Studying

[ItsGavinC]

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To all those current students:

Have you guys ever had a day where you didn't study at all after school?

Just trying to gauge my motivation!

I had good intentions of studying tonight, but then my cable modem went down, and I developed a killer headache. I'm strongly considering just vegging in front of the tv for an hour or two.

But seriously, how many hours a day have you been studying outside of class/school?

 

[aphistis]

I've had a few, yes. I shouldn't have taken them, and they cost me. It's funny that you post this thread now, because I was thinking about putting something very similar, about how dents organize their time at home, study methods, study schedules, mandatory recreation 😉 , and other stuff.

My personal problem so far has been a reluctance to go back over things after I come home. I assume it's all in there, so I don't bother going back over it; net result is that the material never anchors itself in my mind, so I spend the next day futilely grasping at half-informed guesses.

Tonight I've studied pretty much nonstop, and I'll probably do the same tomorrow, and at that point I should be pretty current on material. We've had two lab quizzes (each group member is asked one question, then the entire group gets one), and I've known 14 out of 14 so far--it's a very encouraging, tangible indicator that this material IS learnable.

What I'm thinking about doing is putting together an evening schedule (not at all unlike what our mothers made for us in elementary school). After getting home, I'll change out of my scrubs, go work out & shower, start looking over material while I make dinner, then schedule a dedicated block of time to studying every day. Problem is, I can't decide whether to define it by a fixed amount of time, or to force myself to go over a certain amount of material. Any time left over after that I'll be free to do with as I please (hopefully an hour or two each night).

How does this sound to everybody? Doable? Destined to fail? Suggestions or amendments are greatly appreciated (and I'm sorry for hijacking your thread, Gavin 😀 )

 

[ItsGavinC]

Bill, no problem. My thread is your thread. I think your plan sounds good. I would schedule an amount of time that you are dedicating to study. That way, should you cover all the material you need to, you can read ahead and prep for upcoming lectures.

I'm doing it that way and it seems to be working. My big thing is that I'm sooooo tired right now. I'm coming to realize that it does me NO good to read something if I'm falling asleep while reading it. Sure, I feel good because I've dedicated myself to studying, but I haven't retained (or even learned?) anything in the process. I'm NOT a big fan of studying just to be studying.

With my schedule I'm finding it hard to get all the studying done that I ought to. Class is from 8-5 every day, then I have dinner and spend some amount of time with my wife and son. What's left over just doesn't seem to cut it.

Oh well, we'll see how it works.

 

[Yah-E]

G:

It's normal to be gunho in your first month of dental school. You see, your experience is unique because you simply have no upper classmen to forewarn and/or give you advice. Further, your curriculum is so new and different from every US dental school, you kind of have to be on top of things daily!

For us at Nova, a dental school that is 7 years old, we have upperclassmen informing us what to read, what to study, what lectures to attend, and what not to do. In addition, we have exam packets (all the previous exams from all the courses) saved from previous classes (upper classmen) that we used to help us get those "A"s and "B"s.

For those even older dental schools, I'm sure they have a crap load of old exam files that they use for their studying materials.

How much to studying you should do, you also should consider how much you want to spend time with your family? In your case, you probably study everynight because you spent a lot of your free time with your family right after school.

My suggestion for you my friend is to continue to study the way you study now until the first round of exams (at least one exam from every single class that you have now) to see how you did. If you end up with all "A"s, then obviously you're doing something right and you can probably relax a little. If you end up getting all "B"s, then maybe you'll want to step up a little and study more.

My studying habits was often deteremined by my exam results, motivation to specialize, and what social activities were available.

That's another thing, at your new school, I'm assuming that there aren't too much dental organizations availlable to you to join yet. At older schools, we have other extracurricular events to partake our free time (which takes our studying time away). Activities and organization examples:

1) intermural football: we have practice right after school at 5 PM and practice for an hour for three days a week. Games are on week day evenings

2) club has meetings and seminars that members must attend after school hours

All these activities takes time away from studying if one wishes to study and to a part of these activities/organizations. My point with this is that if you were to be involved in other things, your time for studying will be compromised.

Should you study every night? Only you can tell. I personally don't study everynight. I'm a crammer plus I have old exams to help me and my dental curriculum is predictable (meaning nothing innovative like yours). I don't see any harm for you to enjoy TV or internet or family for an hour or two and get you away from books!

