Tips on how to Succeed at Medical School

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NYYk9005

NYYk9005

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Hey guys, I know there have been threads like this before, but I have not seen one recently and would love to get advice from current or former medical school students for people entering medical school.

Do you guys have any tips on how to survive medical school and do well besides the generic 'work hard'?
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I recently finished preclinical

From someone who from time to time enjoyed the luxury of doing well on a midterm only to miserably fail a very difficult final and barely pass the class: Overstudy the hell out of your first few exams

From someone who ate like crap 1st year and didn't exercise to turning it around 2nd year: Exercise regularly, have a moderately healthy diet

From someone who had loads of different study groups and summary sheets sent to him: Don't be afraid to make as many friends in class as possible. If one group isn't working for you work your way into another group.

From someone who went from reading, to watching lectures, to skipping class to attending class to writing it out to highlighting to talking it over with a friend: Be self-aware of your study habits and learn to adapt when something you're trying isn't working.


Most important: Mental Fortitude. The first two years and it's crapload of info require a lot of willpower to get through.
 
NYYk9005 said:
Do you guys have any tips on how to survive medical school and do well besides the generic 'work hard'?
Click to expand...

#1. Relax, everybody passes. You will too.

#2. No, this isn't clinically useful. No it won't be on the boards. Yes, you still have to learn it.

#3. Really echoing poop, don't sacrifice your heath for school. Sleep, eat well, exercise regularly. Everything else is gravy.
 
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8=====D ~ >-:
 
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I want to emphasize what the others have said... Don't get into the habit of eating junk food and using studying as an excuse to not exercise. Make time for it. Your body will thank you for it.
 
amakhosidlo said:
#1. Relax, everybody passes. You will too.

#2. No, this isn't clinically useful. No it won't be on the boards. Yes, you still have to learn it.

#3. Really echoing poop, don't sacrifice your heath for school. Sleep, eat well, exercise regularly. Everything else is gravy.
Click to expand...


am i the only one who found that extremely distracting and flippin hilarious?
 
mvenus929 said:
I want to emphasize what the others have said... Don't get into the habit of eating junk food and using studying as an excuse to not exercise. Make time for it. Your body will thank you for it.
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QFE. Just because you are medical school doesn't mean you can turn into an unhealthy and/or overweight slob.

My personal tips:
1) Don't go to class unless you have to. (Don't worry you can still be 'social' by studying on campus)
2) Spend more time actively studying per day rather than passively studying. I always had a good laugh (on the inside) when other students would give me a sort of pity-look when I said I hadn't been to class in a week or so (like they were superior and getting a 10 fold better education than me). If you have the drive and motivation to study by yourself, then that is the better option than going to class. I would do better on the exams than most of these folk.
3) Enjoy first year. Know when to study hard and when to be more relaxed.
4) First year is just STRAIGHT MEMORIZATION. So like the sweat shop conglomerate, Nike, has said: JUST DO IT. Try to get as many passes of the material as you can.
5) If you are striving for excellence, you will find that if you get a 96 on an exam, and 10-15% of the class did better you will perhaps be content but not happy. Take every exam in stride. Accept what you have gotten on an exam and do not fret. Just move on to the next one.
6) Don't worry about anybody but yourself in regards to your progression of learning the material. Everyone moves at different paces. Your anxiety level will only be raised if you are constantly talking to others about classes and studying. You were smart enough to get into medical school that means that you are (probably) smart enough to learn how to study properly. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses.
7) Workout and do not turn into a slob. Maintain a proper upkeep.

It is very possible to have a social life and still get AOA
 
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Also: drugs and lots of them. Psychedelics especially.
 
Work out, eat healthy. If not for health reasons, do it because you'll be more productive studying. The easiest way to cut extra pounds is to not get fat in the first place.

What you did for studying in undergrad may not work in medical school (it probably won't). Adapt and be resilient. Ask for help from other students and older students.

Just when you applied to medical school, the numbers game (AOA/Step 1) is important, but it doesn't outweigh letting the rest of your life crumble. I look forward to interviewing against some of the already-awkward-turned-completely-mutant kids
 
Determination, dedication, discipline and asslicking.
 
medstud87 said:
...
3) Enjoy first year. Know when to study hard and when to be more relaxed.
6) Don't worry about anybody but yourself in regards to your progression of learning the material. Everyone moves at different paces. Your anxiety level will only be raised if you are constantly talking to others about classes and studying. You were smart enough to get into medical school that means that you are (probably) smart enough to learn how to study properly. Only you know your strengths and weaknesses.
7) Workout and do not turn into a slob. Maintain a proper upkeep.

