Tell me about your first day of Med school...

[icebrat001]

I'd love to hear about your experiences on your very first day of med school.

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[Luke816]

went to school, sat down, listened to a lecture, and then went home

awesome, isn't it?

 

[ptolemy]

went to school, sat down, listened to a lecture, and then went home

awesome, isn't it?

LOL! I did the same thing!!! heh

 

[felipe5]

oddly enough, I did the same thing too!!!!!!! But alas on that day, I also realized that biochem was going to SUCK big time. In retrospect, I was more right than I ever have been before

you will die biochem

 

[icebrat001]

So you weren't anxious and excited about being there? You weren't smiling during your first day of lectures? Weren't you happy? No awesome feeling inside, nothing, just lecture and back home?

 

[erin682]

So you weren't anxious and excited about being there? You weren't smiling during your first day of lectures? Weren't you happy? No awesome feeling inside, nothing, just lecture and back home?

I wish I could tell you that it was really exciting. It was pretty nerve racking for me though. Med school just sort of starts out like you are in the middle of a semester already. They expect you to have background knowledge and skills and just sort of start. My first day I dissected which I hated but some people love. The only instruction we got was how to put a scalpel blade on without cutting our fingers off. I did manage to cut the finger of one of my lab partners which was super.

There are some kind of cool hey I'm in med school moments though. My school has a white coat ceremony and the first time you see a patient is neat.

 

[ptolemy]

At the orientation, white coat ceremony, etc., it was exciting, and happy, but the first day of school, no, just went to class, then came home.

 

[no exit]

yeah, you may get the type of answer you are looking for if you ask "how was med school orientation?" a lot of people are having a really good time during orientation, meeting new people who are pretty cool, having no school obligations, etc..

 

[MEG@COOL]

Half way through the first lecture I got up and took a giant, heinous smelling dump on top of the professor's desk. I then slashed the old ****'s throat open with a shiv I had made several years prior for just such an occasion.

 

[Firebird]

When you sit through lectures from 8 to noon, receive more handouts than you can fit in a five inch binder (for one class), resect a dead person's back for three hours, go home to study until bed time, and then realize that the first test is only a couple weeks from now, it is very difficult to smile.

In fact, the only laughing I did the first semester was when I got my test results back.

The joy of being in medical school wears off some point in orientation when you suddenly say to yourself, "what have I gotten myself into?" After that, they start to beat the joy of life out of you and by midsemester, the college of education is looking pretty tempting.

Ok so it's not that bad.

 

[clkimmey]

i did get to smile when i saw the 4 inches of back fat that the cadaver across from us had. luckily, we had a skinny guy and didn't have issues with fat. we were done with our dissection pretty quickly, while they were still scraping layer upon layer of fat from this lady's back. an ice cream scoop would have been the tool of choice.

 

[ItsGavinC]

went to school, sat down, listened to a lecture, and then went home

awesome, isn't it?

Heh, much less romantic than the ideal that plays out in many student's minds.

 

[ItsGavinC]

So you weren't anxious and excited about being there? You weren't smiling during your first day of lectures? Weren't you happy?

Mmmm. Smiling until they began talking, and then it was all down-hill from there.

 

[japhy]

let's see, my first day of med school started with me (and one of my best friends) being 30 minutes late. the school had tons of handouts for every student organized by name. of course, ours were the only ones left.

we snuck into the lecture hall while the dean was speaking (something ominous about our responsibilty to the profession). as luck would have it there were no seats available.

but the 2 weeks of orientation were pretty fun. it was a great chance to meet other students, have bbqs, go out for drinks, etc.

 

[toofache32]

I skipped class the first day because I was working. And the second day too, now that I think about it.

 

[dsblaha]

Orientation is great - enjoy it. After that week you can forget about free dinners. Keep in mind that many of the interest groups have lunch meeting and provide food throughout the year. You can usually work in about 1 a week.

Don't let all these people discourage you. I just love being back in school in general. In only takes about 3 years of corporate nonsense before you are ready to go back.

 

[Benzo4every1]

I'd love to hear about your experiences on your very first day of med school.

I don't remember. Do you count orientation? I am glad never to take gross anatomy ever again. It was an experience.

 

[Elysium]

During orientation we got hammered every night after it ended. Then school started. Then it all went downhill. One of our first lectures featured a song by the band "Evanescence" and pictures of Lance Armstrong. Soon this got replaced by glycolysis and the reticular nucleus of thalamus.

The first day of school seems like 20,987 years ago. And not in a good way.

