Typical Reading Regimen

[GreenLedbetter]

I am going to be a first year allo student and I was just wondering if some of you could give me an idea of what your reading regimen was like during your first year. Maybe you could break it down by pages per night per course, or something like that. How many pages per night of anatomy? How about Biochem and others.

Thanks.

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[ZagDoc]

Reading? Practically nothing but the syllabus. But the idea is to cover the syllabus so many times that every. minute. detail. is learned. Some do this by making flashcards. Others through exotic highlighting motifs. Others by outlining or forming their own Q&A's from the material.

For some perspective (from a school with an integrated curriculum), our syllabus was ~250-300 pages for 2 weeks of class. Most of those pages were either condensed outline form or ppt slides (6 to a page). For a given day, I would try to go over that day's notes after lectures, complete appropriate "learning objectives" from the beginning of each lecture, and pre-read the lectures for the next day. Weekends were spent reviewing that weeks lectures. Most days I did alright in getting all 3 done, but some days there was just too much material.

 

[Law2Doc]

I am going to be a first year allo student and I was just wondering if some of you could give me an idea of what your reading regimen was like during your first year. Maybe you could break it down by pages per night per course, or something like that. How many pages per night of anatomy? How about Biochem and others.

Thanks.

I think it's a bit difficult to give a breakdown to someone whose only frame of reference is undergrad, because you really can't know what folks are talking about by "syllabi" or "note sets" until you start going through them. Suffice it to say you are going to be going through a lot of material every day, and your goal is to set up a study plan that lets you review everything multiple times (4-5 passes through the material) before you actually have the exam. Zag's game plan is a good one, but you are going to have to figure out what works for you by trial and error. Best to hit the ground running and start off doing too much, because it's much easier to cut back than to add on hours.

 

[spospo]

the biggest thing i learned from first year is that you need to be willing to change the way you study. even from class to class my approach would change. it is good, as law2doc said, to hit the ground running with a certain plan (i sure did) but be willing to change it if you just can't get through everything. for most of us, learning this stuff is about going over it several times. for some classes this meant making note cards, for others it meant taking notes on my lecture notes. i would say go in with some sort of plan but know in your mind that you are going to have to be flexible.

 

[meddoc1]

I am a year one medical student starting in Aug. I do not have any anatomy back ground (Not required for my degree) and I am worry that I will be behind compared to students who had anatomy in undergrad. Do you think I should start reviewing now?

 

[Slide]

I am a year one medical student starting in Aug. I do not have any anatomy back ground (Not required for my degree) and I am worry that I will be behind compared to students who had anatomy in undergrad. Do you think I should start reviewing now?

No, enjoy what's left of your remaining weeks of freedom. When it comes time to learn anatomy, you'll get it done.

 

[ZagDoc]

I am a year one medical student starting in Aug. I do not have any anatomy back ground (Not required for my degree) and I am worry that I will be behind compared to students who had anatomy in undergrad. Do you think I should start reviewing now?

I didn't have a single bit of anatomy in undergrad and was just fine. Enjoy your summer and get charged up to hit the ground running in August.

 

[HEADintheCLOUDS]

I am a year one medical student starting in Aug. I do not have any anatomy back ground (Not required for my degree) and I am worry that I will be behind compared to students who had anatomy in undergrad. Do you think I should start reviewing now?

If you want to be "average", then do nothing as they said. If you want to be better than average then review/study!

 

[ZagDoc]

If you want to be "average", then do nothing as they said. If you want to be better than average then review/study!

Alright. I hate talking about grades, but I honored anatomy with a final grade of 98% without spending a single second of my last summer off pre-studying (besides flipping through my netters to look at the "pretty pictures" when it came in the mail). Please do not take the above advice. Medical school teaches you everything you need to know. You learn to adapt your educational style to the material. You are a capable and confident matriculant. Warm fuzzies and stuff.

 

[Law2Doc]

If you want to be "average", then do nothing as they said. If you want to be better than average then review/study!

Um no. There will be many stars in your med school class that never had anatomy. I'd say maybe 20% of my med school class had anatomy before, and based on class gossip, they seemed to end up distributed all over the curve. Not studying before med school and showing up fresh and ready to hit the ground running is the best advice IMHO.

I'm not sure that someone who has so many threads about failing courses and foolishly antagonizing residents should really be giving advice on how to be above average.

 

[FutureDoc4]

I know everyone has different styles of studying, I was just wondering who felt that they had time to use a read/use a REVIEW book along with the syllabus and is this more advantageous in the long run (e.g. Step I)? (Especially if your on a P/F system like I will be on)

 

[osli]

The only review book that might be of much use during coursework is RR Path. Just remember that it is for review and not primary learning of material. A few people might benefit from BRS phys if their syllabus sucks.

Other sources are good only to get familiar with them for board review, and the only one worth spending the time to get familiar with now might be FA if you have the time. Skim/read it to see how it is organized and note what it is deficient in. You can fill in those notes later during actual board prep. Being familiar with it would be useful if it doesn't cut into study time.

What would be a better use of any extra time for reading would be to pick up the NEJM, or Big Robbins, or any heavy hitter like Harrison's etc. that really goes in depth into diseases, clinical management, new research findings, etc. The point being that you need to develop an understanding of medicine beyond the details required for regurgitation on school tests. You don't need to remember all the factoids from NEJM articles or Robbins, but those details will help develop a comprehensive framework that will serve you well on boards... where you often have to "figure out" something during a question, not regurgitate a fact.

 

[The Angriest Bird]

I don't know about other people, but reading textbooks is the LEAST productive way of studying for me. It's almost like a waste of time.

 

[CCLCMer]

I am going to be a first year allo student and I was just wondering if some of you could give me an idea of what your reading regimen was like during your first year. Maybe you could break it down by pages per night per course, or something like that. How many pages per night of anatomy? How about Biochem and others.

Thanks.

Your best bet is to ask some of the upperclassmen at your school, because every school is different. We don't have packets or syllabi for our classes at my school, so my experience is going to be really different than people from schools where they do have those things. Theoretically, we were supposed to be assigned about 25-30 pages of reading for a two-hour seminar. Sometimes that happened, and sometimes we had seminar leaders assign us double that much. After you've been in med school for a while, you get a pretty good idea of which readings you can just skim or even ignore altogether.