It is very possible to have a social life and still get AOA
Click to expand...

1) Bolded the important points. After about a week I quit studying with anyone in my class because people go bat**** crazy. If you study around a lot of people from your class, you WILL become paranoid about the fact that classmate_003 spent 12 hours learning the intricacies of disease_9243 even though there was only a slide and a half on it in class. If you study with him, in spite of the fact that you're a smart person and you KNOW that he's wrong, you will get paranoid anyway and it will make you miserable (and a less efficient studier).

2) Study smart. A transcript (or whatever your note-taking service produces) of a bad lecture is still a bad treatment of a material -- simply because some poor schlub had to transcribe and try and organize it doesn't make it better. You can attempt to memorize every word the scripts (as some of your classmates will), and while that might cut it for phys/histo, that strategy won't work for path for most people. If you study to understand the material, you'll a) be happier and b) do better than ~90% of the people who try to memorize the lecture scripts and slides. There will still be 5-10% who will beat you (because, let's face it, a few professors will ask questions that are essentially "What is the third word of the second line on the 43rd slide of my lecture presentation?" and you'll get them wrong), but as long as you're consistently in the top 10-20% of the class, you'll be in great shape.

3) It's all about consistency. You will probably never get the top score on any exam -- but if you're ~1 standard deviation above the mean on every exam, you will be in a phenomenal position with regard to board knowledge and your class rank. The thing to avoid is letting yourself get caught in a cycle of do really well --> procrastinate for the next one --> do poorly --> study really hard --> do well --> procrastinate... etc.

4) Figure out who writes the questions for every single exam. I know some schools use standardized tests (NBME exams) so this may be less applicable, but at my school, the person writing the test made a huge difference. MDs almost never ask questions that are not relevant to clinical practice (probably because they don't remember the information), whereas PhDs tend to be much more "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" and ask silly details. Figure out whether the course director writes the whole test, part of the test and the lecturers write part, or whether the lecturers write all of their own questions. It's a game -- and half the battle is understanding your opponent.

5) Try and avoid pulling late nights before the exam. Extra study time is almost never worth being sleep deprived because you're so much sharper on a good night's sleep. Whenever possible, I tried to stop studying around ~9pm the night before the exam and have a beer and relax.

6) Have fun. It's a lot of work, but if you're smart about the workload you'll have plenty of free time to relax. Make some friends, continue your hobbies, go to a bar every once in a while. It's not the end of life as you know it.
 
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sanityonleave said:
1) Bolded the important points. After about a week I quit studying with anyone in my class because people go bat**** crazy. If you study around a lot of people from your class, you WILL become paranoid about the fact that classmate_003 spent 12 hours learning the intricacies of disease_9243 even though there was only a slide and a half on it in class. If you study with him, in spite of the fact that you're a smart person and you KNOW that he's wrong, you will get paranoid anyway and it will make you miserable (and a less efficient studier).

2) Study smart. A transcript (or whatever your note-taking service produces) of a bad lecture is still a bad treatment of a material -- simply because some poor schlub had to transcribe and try and organize it doesn't make it better. You can attempt to memorize every word the scripts (as some of your classmates will), and while that might cut it for phys/histo, that strategy won't work for path for most people. If you study to understand the material, you'll a) be happier and b) do better than ~90% of the people who try to memorize the lecture scripts and slides. There will still be 5-10% who will beat you (because, let's face it, a few professors will ask questions that are essentially "What is the third word of the second line on the 43rd slide of my lecture presentation?" and you'll get them wrong), but as long as you're consistently in the top 10-20% of the class, you'll be in great shape.

3) It's all about consistency. You will probably never get the top score on any exam -- but if you're ~1 standard deviation above the mean on every exam, you will be in a phenomenal position with regard to board knowledge and your class rank. The thing to avoid is letting yourself get caught in a cycle of do really well --> procrastinate for the next one --> do poorly --> study really hard --> do well --> procrastinate... etc.

4) Figure out who writes the questions for every single exam. I know some schools use standardized tests (NBME exams) so this may be less applicable, but at my school, the person writing the test made a huge difference. MDs almost never ask questions that are not relevant to clinical practice (probably because they don't remember the information), whereas PhDs tend to be much more "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" and ask silly details. Figure out whether the course director writes the whole test, part of the test and the lecturers write part, or whether the lecturers write all of their own questions. It's a game -- and half the battle is understanding your opponent.