You'll do just fine

 

[Midoc]

I would recommend that you take an hour or two off every night. Call it your mental health study time if you must but few people can continue studying every night and be efficient at it. For instance with myself when I get home after spending nine hours on campus and 40 minutes to drive 12 miles home I am in absolutely no mood to study. I'll get on the internet and veg-out or play a video game or do some pleasure reading and then I'll do some studying for the night.

Yah-E was definitely right when he said this:

For those even older dental schools, I'm sure they have a crap load of old exam files that they use for their studing materials.

At my school we've had the same professors for biochemistry and histology for many years. I've seen and studied from exams as old as 1982. For biochemistry some of those same questions were on our tests. I think that professor had a phobia against writing new questions.

 

[gryffindor]

As I start 4th year, I'm having a hard time remembering all that studying that went on in the first and second year...

Yah-E and Midoc gave good advice. One thing to remember is strength in numbers. This isn't like college where those who can't hack dentistry drop out and major in something easier. Those who truly can't handle it might drop out (we're talking like maybe 2 people), but for the most part, the administration isn't going to fail 60 people in a class of 90 - even if passing at your school is a 70%. So if a teacher assigns like 25 chapters of "mandatory" reading for some class, you can bet that at least half the class isn't going to read it, and the majority are still going to pass. Maybe they won't get the A, but they'll still move on. My point is, don't get too overwhelmed by all the reading assignments they give you.

Some of our faculty who actually remember to use the DVD love assigning chapters and chapters of reading across several text books (Perio, Endo, and Implants were notorious for this). I have friends who never even opened some of those books and still passed - b/c the notes given in class were enough to pass the course, but not necessarily get the A. I realized in my first day in dental school that I was not cut out to be 4.0 material, so I concentrated my efforts in the classes where I knew I could get the A, and lessened it in other classes. For example, our Gross Anatomy class required an enormous amount of effort just to pass, so for me to get an A in it would have required utmost dedication to that subject many hours a night. I decided the first day that an A in Gross was something I could do without, but I was going to definitely go for the A in Histology, a class that had a lot less work but was worth almost the same amount of credit hours (6 credits for Gross, 5 credits for Histo). I gave Gross my best shot and still earned a B, so in my book, the two classes basically balanced each other. I've taken this approach through all of the semesters now and it seems to have worked out pretty well for me.

Since you have no upperclassmen to guide you, it'll take a few exams to figure out exactly what you need to do be at your academic goal in dental school. But it does get better. There were definitely many nights and weekends during third year where I did not study. Classes in third year mainly require some dedicated cramming the week before and during finals week. Clinic for the most part was left behind at school once you walked out the door. Sometimes you had to go back and do some lab work, but again, not every day. Otherwise, I made sure to keep up with my sitcoms & tv shows every night and had a good time with my friends on the weekends.

Hang in there! First year was the worst, but it did get better. And get involved! Clubs & organizations have definitely made my dental experience so much better, and are great resume builders. If you're involved from day 1, you don't have to scramble summer of junior year when you realize your resume is 6 lines long and that doesn't look to good to the residency directors...

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by Yah-E
G:
My suggestion for you my friend is to continue to study the way you study now until the first round of exams (at least one exam from every single class that you have now) to see how you did. If you end up with all "A"s, then obviously you're doing something right and you can probably relax a little. If you end up getting all "B"s, then maybe you'll want to step up a little and study more.

Andy,

I'd *really* like to follow this advice, and in fact that is what I usually do, but our courses here are only 1 week long! Our exams are on Mondays, and that is the first time we are able to see what the professor is really testing on. I'll have to see what I can come up with as far as really getting to know the professors before hand.

The two professors we've had thus far have been great about keying us in to the ideas they want to test us on, but I have a feeling it won't be the same when some of the other profs role around.

Especially those profs we have from the UNC Medical School and the U of Minn. Med School 😉

 

[ItsGavinC]

Griffin,

Thanks for your post! You're a valuable friend and source!

 

[DcS]

Gavin-

I am going into my 2nd year of UNC Dental School and know quite a few UNC Med students in various years. Shoot me a PM or I can give you my email, and chances are either I will specifically know the teacher (as we do have some Med faculty in DDS classes) or I can get the scoop on them from a friend in med school.

