Summer before M1

[Lorienne7]

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How did you guys spend the summer before your M1 year? Do residency directors expect you to do something important and useful with it or is it ok to slack off?

 

[NYCPRDOC]

1. Enjoy your free time, you're really not going to have much of it when classes start.

2. I can't imagine ANY sane residency program director really givung a flying crap about your activities the summer right before entering M1. ****, unless you decide to apply to some ultra competitive residency like derm at Mass General, they'll barely care what you did the summer between M1-M2.

 

[Mperor]

I was fortunate enough to be involved in research that I really found exciting during the summer before my M1 year, so I stuck with it. But if that's not the case for you, just relax, it will be one of your last opportunities.

 

[DoctorFunk]

I worked in the research lab I had been in for about a year, moved for school, and then got married two days before classes started. Overall, a little stressful but I wouldn't change anything.

 

[alphaluvbug]

Do yourself a favor and relax before school starts. I waitressed over the summer to make some cash to hold me through for a while. Enjoy this summer. Its the second to last one you will ever have. Once school starts, you get swallowed up in a whirl-wind... and you will have to study over thanksgiving... enjoy your free time now... there isnt much of it in medschool.

 

[MrBrightside]

I agree. Do something exciting or do nothing, sit on the couch and watch moss grow on your arse, no one will care, this is probably the advice you will get from the dean of your medical school. Enjoy your summer, you want to go into medical school fresh and ready. Even if you're not the type to relax, just try. I traveled and spent time with my family.

 

[stoic]

for christ sake, you won't make yourself a better doctor BEFORE med school starts. there is more work than you can imagine on the way. you can't study now under the pressure you will be under during the med school.

go have fun. if that is traveling.... then travel. if that's hitting the bars all summer then drink up. whatever it is, go have fun. this really is one of the best time's of your life. don't **** it up at the library!

 

[Wizard of Oz]

I spent the last three years working as a medical technologist about 70 hours a week up until medical school orientation. Since then, I took an eight week vacation and then cut down to 20 hour weeks.

It worked for me because I am basically a workaholic, and I enjoy the time I spend in the hospital for the most part. Before becoming a med tech, I worked in academic research which I did not find very personally fulfilling. They say that the publications will help me in the long run, but I don't really want to go into the field that I was working in.

...unless you decide to apply to some ultra competitive residency like derm at Mass General, they'll barely care what you did the summer between M1-M2.

He (or is it she?) is right. Everything that you do before you take step 1 should be directed at getting the highest step 1 score possible if you want to do something competative. You can pick up the research later.

 

[wiryMD]

I spent my free time creating surveys to ask medical students what they did before starting medical school.