5) Try and avoid pulling late nights before the exam. Extra study time is almost never worth being sleep deprived because you're so much sharper on a good night's sleep. Whenever possible, I tried to stop studying around ~9pm the night before the exam and have a beer and relax.

6) Have fun. It's a lot of work, but if you're smart about the workload you'll have plenty of free time to relax. Make some friends, continue your hobbies, go to a bar every once in a while. It's not the end of life as you know it.
Click to expand...


Once I discovered that our pharmacology tests were NOT written by the lecturers whose notes we were given, I chucked the notes into my closet and bumped my average test scores 15% with half the effort.
 
thepoopologist said:
I recently finished preclinical

From someone who from time to time enjoyed the luxury of doing well on a midterm only to miserably fail a very difficult final and barely pass the class: Overstudy the hell out of your first few exams

From someone who ate like crap 1st year and didn't exercise to turning it around 2nd year: Exercise regularly, have a moderately healthy diet

From someone who had loads of different study groups and summary sheets sent to him: Don't be afraid to make as many friends in class as possible. If one group isn't working for you work your way into another group.

From someone who went from reading, to watching lectures, to skipping class to attending class to writing it out to highlighting to talking it over with a friend: Be self-aware of your study habits and learn to adapt when something you're trying isn't working.


Most important: Mental Fortitude. The first two years and it's crapload of info require a lot of willpower to get through.
Click to expand...

Almost identical experience, except my personal failures (weight gain, mental fatigue, study changes) occured in second year, not first. Inciteful and unfortunately accurate.
 
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sanityonleave said:
1) Bolded the important points. After about a week I quit studying with anyone in my class because people go bat**** crazy. If you study around a lot of people from your class, you WILL become paranoid about the fact that classmate_003 spent 12 hours learning the intricacies of disease_9243 even though there was only a slide and a half on it in class. If you study with him, in spite of the fact that you're a smart person and you KNOW that he's wrong, you will get paranoid anyway and it will make you miserable (and a less efficient studier).

2) Study smart. A transcript (or whatever your note-taking service produces) of a bad lecture is still a bad treatment of a material -- simply because some poor schlub had to transcribe and try and organize it doesn't make it better. You can attempt to memorize every word the scripts (as some of your classmates will), and while that might cut it for phys/histo, that strategy won't work for path for most people. If you study to understand the material, you'll a) be happier and b) do better than ~90% of the people who try to memorize the lecture scripts and slides. There will still be 5-10% who will beat you (because, let's face it, a few professors will ask questions that are essentially "What is the third word of the second line on the 43rd slide of my lecture presentation?" and you'll get them wrong), but as long as you're consistently in the top 10-20% of the class, you'll be in great shape.

3) It's all about consistency. You will probably never get the top score on any exam -- but if you're ~1 standard deviation above the mean on every exam, you will be in a phenomenal position with regard to board knowledge and your class rank. The thing to avoid is letting yourself get caught in a cycle of do really well --> procrastinate for the next one --> do poorly --> study really hard --> do well --> procrastinate... etc.

4) Figure out who writes the questions for every single exam. I know some schools use standardized tests (NBME exams) so this may be less applicable, but at my school, the person writing the test made a huge difference. MDs almost never ask questions that are not relevant to clinical practice (probably because they don't remember the information), whereas PhDs tend to be much more "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" and ask silly details. Figure out whether the course director writes the whole test, part of the test and the lecturers write part, or whether the lecturers write all of their own questions. It's a game -- and half the battle is understanding your opponent.

5) Try and avoid pulling late nights before the exam. Extra study time is almost never worth being sleep deprived because you're so much sharper on a good night's sleep. Whenever possible, I tried to stop studying around ~9pm the night before the exam and have a beer and relax.

6) Have fun. It's a lot of work, but if you're smart about the workload you'll have plenty of free time to relax. Make some friends, continue your hobbies, go to a bar every once in a while. It's not the end of life as you know it.
Click to expand...

