STUDY SKILLS for MED SCHOOL

[roo425]

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Hi, I'm a pre-med and waiting any decision from any school that I applied. I was searching this thread to see if there's any special study skills for med students. I heard many times that students get so much information and it's almost impossible to learn all the stuff for the exam. But based on some of the posts, some of you are able to read lecture notes x3 before exams. I wonder if I'm a slow person or are you super fast? I used to be #1 or at least top 10% for the most of undergrad science classes (O-chem, Physicis..etc but my undergrad was not competative at all.) but I think I'm loosing my ability to study efficiently.

My study pattern is
1. read text
2. review lecture notes, take notes (mostly for classes such as Biochem, pohysiology)
3. do some practice exam/questions if any available
4. review - take notes for the ones that I still don't get right
5. review the notes from #4 right before the exam

If I can do all the steps, I do well on the test. But often time, I don't have enough time to do all the things for every subject. Also, it takes really long for me to read text or lecture notes and take notes (takes about 1 hour to read and summarize 3 pages of a regualr text books). Is there any better way to study? I'm just concerned that I might not have enough time to study during the med school. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[UCLAstudent]

"You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills ... girls only want boyfriends who have great skills."

Sorry, that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of your thread. 😉

To answer your question, that sounds like a pretty time-intensive study routine. The thing is that med school will involve a lot more material than you're probably used to. The material isn't very difficult, but there's a huge volume of it. As much as we'd all like to be able to go over material 5 times before an exam, it's just not practical (or possible).

The first thing I'd get rid of is reading the text. At my school, at least, there's not enough time to do all of the assigned reading (sometimes as much as 100 pages/week) in addition to going over anatomy, lectures, histology, etc. So, I only read when I don't understand something that was said in lecture (or when I have enough time to read). For the most part, what you need to know will be contained in the lectures.

My own little routine for studying is as follows: read the lecture slides ACTIVELY (basically memorizing what's on the slides and the notes that I've taken during lecture), read the associated lecture notes provided by instructors, and then go through the slides one more time (but trying to mentally "recite" as much as possible without looking). This has worked well so far ... I haven't failed yet! Lol. Good luck! 🙂

 

[tupac_don]

Hi, I'm a pre-med and waiting any decision from any school that I applied. I was searching this thread to see if there's any special study skills for med students. I heard many times that students get so much information and it's almost impossible to learn all the stuff for the exam. But based on some of the posts, some of you are able to read lecture notes x3 before exams. I wonder if I'm a slow person or are you super fast? I used to be #1 or at least top 10% for the most of undergrad science classes (O-chem, Physicis..etc but my undergrad was not competative at all.) but I think I'm loosing my ability to study efficiently.

My study pattern is
1. read text
2. review lecture notes, take notes (mostly for classes such as Biochem, pohysiology)
3. do some practice exam/questions if any available
4. review - take notes for the ones that I still don't get right
5. review the notes from #4 right before the exam

If I can do all the steps, I do well on the test. But often time, I don't have enough time to do all the things for every subject. Also, it takes really long for me to read text or lecture notes and take notes (takes about 1 hour to read and summarize 3 pages of a regualr text books). Is there any better way to study? I'm just concerned that I might not have enough time to study during the med school. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'd say listen to the lecturer, some are beter than others, preferrably via mp3 or video, can go to class too, but I personally find watching them to be very high yield. Also you read 2-3 more times and then what I usually do and I find it works great, is I make sure I go through all the material one more time right before the test. And this is more of a once over, just more or less speed reading, moving real fast and I find it helps tremendously.

As far as taking notes, I find it doesn't work for me at all, except for something like pathways in biochem, I'll draw them out a few times, or like the brachial plexus. But otherwise, simply just reading is what I do. But persoanlly I think that if you could cut out making notes and simply read you would have more time.

Good luck.

 

[twintiger32]

here's what i found worked for me:

attend lectures for some classes (figure out which ones you need to go to), and mark up your notes w/ a pen or pencil.

by midterms, i will have gone through the notes 3 times. the night before each exam, 1 more time. then the morning of, a really quick scan. So about 5 times through if I'm on top of things.