 

[ItsGavinC]

DcS,

Kurt Gilliland will be teaching us our musculoskeletal module, and Royce Montgomery will be teaching our neuroscience module.

Those two modules are twice as many credit hours as our other courses, so I'm thinking the professors must be top-notch.

Send me a PM if you can find any info. Both of those guys are on the med. school faculty.

Thanks!

 

[no2thdk999]

Originally posted by ItsGavinC
DcS,

and Royce Montgomery will be teaching our neuroscience module.

Thanks!

Oh #%(&$&!!!


Check your PM

Rob

 

[anamod]

I need to vent so this seems like a good time and place. I'm now a second year dental student and over the past year have noticed a thing or two about dental students. I went into dental school with the attitude that I would study every night and get all A's like in undergrad. Well i realized quickly that they feed you a ton of propaganda in dental school. Once I realized this my studying time feel off dramatically. I now at the very most study 2 nights before an exam but usually it's the night before. I no longer take my bag home from school unless I have a test the next day. Now i'm not saying this attitude is for everyone, but it fits me well. If you do indeed want to specialize then you will need to study a great deal but there is no reason to tweek out about every little detail like my classmates do. A faculty member at my school put it best he told me a story about how his wife had a kidney problem and he went to his phys. book from dental school to read up on how the kidney works and he said that he had stuff underlined and highlighted that he knows nothing about today, and he said" 85% of what they teach you in dental school is worthless in the real world.

A very sucessful dentist in my area told me that the best way to get through dental school is to learn the basic skills and just get by in the book part of school because real world dentistry is nothing like dental school.
I'm personally in the bottom half of my class due to the fact that I get C's in worthless classes like Histology and Biochemistry. But I do get A's in all of my lab classes where it really counts. I just feel sorry for all of my fellow classmates that will realize in 10 years that they wasted so much of their time studying and not having fun. My group of friends and I all have the same attitude about school and all agree that we are having the time of our lives. My only goal is not to graduate last second to last is fine with me. I wish all of you the best of luck, but really take a step back and think about what is truely more important having a good time or know what a Intercalated disc looks like under a microscope.

 

[anamod]

Also my best advice is find a profesor who is into new technology. and materials and ask him questions and get to learn their take on real world dentistry.

 

[Yah-E]

Anamod:

That's right you're at my Undergrad school in Minneapolis. I have very close friends that are in 3rd and 4th year there at the "U" dental. How did you like Dr. Roon for Biochem, he actually wrote me a letter of recommendation. For Histo, Dr. Bauer kicks ass....I actually had him during my Undergrad days.

I'll be back for Homecoming on Oct. 16, 2003, the "U" is playing Michigan State. Homecoming is a blast and I miss it. Also, I recently did a 3-day OMS externship at the "U" Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Dept this past April. Given if I have the numbers, I'm definitely applying for the OMS residency there since I'm very familiar with the OMS faculties. You're at a great dental school, my man.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel basic science courses are no use to you and your practice, but I guess you're right, if you want to just pass, there's no need for you to excel in every class.

Did you join Psi O or DSD? Good luck in your upcoming 2nd year.....it is the most challenging year at the "U"! If you excel in labs, then this is your year! Also, we should meet because I go back to the "U" quite a bit and a lot of us dental students get together for lunch at the Stadium Village. I miss Chipotle!!!

😎

 

[UBTom]

to Anamod:

I've also been through the whole rigamarole in freshman year where you seemingly take courses with tons of material that doesn't seem to offer much relevance to dentistry, but I think that as you go along, you will find that there is some relevance.

Dentistry today has become more than the usual drill-and-fill. There will be classmates of yours who will go into specialties such as oral diagnostic sciences where they WILL find relevance with all the slides seen in histology and pathology, especially when you send in a biopsy specimen for lab analysis and save the life of a patient when you are able to tell from the micrographs that it's an early-stage squamous cell carcinoma on his tongue.

There will be classmates of yours who will be doing research in the dental field into things like pharmaceutical agents for treating periodontitis which requires a knowledge of biochemistry.

There will be classmates of yours who go into oral surgery and will require all the stuff we learned then promptly forgot in gross anatomy when they do things like removing donor bone for a graft from an iliac crest or when doing things like a Lefort-I osteotomy.