 

[Blake]

It was more like party, party, party ! For the first week, at least Then serious business started, but we still have the parties every month

Oh, and free food + countless stories from the 2nd year students

 

[thackl]

I don't even remember the first day........

 

[deuist]

I did manage to cut the finger of one of my lab partners which was super.

Hey, I managed to do the same when I was an undergraduate. She asked me not to stab her again.

 

[8744]

My school has an entire week of orientation during which you are told three hundred times some variation of "You are so special."

They also give you lots of frankly untrue advice on how to study and how to survive. The big thing I got out of orientation was that if you didn't find a good study group you would be in big friggin' trouble mister because everybody has got to study in a group to even think of passing.

I never studied in a group and I did fine.

Orientation is notable for what they don't tell you. I don't believe any speaker ever mentioned that the best way to study for a test is to look at old test questions. Also, nobody tells you that textbooks will be superfluous. I didn't start posting on SDN until after I started first year so I had no idea.

Our school has what is called "Truth Squad" for the incoming freshmen where small groups of them meet with third and fourth years. The purpose of this is to officially but unofficially make sure that the freshmen don't get lost in the idealism of the moment.

Don't believe the hype. Smile, enjoy the week (or however long your school allots for the emotional masturbation that some call orientation) but prepare to get on it once real classes start. If you study, you will pass. If you study all the time, you may get good grades but then again you may only do a few points better than your slacker friend who studies one fifth as much as you.

Sometimes there seems to be no correlations between the amount of time you put in studying and your grade. For example, if I spend an hour looking at old test questions and half of the questions on the test are almost word-for-word repeats of these questions, I'm going to automatically do better than somebody who knows the material in great depth but might be unable to translate this knowledge into answer "D" on question 21.

 

[Elysium]

Not having old tests to look at is one thing that totally blows about going to a new school. Sometimes they give us "practice questions" which end up showing up in some variation on the test. Also, textbooks are such a waste of money. I haven't bought one textbook yet (I was given a Netter's) and I'm doing fine on the lecture notes, review books, and my classmates. I think I'll buy a Robbin's next year. That'll be major investment.

 

[Shangal]

mines was pretty much like Panda Bear's. But they also showed us a couple of video tapes and statistics on how depressed medical students end up being in the long run, which was nice. The part I hated the was when they broke us into small groups and everyone kept BSing on how moral they were.
For me, I don't know, it just wasn't what I expected. And the idea that I was going to be a doctor someday didn't click in, and by the way it still didn't. I mean I wasn't really into touching my face and other body parts in front of the whole class when our anatomy professor will tell us to a couple of days after the program started. All I could think of is that wow, people are really into this.
My advice for all you kids who just got accepted is buy a netter's and start memorizing those pictures now. maybe you won't be as lost as I was in anatomy. And don't feel obligated on going to class. I started doing much better in my classes as soon as I stopped going. The commute is just a waste of your time and all the lectures are video taped. What else, ask your school for old exams, 25% of your exam will end up being repeat questions. and don't drink and drive, that's never good.

 

[Firebird]

Must be nice to get old exams. Our school guards exams like they are a valuable commodity. In anatomy, we could get copies of exams that were 5-10 years old, but nothing very recent. A lot of them didn't actually cover the same material as you expected them to. If you want to review the exam that you just took, you must do it under the supervision of one of the professors.

 

[TheRussian]

First day of class we had anatomy . We had a couple hours of lecture then we all went over to the lab and disected till lunch. We didn't have any class after lunch so we could do whatever we wanted. So we ended up playing basketball outside, or was it soccer? I don't remember, but it was fun. Oh and there was no studying for about the first week and a half. That's not just me, that's the majority of the class. Our class earned the reputation of bringing a keg pretty much where ever we went. And its still the case except we switched to 30 packs recently. Med School rocks if you pick the right one.

 

[Paws]

My school has an entire week of orientation during which you are told three hundred times some variation of "You are so special."

They also give you lots of frankly untrue advice on how to study and how to survive.

Orientation is notable for what they don't tell you.

Don't believe the hype. Smile, enjoy the week (or however long your school allots for the emotional masturbation that some call orientation) but prepare to get on it once real classes start. If you study, you will pass. If you study all the time, you may get good grades but then again you may only do a few points better than your slacker friend who studies one fifth as much as you.

Sometimes there seems to be no correlations between the amount of time you put in studying and your grade. For example, if I spend an hour looking at old test questions and half of the questions on the test are almost word-for-word repeats of these questions, I'm going to automatically do better than somebody who knows the material in great depth but might be unable to translate this knowledge into answer "D" on question 21.