This is pretty good, thanks:thumbup:
 
sanityonleave said:
1) Bolded the important points. After about a week I quit studying with anyone in my class because people go bat**** crazy. If you study around a lot of people from your class, you WILL become paranoid about the fact that classmate_003 spent 12 hours learning the intricacies of disease_9243 even though there was only a slide and a half on it in class. If you study with him, in spite of the fact that you're a smart person and you KNOW that he's wrong, you will get paranoid anyway and it will make you miserable (and a less efficient studier).

2) Study smart. A transcript (or whatever your note-taking service produces) of a bad lecture is still a bad treatment of a material -- simply because some poor schlub had to transcribe and try and organize it doesn't make it better. You can attempt to memorize every word the scripts (as some of your classmates will), and while that might cut it for phys/histo, that strategy won't work for path for most people. If you study to understand the material, you'll a) be happier and b) do better than ~90% of the people who try to memorize the lecture scripts and slides. There will still be 5-10% who will beat you (because, let's face it, a few professors will ask questions that are essentially "What is the third word of the second line on the 43rd slide of my lecture presentation?" and you'll get them wrong), but as long as you're consistently in the top 10-20% of the class, you'll be in great shape.

3) It's all about consistency. You will probably never get the top score on any exam -- but if you're ~1 standard deviation above the mean on every exam, you will be in a phenomenal position with regard to board knowledge and your class rank. The thing to avoid is letting yourself get caught in a cycle of do really well --> procrastinate for the next one --> do poorly --> study really hard --> do well --> procrastinate... etc.

4) Figure out who writes the questions for every single exam. I know some schools use standardized tests (NBME exams) so this may be less applicable, but at my school, the person writing the test made a huge difference. MDs almost never ask questions that are not relevant to clinical practice (probably because they don't remember the information), whereas PhDs tend to be much more "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" and ask silly details. Figure out whether the course director writes the whole test, part of the test and the lecturers write part, or whether the lecturers write all of their own questions. It's a game -- and half the battle is understanding your opponent.

5) Try and avoid pulling late nights before the exam. Extra study time is almost never worth being sleep deprived because you're so much sharper on a good night's sleep. Whenever possible, I tried to stop studying around ~9pm the night before the exam and have a beer and relax.

6) Have fun. It's a lot of work, but if you're smart about the workload you'll have plenty of free time to relax. Make some friends, continue your hobbies, go to a bar every once in a while. It's not the end of life as you know it.
Click to expand...


Haha, yes. This is exactly it. I spent the first class of first year trying to figure out why going to class and using lecture notes and blah blah blah wasn't working as well as I thought it should. Anyway this is great advice for anyone in med school. Seek understanding of the material, don't worry if it doesn't come from class or notes. People will totally freak out. Medical school is awesome, I love it, but its like a breeding ground for psychological disorders. I never went to class (studied at home, at the zoo, in the park, on the beach, anywhere I felt like) pretty much I would just go to school for clinical stuff, to go to the gym, and to hang out with people. :) But once I started working smart (as described by sanityonleave) instead of just doing what everyone else is doing, my grades went to straight honors for the rest of 1st and 2nd year, and I had so much more control over my schedule so I had more time to relax and do what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted.

Everyone is different, so this wont be for everyone. But just know that if going to class, reaching lectures, going to small groups, all that stuff, if you don't really like it then you don't have to do it (unless, of course, your school takes attendance or something. In which case, I am sorry. :oops:). At the core of it all, what you need to do is learn a lot of things and understand them. You need to learn what makes some things different from other things. And as long as you do that while staying happy and healthy, all will be well in your medical school world.
 
1) a)if your professor writes the test, study what they focus on even if the reason something is half the test is because it's their area of research

1) b)if your test is going to be an NBME shelf exam study with a review book and forget the 3 weeks you spent on membrane fluidity

2) ask people in years ahead of you if you really need the books or not. For micro, everyone got microcards which were like $30 while the assigned text was >$100.

3) if your study habits work and produce results, keep them- I saw a few people that changed what was working for them

4) work/life balance from here on out is due to planning, and not things magically falling in place. You can do well in med school and have a family/go to the gym/meditate/learn french/be social etc, you just have to plan your time well.

5) along with 5, have ways to study on the fly be they flashcards, audio lectures, whatever. Use this to turn 15 minutes on the bus or 30 mins on a treadmill to that activity PLUS studying. I learned so much pharmacology on an eliptical.

6) if you need help with anything, ask someone earlier rather than later, be it grades or stress or mental illness whatever.