Those classmates of yours will be the ones to profit financially from those basic sciences when you refer cases to them!

When you get to your third year, I think you will get a better idea of the "big picture" and find some relevance in the basic stuff you learned in freshman year.

Best of luck.

 

[anamod]

Yah-E I made it goal of mine to never join a frat but I hang out with a couple of guys that are PSi o members. The 2 professors that you listed are great professors , it's just that I don't think the are the most important classes. I'm sorry to hear that you miss chipotle I eat there almost everyday.

UBTom, Well I see you ate up the propaganda they feed you. I agree with what you are saying about those posssibly three people in my class that may go into those fields. I reallly will have no problem sending biopsy to a oral pathologist if they enjoy that field more power to them same goes for the other two examples. But I as a future general dentist have no need for a great deal of this info other than to spit it out on boards and then forget it. All of the practicing dentists outside of the school of dentistry that I have talked to say that most of what you learn in irrelvant, the day you graduate is the first day of school. Not to attack you but I just feel that you are like a great deal of my classmates and believe everything that is told to you. If dental students want to learn every little last detail and care what grade they get than fine, but I think some people have no clue as to what the ral world is like. I'm not saying I know I have not even seen my first patient but I think that I have a much better grasp on the real world than most of my tweeker classmates who whine and complain . A great deal of my fellow classmates are children of dentists and when they go home and tell their parents what they have been learnig they are shocked that dental school has not changed since they where there.

 

[UBTom]

Anamod:

The problem is not that dental students like me "believe in propaganda." The problem is YOU labeling everything that bores you as "propaganda" even though others might find the material useful or important.

You haven't had any clinical experience at this point, yet you claim to know more about "real world dentistry" than those like me who did. "Propaganda" indeed.

I can imagine in the future a judge passing down a guilty verdict on you for malpractice because of something you missed in basic sciences that resulted in misdiagnosis or cause harm to a patient. "But that little macule looked inocuous and I had no way of knowing it's cancer! That's propaganda!" Heh.

Change your attitude amigo, before you do serious harm to a patient through your willful ignorance. I hope you will find good malpractice insurance coverage once you graduate.

Best of luck. You will need it.

 

[ItsGavinC]

I agree with Tom -- its got nothing to do with propaganda!

I'm PAYING for a complete education and I expect a complete education! Our profession is NO different than any other medical profession where they are given TONS of information but only end up using small portion of it. Just because you don't use it on a daily basis doesn't mean it isn't important.

And by the way, dental school HAS changed over the years. Sure, not every school has kept the same rate of change, but change has occured nonetheless. My school is a prime example! We're in the sim-lab our first year and we'll be in the clinics next year.

I'm sorry that you are so bitter about your education. It's one thing to say you take a laid-back approach to school and favor certain classes over others. I have no problem with this approach, after all, to each his own! It is completely another to rip into our profession by saying that the entirety of dental school, minus the lab classes, is propaganda.

NO school experience is like the real-world experience, but that doesn't mean it won't help prepare you. Under your logic you would be better off going from undergrad directly to an associateship in a dental practice.

Is it being in the bottom of your class that makes you bitter?

 

[anamod]

When did I ever say that class such as path and physical diagnosis are unimportant, I agree these are things that I need to know and I will have you know I do very well in them. But to tell me that I will get sued because I decide to go golfing instead of attending some histology lectures is wrong on your part.

Its gavin I agree with you, your school by changing up they way dental school is taught is the way to go. I think you will get a good education. Also I'm not bitter at all about being in the bottom half of my class. I realy could care less. A bench instructor of mine said the day that you stop caring about grades and start focusing what wil make you a better dentist is one of the best days of your schooling, he also said that some people never reach that day.

I'm not trying to attack anyone here I'm just voicing my opinion. I think it boils down to the fact that I think I need to learn what is important to become a good clinical dentist and my school is teaching us a great deal of fluff.

UBTom if you want to attack then fine go ahead. but I did not mean this as an attack on you. I just think most dental students need to take a couple xanex and relax and hae some fun.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by anamod
When did I ever say that class such as path and physical diagnosis are unimportant,

Right here... "I'm personally in the bottom half of my class due to the fact that I get C's in worthless classes like Histology and Biochemistry. But I do get A's in all of my lab classes where it really counts."

