Anatomy just doesn't lend itself well to organization by general principle so its more difficult to remember everything. What is a 'general principle' anyway but just another discreet piece of information that relates other pieces. In that sense the mnemonic for the cranial nerves is simply an artificial, extremely abstract 'concept' that ties together the 'facts'. A cognitive trick.
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Hmm... fail. I'm not talking about mnemonics. Mnemonics are indeed "tricks" to artificially group things, so as to memorize them more easily.

I'm talking about, for example, learning ALL the vasculature in the entire body at once (along with the physiology that goes w/ that circulation), or learning ALL the musculature at once (along w/ the corresponding physio of mm mvm)...

...vs, compare that to, learning the vasculature/musculature, etc. of a particular arbitrary "region" of the body such as "chest" or "neck" or "head". And to make it worse, devoid learning any of the physiology behind it. Well... this was how I actually learned it.

And beyond the obvious difficulties w/ learning anatomy devoid functionality (I think everyone understands this point, at least), what troubled me the most was that the regional approach didn't "draw connections". I'd learn the blood vessels of the "neck", and even tho' branches would naturally extend elsewhere, our learning cut off at "neck".

So later on when learning head, I had to connect for myself, "oh" this vessel actually came from there, etc. etc. It was just a mess. Until someone gave me this gigantic diagram of all the blood vessels. Suddenly I could see the connections, thing about how 1 area is supplied, etc. etc. Then all of a sudden, I found I could memorize everything all at once, and it worked.

Is organization a trick? Maybe. But not in the same way mnemonics are "real" tricks. Organization based on grouping things into "natural classes"- ex- DNA viruses vs RNA viruses... well, that is conceptual, damn it. :laugh:

Anyway. Think I've belabored that point.
 
i'm sorry that you all can't see something so clear. The reason you feel like you 'only had to think to reason out a problem' in college was that there was simply very little to remember -- you got it all in one or two passes. You're still critically thinking in medical school...

maybe these things have to be pointed out, i guess. Theres more information and for good reason. We're in the 'real world' now, so to speak, and in the real world predictions hardly ever match results. We don't really care if you can reason out what happens when a theoretical adrenergic agonist is administered (thats childs play), we want you to know what actually happens in detail when epi or norepi is given in reality.
 
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They are thinking I have issues processing auditory information. If this is true, it will be hard to succed in med school, wouldn't you think?
 
slick27 said:
They are thinking I have issues processing auditory information. If this is true, it will be hard to succed in med school, wouldn't you think?
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haha:laugh:

I failed my first two exams in medical school (which happened to be anatomy). They made me see someone, and they told me the same thing. "Phospho, you seem to be having issues processing auditory information".

Since then, I stopped going to class or listening to the lectures online (that way I wouldn't have to use my ears!:meanie:). We have pretty comprehensive notes, and there's wikipedia, so I do the reading on my own and look things up when I need to.

My disadvantage: I need to study everything carefully because I don't know what's being emphasized.

My advantage: I gained 4 more hours in the day that I can devote to studying on my own.

I've (almost) nailed everything since then. Actually I'm doing better in medical school than I did in undergrad. I wish they had told me back in undergrad that my brain wasn't getting along with my ears.
 
My school is a very big on oral instructions. They only test what they say in class. The notes they give us are a waste of time since they only test a fraction of it, (what is said in class.) This is why I think I might have trouble excelling at my current school.
 
VoiceofReason said:
i'm sorry that you all can't see something so clear. The reason you feel like you 'only had to think to reason out a problem' in college was that there was simply very little to remember -- you got it all in one or two passes. You're still critically thinking in medical school....
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We're definitely not thinking critically in medical school, or at least I'm not. It's not that there's just more to memorize in medical school, it's also that memorizing it is now 100% of the work of learning rather than a very small component of it. In undergrad remembering the information was maybe 1/10th of the battle, or at least it was for me. In an engineering class there were only a few dozen equations, and if you didn't know all of them, cold, you were going to get just about a zero on the test. What happened beyond that memorization was where the thinking came in. You'd, for example, need to apply the equations you learned to circuts that you had never seen before, that were more complex than the circuts that you had seen in class. If you didn't understand the concept no amount of memorization was going to save you. That's a big difference, you could memorize every word of every textbook (and in fact many tests were open book) and still score in the teens on the test. In medical school if you know every word on the slides and every word in the book you always get just about a perfect score.