7) EVERYONE freaks out a the beginning because it's so much info so fast. You get used to it. Try to truly learn the info though because everything builds on stuff before it, so really knowing physiology will help you understand mechanism of action in pharmacology and you'll have harder time knowing how something is broken in pathology if you don't know how it's supposed to work normally

8) have friends in med school because no one outside of it truly understands what it's like. Have friends outside of med school because sometimes med students lose touch with reality/life.

addendum- 9) Read big Robbins. It is scary, but just read it. If you get through it and understand it and the basics it builds on you have 75% of step 1 down. If you read it and learn it you cannot fail step 1 unless you have a petit mal seizure through the whole thing.
 
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Everyone's advice is good. Just wanted to add, from my experience:

-keep up with the lecture schedule and don't fall behind... it'll be really hard to get back on track if you're 8+ lectures behind

-a lot of times you will feel like the information in lecture is stupid/useless, but don't brush it off. you have to learn and memorize it because it will show up on your exams.

-i used to think it was a good idea to blow off class and study for boards instead, but i realize now that some of the random stuff you learn in class might show up on boards and is probably one of the things that separates a 240 scorer from a 260+

-i remember when i got into med school, a lot of people were saying keep studying the way you studied in college... but this didn't work for me because in college, you can kind of tell what the professor won't test you on, but in med school, you have to know anything and everything related to your lecture. so don't brush anything off just because you think it's low-yield!
 
Treat it like a job. If you've had a career before, then this is easy. Otherwise, you don't know how to be anything other than a student.

If you go to 8 hours worth of lectures, then don't study that day. You'll be brain dead anyway. If you don't attend lecture, then study for 8 hours a day.

That should give you plenty of time for exercising and a social life. It'll also keep you caught up, so that you don't go into crisis mode when exams come around.
 
Do you guys have any tips on how to survive medical school and do well besides the generic 'work hard'?

Yeah, don't get yourself into a toxic relationship.....and if you're already in one as a pre-med do not take it with you into med school.
 
Mattchiavelli said:
1) a)if your professor writes the test, study what they focus on even if the reason something is half the test is because it's their area of research

1) b)if your test is going to be an NBME shelf exam study with a review book and forget the 3 weeks you spent on membrane fluidity

addendum- 9) Read big Robbins. It is scary, but just read it. If you get through it and understand it and the basics it builds on you have 75% of step 1 down. If you read it and learn it you cannot fail step 1 unless you have a petit mal seizure through the whole thing.
Click to expand...

This may be a stupid question but do you find out who writes the test by just bluntly asking the professor/lecturer? And what NBME review books are you referring to?

Also, whats big Robbins?

Thanks for all the posts in this topic its helping me out alot!
 
njbmd said:
I have far from an "photographic" memory but I am an excellent student. I went for mastery of the material and not for quick memorization. Quick memorization puts information in your short term memory where it isn't likely to stay unless you use it daily. If you master the material and link it to your present knowledge base, it stays in there and you can recall it with a solid review.

I never let myself get behind the class. If I was sick or missed a study day, I went to where ever the class was and mastered that material. I could catch up on the weekend but I didn't use the weekdays to "play catch-up" because that was unproductive for my study strategies.

I studied in 50-minute bursts with 10-minutes of break in between. I never sat for hours staring at a page because after 50 minutes, my attention span was gone. I made sure that I tailored my study routine to my attention span. On those 10-minute breaks, I would run up and down a fight of stairs or get something to drink but I got completely away from my study materials to let my brain get a break.

I would also move around and pace as I recited things back to myself or to others. The pacing helped to relieve stress. I would master the material alone and then on study group days, we would discuss the material. Since our medical school had the most awesome syllabi in the world, we had everything that we needed to know in front of us when we studied. We didn't have to go searching through multiple books to find information.

I would preview before a lecture, take notes during the lecture and study the lecture later that day filling in anything that needed to be added for my understanding. I would then link the material to the preview for the next lecture. The next day, I would repeat the cycle. On weekends, I studied the previous weeks material as if the test were on that next Monday. By exam time, all I needed was a quick review and I was ready.

When I took exams, I would skim the entire test and answer the materials that I knew right off. If I couldn't answer a question in 30 seconds, I moved onto something else. I would then come back to unanswered questions after I had seen the entire exam. I was almost always the first or second person to finish an exam.

I also did not change answers unless there was something compelling that I noticed (clerical error). When one changes answers, they will invariably change 8 out of 10 answers from right to wrong and 2 out of 10 from wrong to right. In addition, I looked at questions carefully for answer clues which would lead me to the correct answer every time.