Worthless classes is what you described them as!

 

[anamod]

Those are 4 different class my friend I did not say that all basic science classes are worthless.

 

[anamod]

I recommend you go to the website Dentaltown.com and go under the student section and under that heading you will find a topic in entitled "first day of dental school advice " they give some good advice there.

 

[Yah-E]

All Anamod is trying to say with his posts are that he chooses to do well in clinical courses simply because he can related more to dentistry.

We all have to admit that there are all sorts of dental students out there and some think as we do and some simply do not. I have classmates that just want to learn the dental related stuff and careless about cardiovascular diseases and pathology and I also have classmates that are pumped when we learn about kidney failures and systemic pathology.

We are all different, we all have different goals with our dental education, and we all study differently. One thing we do have in common is that we are all U.S. dental students!

Gavin: you're an awesome dental student, no doubt in my mind!

Anamod: you're an awesome dental student (because you're at my undergrad school)

Here, I'll buy everyone a round...cheers!!


😎

 

[anamod]

Well put

 

[UBTom]

Anamod:

If you are trying to tell students to relax, you sure have a strange way of going about it, attacking everyone who actually tries to learn the material you find boring by accusing us of "believing in propaganda." If that isn't an attack, I don't know what is.

I said it before and I'll say it again: Some other practitioners WILL find stuff that bore you to be useful or important. If you think that's "propaganda," you are the one who needs the Xanax.

The funny thing is, you never had any clinical experience at this point, yet you claim to know more about "real world dentistry" than those like me who already do. Now THAT's propaganda!

Propaganda? Look in the mirror, amigo.

Hey, you want to believe in your own propaganda, that's fine. All I know is I'll be well-prepared when I graduate-- and I will always have 2 years more "real world dentistry" experience than you. 😀

 

[LestatZinnie]

you never know what's important and what's not. i was a biochemistry major and i had to take all these physical chemistry courses in my junior years, which exasperated me. however, into fourth year, many of the things i learned actually became relevant. true, some things are less applicable in real life than the others, but if the school puts it in their curriculum then there is some real use in the future that's not immediate obvious.

dmd
mcgill 2007

 

[anamod]

UBtom maybe the word "propaganda" is not the right term to be used here. I never claim to have more clinical knowledge if you took something I said that way I'm sorry. I'm just saying that (maybe just at my school) we are lead astray on a lot of things. They have us using acrylic resin for temps in vacum form matrices . On our last practical I was going to use VPS putty as a matrix but before it could set up people where already telling prof's that I was cheating because I was using a more accurate method. They lead us to believe that their ancient way of doing things is the only way to go. This may only be my school but students at my school are so closed minded and are eating up this garbage that professors teach, it would be one thing to say this is the way we are going to do it here (due to cost) but this an alternative route of doing it which might produce better results. Once again I'm sorry if you took anything I said as a shot at you or your skills. In no way do have superior clinical knowledge like I said I have not seen a patient yet.

I just think alot of dental students need to calm down and stop thinking that everything out of the teachers mouth is the word of the dental gods.
I know you are going to say I needs to calm down but people like that anger me.
I think Yah- E put it best in his last post about how I feel.

 

[DrRob]

Anamod has a good point when he says , "that we shouldn't believe everything that comes from the dental instructors mouth".

Most methods taught in dental school are basic (ancient) or at least at marquette - especially with endo. we had one instructor telling us that crown down rotary endo was evil and that hand filing step back technique with lateral condensation was the only way to go. Ask how many GP's who do molar endo still use hand filing?

I am starting my 2nd year of practice ( although it feels like my first since I bounced around for a while until I found the practice that I clicked with) and I really don't do anything the same as I was taught in dental school. For example, Partial dentures seemed so difficult in school and now I love doing partials. Relines also.

As far as dental school goes I was the type of students who enjoyed the basic sciences more than the dental courses - mainly just because they were presented more interesting. I don't think we can say that because someone is just the opposite they will be an incompetent dentist.

As far as studying goes, I would just study to the point that makes you comfortable. This progressively became less time with me. I studied a lot in first year and for NDB 1 but not so much for NDB 2 and did just as well.

I would also suggest doing as many class functions as possible, it makes the experience that much more enjoyable.