Ah, Panda Bear truer words were never spoken. I like the 'you are special part.'

Now of course, when we go to the dean's office for anything they are like: what the h^ll do you want?!! how dare you bother us in here ... or whatever. The medschool transition is awesome and mindnumbingly weird all at the same time. I wish there was more honest stuff upfront instead of all the luvfest stuff they throw at us. But, I recommend hooking up with some friendly second years, who will probably be thrilled to watch you go through what they just experienced. And, they are usually really happy to give you the real lowdown on profs/exams/experiences etc.

 

[heldicus]

Let's see...I didn't do any homework on the first day.

So far I've spent the rest of the year trying to catch up.

 

[oneslover]

I don't remember my first day either.

 

[fantasty]

I had two classes in the morning. The first was a total blow-off - just going over the syllabus I think. But, the second was anatomy, and the prof wasn't following the notes and talking a mile a minute about ganglia and spinal nerve pathways - I had no clue what she was talking about. Then I had a two hour break for lunch in which I prepared for anatomy lab.

Go to lab after reading the dissector like four times. We started with the chest. I thought that we should be careful and exact, but my lab partner (this was he second time taking anatomy) just started hacking away - he said it was the only way you could get through everything in the allotted time. I didn't leave lab until about an hour after we were supposed to, and I still didn't have everything done, and nothing looked like what I expected. It was pretty traumatizing but it was also kinda like jumping in a cold lake - it was better than trying to "ease in".

 

[tinkerbelle]

My advice for all you kids who just got accepted is buy a netter's and start memorizing those pictures now. maybe you won't be as lost as I was in anatomy.

hmm. Are you serious? You really think we should do this? What else do you think we should do?

 

[Rogue_Leader]

hmm. Are you serious? You really think we should do this? What else do you think we should do?

He's just angry. Anatomy gets to everyone at some point. If you haven't started school yet, don't be in a rush to start memorizing stuff ahead of time. Enjoy your last moments of freedom/undergrad. If that still doesn't convince you and you're intent on learning stuff before hand, then I suppose you could memorize the blood vessel plates. Those are the ones you seriously have to know cold. Things like what the parent vessels of certain arteries and veins are, and anastomosis (the way vessels interconnect and are able to bypass a blockage in a given vesel). Trying to learn muscles probably isn't worthwhile before classes start until you learn the anatomical vocabulary for positions and actions, words like anterior, caudal, pronation, adduction, etc.

 

[raekelly]

went to school, sat down, listened to a lecture, and then went home

awesome, isn't it?

On my first day, I did pretty much the same thing. Except we tried on white coats and signed many, many forms.

 

[tinkerbelle]

Thanks for the info Rogue_Leader I don't really want to waste time memorizing a whole bunch of little details. But I thought it might be useful to learn some basic anatomy. I'll check out this "blood vessel plates" stuff you mentioned.

 

[Rogue_Leader]

Thanks for the info Rogue_Leader I don't really want to waste time memorizing a whole bunch of little details. But I thought it might be useful to learn some basic anatomy. I'll check out this "blood vessel plates" stuff you mentioned.

No problem. There are a lot of little details you'll have to get eventually. The big thing I wanted to stress is don't do work during the summer unless you absolutely positively want to. I mean, unless you get migranes and chest pain if you're not studying, don't spend your time doing work before med school starts. You're going to be doing a lot of that during med school, and you're not going to have a lot of opportinty to do other things. Also, I should probably elaborate on what a "plate" is. Netter's atlas (an anatomy book you'll undoubtadly get) calls its pages "plates". It literally says "plate 356" instead of page 356. I don't know why it's that way, but there's probably a good reason for it.

 

[azzarah]

I was soooo excited to be here, everyone smiled, was well-dressed, acted super-friendly, and fake. First day of lecture, people kept interrupting to ask questions that made them look smart and made me feel like ****. I love med school!

Sorry I am in a bad mood today....

 

[felipe5]

I was soooo excited to be here, everyone smiled, was well-dressed, acted super-friendly, and fake. First day of lecture, people kept interrupting to ask questions that made them look smart and made me feel like ****. I love med school!

Sorry I am in a bad mood today....

LOL, despite your bad mood, you speak nothing but truths The best is to have a good memory of everyone during those first days, and then compare how everyone looks during finals. Shaggy facial hair, pillow head, red eyes, pyjamas, and IV's filled with 5 molar coffee.