I have stone normal intelligence and memory but I maximized what I had. I also never let anyone (including myself) talk me into believing that I was somehow not going to be able to completely master the material. Your "inner voice" can sometimes "talk" you into believing that you are somehow inferior to other students which is far from the case. There is no material presented in any medical school that is unmasterable.

Finally, tune out the folks who boast about having "photographic" memories because they are the ones who "crash and burn" on Board exams. Run your own race and tend to your own work. Challenge yourself to hone what you do best and ignore the boasters who are trying to undermine your confidence. They are human just like you are and have to go from Point A to get to Point B.

You can decide (no matter what your past performance) that you are going to change your attitude and thinking as you approach your studies. Decide right now that you have every tool that you need to do well. Take a deep breath and start working on whatever the class is working on with the attitude that you will completely master it.
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^^^^^ :thumbup: ^^^^^
 
The answer changing thing mentioned above isn't completely true. You are actually more likely to get it correct if you change the answer ONCE from your original even if it is just that gut feeling that something is off. Things go down the tubes when you start toggling answers or go against that voice in the back of your head though.

I thought it was crap until I starting looking at what the various qbanks had with my choices. My incorrect to correct was nearly 3 times higher than my correct to incorrect. My incorrect to incorrect was higher than that correct to incorrect as well.
 
QuesoAndFromage said:
This may be a stupid question but do you find out who writes the test by just bluntly asking the professor/lecturer?

whats big Robbins?
Click to expand...
You could ask the professor who is the course coordinator (or an administrator that helps run the class) or you could older students at your school

And this is big Robbins
 
ilikepancakes said:
how often do they come out with new editions, is it worth buying it this year if you're not taking step 1 until feb/mar 2013? ...i have to make these christmas/birthday presents now
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure on this, but from what I've seen so far, they come out with new editions every 4-5 years or so.

In my experience, I've never really sat down and read Big Robbins. The only time I opened the book was to get some extra information to give a presentation or turn in a paper (yes, my med school makes us write essays/papers here and there). I would say if you want to honor every class, reading Big Robbins might help you get there. In my case, I just wanted to be average, and lecture notes were good enough for that.

Honestly, the only textbooks I really used in my first 2 years were Netter's for anatomy and a Neuro atlas along with board review books of course.
 
Ignore what others are doing, focus on yourself and what works best. Take everyone's "advice" with a grain of a salt, med school is full of highly competitive people.

In 3rd/4th year try to keep an open mind. Volunteer to do things/see pt's/go to the OR/etc. Don't put down other specialities. Try to not let the resident's negative attitudes become your attitude. Approach each rotation as an experience as opposed to a task or a chore.
 
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I just bought a pair of Klipsch S4 Image headphones with BASS booster.

Discuss.
 
I don't recommend getting big Robbins. I have it and tried to read a few lectures but they're relatively low-yield per page compared to something like Rapid Review Path or your syllabus. Too much reading for not enough gain, imo.

Listen to Goljan's path lectures. They'll help you out a good bit.
 
armybound said:
I don't recommend getting big Robbins. I have it and tried to read a few lectures but they're relatively low-yield per page compared to something like Rapid Review Path or your syllabus. Too much reading for not enough gain, imo.

Listen to Goljan's path lectures. They'll help you out a good bit.
Click to expand...

I used 2 robbins books to hold candles during a black out, they make good stands.
 
Don't take yourself too seriously. Take everything in stride.
 
The same advice does not apply for everyone so choose what works best for you.

- Don't fall behind on studying. If you crammed your way to a 3.9 GPA in college, that may or may not work for you in med school. It didn't for me and I had to adjust pretty drastically. This also frees up your time to have a life and keeps you from going nuts.

- Echoing what someone said earlier, get a good night's sleep before the exam. Yes you can probably brute force memorize right before the exam and do well (or maybe not); even if that's the case, you aren't going to remember a lick of it come Step 1 time. This makes life 10x harder. I focused on slowly learning and comprehending the material and it made Step 1 studying more bearable for me.

- Exercise every single day. Get a gym subscription if you have to or you can't find the discipline to do it every day on your own.

- Don't go to class if you don't learn by going to class. That's valuable time wasted which could be spent doing anything from sleeping to studying.
 