Any additional reading in books will help tie things together and broaden your knowledge, but there just isn't enough time...I rely on review books to substitute as they are higher yield.

Nice thing about most med schools is that they provide notes for you.

Good luck!

 

[txguy]

Here's what I do:

If I goto lecture:

1. Follow along with the notes during lecture, making notes with black pen.
2. Read through notes at home to familiarize yourself with the material (don't necessarily memorize yet), making notes with blue pen (so I can distinguish what the lecturer said from what I wrote while reading at home)
3. Do practice questions (old tests) so that you will know how they ask questions, which topics were emphasized, etc--look up answer to questions you missed in the lectures notes (highlighting in a diff color highlighter than normal, so you know which color indicates high yield/previously tested material)
4. Go over notes one last time before the exam, but it is a more directed/focused studying since you have gone over the old test questions
5. Read through the relevant material in a board review book to tie information together and get a nice overview (this is usually a very quick read, since you have gone thru your lecture notes several times already)
6. maybe one more very quick review before the test to re-jog your memory

If you are pressed for time (i.e. too much lecture hours, too much information to learn, etc) then you can not goto lecture and skip the first step, you can save some time by just looking at the answers to old questions rather than actually doing the old tests, you can skip step #5, or as a last resort, you might skip step number 4 and cram the material (I had to do this during the first module when I was first getting acclimated to med school and I still ended up getting low A's).

I think the common theme from these posts is not reading from a textbook like undergrad and instead focusing on the lecture notes/syllabus which should be sufficient for most of your classes. You might have time to read the assigned readings in the textbook, but I think this time is better used going over your lecture notes and doing old tests.

Good luck ......you will defintely figure out your own way of succeeding...hopefully our advice can give you some ideas!

-tx

 

[fun8stuff]

Hi, I'm a pre-med and waiting any decision from any school that I applied. I was searching this thread to see if there's any special study skills for med students. I heard many times that students get so much information and it's almost impossible to learn all the stuff for the exam. But based on some of the posts, some of you are able to read lecture notes x3 before exams. I wonder if I'm a slow person or are you super fast? I used to be #1 or at least top 10% for the most of undergrad science classes (O-chem, Physicis..etc but my undergrad was not competative at all.) but I think I'm loosing my ability to study efficiently.

My study pattern is
1. read text
2. review lecture notes, take notes (mostly for classes such as Biochem, pohysiology)
3. do some practice exam/questions if any available
4. review - take notes for the ones that I still don't get right
5. review the notes from #4 right before the exam

If I can do all the steps, I do well on the test. But often time, I don't have enough time to do all the things for every subject. Also, it takes really long for me to read text or lecture notes and take notes (takes about 1 hour to read and summarize 3 pages of a regualr text books). Is there any better way to study? I'm just concerned that I might not have enough time to study during the med school. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

advice for studying in med school?
1. do not study after more than 3 alcoholic beverages.
2. remember, if you study drunk then you will best remember that information when you are in that same state... so, take the test drunk.
3. a good way to keep track of how many beers you drank is to keep the tops in your pocket.

good luck!

 

[roo425]

Hi, I'm the OP. Thank you very much for the advice you gave. I guess most of them are very similar what I usually do. The only difference is that I haven't had any good lecture note from the school. There are some good professors but some of them were almost impossible to understand. (Maybe it was me.. 😛 ) I thought about practicing a new skill but at this point, I just need to read the text book instead of lecture notes since we don't have any. I will try to remember all the advice (or save them somewhere I can remember) and use them when I really need them. Thank a lot! And good luck on your study, too.

 

[logos]

Its the same thing you're already used to...just memorizing stuff off of powerpoint presentations. Here the powerpoints are key. You can go to the lecture or not read textbooks or not...both help but not very much...just personal preference.

The real difference is that you are going to have to memorize the material after you see it once or twice....three times top if you pay attention and go to class because of the volume of material.