I think what you're doing is confusing 'multi-step reasoning' (meaning linking several pieces of memorized information together) with critical thinking. In medical school, ad particularly on the Step, there are a lot of problems that employ multi step resoning. For example: you memorize that Alcohol can cause pancreatitis, then you memorize that pancreatitis can cause malabsorption, then you memorize that malabsorption can cause a vitamin D deficieny, then you memorize that a vitamin D deficiency can cause low Calcium and Phosphorus in your serum. So the Step 1 question asks you for the lab values in an alcoholic with fatty stools. Now you need to memorize a LONG string of factoids to get to the answer, but there was no thought involved in any of it. You didn't make any new connections, you just regurgitatied what you were previously taught. It's a different skill. Not necessarily easier, but different.
 
slick27 said:
My school is a very big on oral instructions. They only test what they say in class. The notes they give us are a waste of time since they only test a fraction of it, (what is said in class.) This is why I think I might have trouble excelling at my current school.
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Digital voice recorder 🙂
 
digital vocie recorder is still audio
 
In undergrad I got paid by the school's tutoring office to take copious notes and provide a copy for a classmate.

Does your school offer anything like that?
 
yeah, but they always come out to late. In med school, once your behind your always behind.
 
What does everyone think of the study methods in Armin Kamyab's Book how to study in medical school
 
slick, you should find a few friends and take turns transcribing the lectures. we have lectures on powerpoint and two friends and I take turns transcribing the lectures in the Notes section of powerpoint. i end up not listening to the lectures until much much later but will have read them 2-3 times already.
this way you and your friends also save time and help each other out 🙂
 
phospho said:
I'm not sure how my studying is different now, but I know I study differently for medical school. Maybe I'm just using the same study method I used in undergrad, but just a lot more of it. Who knows.

In undergrad though, I could get an A in the class by doing minimal studying. I have taken quarters with only science classes, so I did know what it's like to just do science. I guess what's different now is that to pass, you need to know the material from the back of your head. It's really hard to explain, and it gets even more confusing because each person does it differently.

Random note: M1 is almost done, and I still think anatomy was hands down the hardest class I've ever taken. Not sure if I'll feel the same way in M2.
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I don't think you will. You have to face Pathology period. Let the nightmares and night sweats begin!
 
I don't think anatomy is the hardest class I've ever taken (psychologically, maybe...), but it sure was the worst by an incalculably huge margin. Second year is way better.
 
ChimeraAlly said:
I learn by talking aloud while walking ... I spend walking several km a day :laugh: ...
I've tried just to read the books, but my attention is lost very soon, so mostly I read it and try to retell it aloud ... I do it until I manage to actually retell it fluently.
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We might have been related in a past life because I study exactly in the same manner: reading loud while pacing in my room. It helps me retain stuff a lot better. I read somewhere (I think in Guyton) that if you walk and study (aloud) at the same time, it's one of the most effective study techniques as the neurons get pre-stimulated due to the whole walking thing, and as a result new circuits develop that help with retention and consolidation of stuff.

Although I find it quite tiring after 10-15 min., my mind seems to have gotten way too accustomed to this technique, so it's the only way I know to study "effeticvely" (apart from doing a silent read before I pace the loud, creaky, wooden floors in my room.) I usually end up retaining a majority of information this way and I always end up thanking myself after exams for having studied this way. I think it's a bit unconventional and might look odd to a stranger/acquaintance (in this case, my flatmate) but give it a go and see if it helps!
 
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