I heard some vague ideas about organizing the way you study for certain days..I'm not sure if I remember it right but I think this was how it went (please correct me),

Sunday: Quickly skim through the lecture for the following monday-friday so that you are familiar with some terms when you hear them in lecture. Read the lecture for the following day (monday) in more depth.

Monday-Friday: Go to lecture (or listen to the recording) and go home and study the lecture of that day (or your notes of it) once more. Read the lecture for the following day in more depth.

Saturday: Review all the lectures of the week.

Sunday: Repeat.

According to this technique, within a week, you would have had the chance to look at each lecture 5 times. Once, on Sunday (brief). Once the day before the lecture (more in depth). Once during the lecture. Once after the lecture (in very painful detail). And once on the Saturday at the end of the week when reviewing all the lectures for that week.

I think I got it down right, but if anyone else is familiar with this strategy, give us some feedback.
 
Skippygonenuts said:
I heard some vague ideas about organizing the way you study for certain days..I'm not sure if I remember it right but I think this was how it went (please correct me),

Sunday: Quickly skim through the lecture for the following monday-friday so that you are familiar with some terms when you hear them in lecture. Read the lecture for the following day (monday) in more depth.

Monday-Friday: Go to lecture (or listen to the recording) and go home and study the lecture of that day (or your notes of it) once more. Read the lecture for the following day in more depth.

Saturday: Review all the lectures of the week.

Sunday: Repeat.

According to this technique, within a week, you would have had the chance to look at each lecture 5 times. Once, on Sunday (brief). Once the day before the lecture (more in depth). Once during the lecture. Once after the lecture (in very painful detail). And once on the Saturday at the end of the week when reviewing all the lectures for that week.

I think I got it down right, but if anyone else is familiar with this strategy, give us some feedback.
Click to expand...

As a 2011er, I did a variation of this method: Everynight review the days notes, the notes for the week, then one previous week of notes, then that day's notes again(1-2 hours/day) If you can, one weekend a month, review a previous class's notes (i.e. anatomy). Everything you need to know you'll learn by repitition.
Disclaimer: I have average board scores, however when our dean would give us mock step 1, and mock step 2 exams I was always above passing and usually these were the only exams that I was top 5 in the class. So retention was high for me with this method.

Also, do anything fun, like run a marathon, form your band, show your artwork, etc the first two years.
 
rachmoninov3: just to make sure I understand you correctly, are you saying for example, if its a wednesday and you had anatomy, neuro, and biochemistry that day, you'd first study all the notes from each of those 3 classes. Then every single night of the week you'd review all classes notes from the previous days of the week (monday and tuesday for this example's purpose)? so if i'm understanding you correctly, by friday you would have reviewed monday's lecture slides 4 times already (Monday-Thursday)? I think this sounds like a really good idea so I just want to make sure I understand you correctly
 
My best tip would be to learn *medicine* rather than your individual subjects. If you keep your clinical correlations up, things will fall in to place much more easily than if you were trying to memorise anatomy, then physiology etc etc. I read a clinical handbook continuously in my first year and it served me well.
 
jw123 said:
rachmoninov3: just to make sure I understand you correctly, are you saying for example, if its a wednesday and you had anatomy, neuro, and biochemistry that day, you'd first study all the notes from each of those 3 classes. Then every single night of the week you'd review all classes notes from the previous days of the week (monday and tuesday for this example's purpose)? so if i'm understanding you correctly, by friday you would have reviewed monday's lecture slides 4 times already (Monday-Thursday)? I think this sounds like a really good idea so I just want to make sure I understand you correctly
Click to expand...

My school used a block system, so I didn't have multiple classes to study for at once. However the point remains the same: repitition, repitition, repitition...however it works for you. Spend a couple days really trying to understand difficult concepts but don't sweat it if you don't understand it at first, just review, review, review. I rarely had any topic that I couldn't figure out from reviewing power points ad nauseum with a little help from Lange physio or Harrison's if need be.

Also, please see a thread started by deferoxime about things people wished they new before medical school (only a few weeks old). Great stuff and the guy's really funny. Plus there's my take on the 3 types of med students which should give you some more insight.
 
Mattchiavelli, Do you try using medium robbins first and the moved up or just started with big? I've seen almost every MS2 at my school read medium robbins but I'm thinking about giving your advice a shot - for true in depth understanding with the caveat of knowing what's HY for class exams
 
This is a really solid thread, guys. As an incoming MS1, I really appreciate it.
 
sineapse said:
My best tip would be to learn *medicine* rather than your individual subjects. If you keep your clinical correlations up, things will fall in to place much more easily than if you were trying to memorise anatomy, then physiology etc etc. I read a clinical handbook continuously in my first year and it served me well.
Click to expand...

I agree with this... to a point. If you go to a pass/fail school or just don't give a crap about your grades beyond passing/high passing, don't go crazy about tiny details.

However I know plenty of people who preferred to memorize details and minor pieces of nonsense just so they could honor all of their preclinical classes so that they could be competitive for AOA and their Harvard Derm-neurosurgery-rad/onc-cardiothoracic surgery combined program or whatever. If you're into that, I would go ahead and memorize away.

For clinical years, the boards, etc you're right however. Learning actual medicine and clinical correlates will go a long, long way to both help you do well on the boards and become a good doctor and clinician.
 
Awesome advise from everyone! Thank you so much! I see memory and most importantly, understanding, is the name of the game to survive in med school, in conjunction with extracurricular fun of course. After doing nothing but hanging out and exercising, as well as resting for two months I really want to start med school already, Ive just been reading books about medical stories and positive outcomes and I want to get started already ( I know med school is not a real hospital with patients but the fact that I'm one step closer, and I'm going to begin learning medicine is really cool). I know my enthusiasm will wane down, Ive seen the dark side of medicine through many doctors in my family, but I really will be happy every single day knowing that this is what Ill be doing for the rest of my life. I'm sure everyone has had doubts and troubled times, but there's always that inside feeling of happiness to be doing this that keeps you going right?
 
I have a question.

I have seen so many other topics where people have recommended specific textbooks.

Like Netters for Anatomy
BRS for Physiology
Lippincott for Biochemistry

But I don't really understand how they can do this. Doesn't which book you use completely depend on the professor and what kind of exam questions they may have?

Also, are students expected to study both material from these textbooks and the course notes and memorize it all? Thanks!
 
sanityonleave said:
1) Bolded the important points. After about a week I quit studying with anyone in my class because people go bat**** crazy. If you study around a lot of people from your class, you WILL become paranoid about the fact that classmate_003 spent 12 hours learning the intricacies of disease_9243 even though there was only a slide and a half on it in class. If you study with him, in spite of the fact that you're a smart person and you KNOW that he's wrong, you will get paranoid anyway and it will make you miserable (and a less efficient studier).

2) Study smart. A transcript (or whatever your note-taking service produces) of a bad lecture is still a bad treatment of a material -- simply because some poor schlub had to transcribe and try and organize it doesn't make it better. You can attempt to memorize every word the scripts (as some of your classmates will), and while that might cut it for phys/histo, that strategy won't work for path for most people. If you study to understand the material, you'll a) be happier and b) do better than ~90% of the people who try to memorize the lecture scripts and slides. There will still be 5-10% who will beat you (because, let's face it, a few professors will ask questions that are essentially "What is the third word of the second line on the 43rd slide of my lecture presentation?" and you'll get them wrong), but as long as you're consistently in the top 10-20% of the class, you'll be in great shape.

3) It's all about consistency. You will probably never get the top score on any exam -- but if you're ~1 standard deviation above the mean on every exam, you will be in a phenomenal position with regard to board knowledge and your class rank. The thing to avoid is letting yourself get caught in a cycle of do really well --> procrastinate for the next one --> do poorly --> study really hard --> do well --> procrastinate... etc.

4) Figure out who writes the questions for every single exam. I know some schools use standardized tests (NBME exams) so this may be less applicable, but at my school, the person writing the test made a huge difference. MDs almost never ask questions that are not relevant to clinical practice (probably because they don't remember the information), whereas PhDs tend to be much more "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" and ask silly details. Figure out whether the course director writes the whole test, part of the test and the lecturers write part, or whether the lecturers write all of their own questions. It's a game -- and half the battle is understanding your opponent.

5) Try and avoid pulling late nights before the exam. Extra study time is almost never worth being sleep deprived because you're so much sharper on a good night's sleep. Whenever possible, I tried to stop studying around ~9pm the night before the exam and have a beer and relax.

6) Have fun. It's a lot of work, but if you're smart about the workload you'll have plenty of free time to relax. Make some friends, continue your hobbies, go to a bar every once in a while. It's not the end of life as you know it.
Click to expand...

Fantastic!
 
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