What exactly is so "hard" about medical school?

[el_duderino]

Neuroscience. Neuroscience is hard.

Yes, that is what I'm procrastinating from currently.

Me too, funnily enough.

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[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Me too, funnily enough.

Same haha. Not a fan.

 

[AlteredScale]

at this very moment in time, the clotting cascade is what is making medical school so hard.

 

[WedgeDawg]

at this very moment in time, the clotting cascade is what is making medical school so hard.

I have a joke for you that might help.

Why did 10 hide behind 5?

Because 7 8 9.

Okay it's not that funny, but it helps remember relationships. 7/TF activates 9 which activates 10 through 8/9 (tenase complex). 7/TF also activates 10 by itself. 10/5 (prothombinase complex) then activates 2 which activates 1 which leads to clotting. 2 then loops back and feedback-activates 5 and 8 (the two that 7/TF don't activate). The joke helps remember that 10/5 go together, as do 8/9, and 7 "ate" things (ie enzymatically activates zymogens that allow the two complexes to work).

If you can associate all of that together through the joke, the only thing you have to remember is that 7 and TF always associate (TF is also 3 - didn't know that for the longest time) and that 12 activates 11 which activates 9 (but who cares about the intrinsic pathway amirite.

And there you go!

 

[cs24]

at this very moment in time, the clotting cascade is what is making medical school so hard.

If you use pathoma, medical school will be much less hard at this very moment in time. Great section on the complement cascade

 

[AlteredScale]

Thanks for the help!!!!

 

[IslandStyle808]

This strongly depends on the school. Anatomy is almost never multiple choice, which is a very hard thing for many students to adapt to. Then there are clinical skills exams, which many schools have during preclinical years. Histories and physicals aren't all that difficult, but there is a massive amount of stuff to recall on the fly and perform properly. These are difficult scenarios for many students to adapt to, as the stress, testing methods, and material is vastly different than anything they've learned before.

My grad school anatomy exam MC portion would make you wish you had all fill in the blanks. He would have a word bank of 50 and would ask if it is a) one of the above b) two of the above c) three of the above d) none of the above. This was around 1/2 of the exam. The other 1/2 was matching and fill in the blank.

 

[WingedOx]

Were you simply a victim of bad luck in terms of your rotation sites and supervisors? Do you think your impressions of MS-3 would have been more positive at different sites (i.e. programs that some of your colleagues actually felt good about)?

As always, your feedback is appreciated!

A combination of my experience and the experiences that a couple friends in my class had.

I wasn't the worst though. Sadly because of friends I learned more about the regulations regarding what is and isn't allowed in student evaluations. There was a case my year where a student got a sub-passing grade in a rotation where the preceptor didn't even talk to him/her about it during the rotation...no written feedback, no meetings, just a grade submission form two weeks after the rotation was over. Said student successfully appealed it, but the entire process took almost a full calendar year and there was A LOT of pushback from the school.

 

[WedgeDawg]

A combination of my experience and the experiences that a couple friends in my class had.

I wasn't the worst though. Sadly because of friends I learned more about the regulations regarding what is and isn't allowed in student evaluations. There was a case my year where a student got a sub-passing grade in a rotation where the preceptor didn't even talk to him/her about it during the rotation...no written feedback, no meetings, just a grade submission form two weeks after the rotation was over. Said student successfully appealed it, but the entire process took almost a full calendar year and there was A LOT of pushback from the school.

Out of curiosity, how many existentialist crises in other users has your signature caused so far?

 

[WingedOx]

Out of curiosity, how many existentialist crises in other users has your signature caused so far?

If you haven't seen Bojack Horseman, stay up all night tonight and binge-watch seasons 1 and 2.

 

[WedgeDawg]

If you haven't seen Bojack Horseman, stay up all night tonight and binge-watch seasons 1 and 2.

I would do this if I didn't have an anatomy exam right around the corner

 

[Goro]

Someone once posted in these pages that med school is like getting a MS every semester. I agree with that. My SMP students cringe when I point out that their med school brethren have ~5x as much material to learn.

To put the volume of material in perspective. My next course will be 8 weeks (82 lecture hours + misc hrs) and the course director said the total amount of information will be equal to 4 classes for 2 full semesters in undergrad... So, assuming each undergrad course is 3 credit hours. You have 12 hrs each week x 16 weeks (4-month semester) x 2 = 384 hours of class. So basically in undergrad you have over 4x the time to learn 1/8th of the material you will in a 8 week med school course. To be fair, this course in particular is known to be very information heavy whereas the courses I'll take in the spring are relatively lighter. After finishing my first med school course, I have tremendous respect for those who are on a graded system as opposed to pass/fail. Even though I've heard from many people that preclinical grades (other than P/F system) don't matter as much as your step I scores. P/F however reduces the feeling that you have to know everything. In medical school, you will learn many things, forget about them, and then look them up when you need to. The most important things will be hammered into your brain repeatedly and relentlessly and you'll start to notice what's important to know and what's not. This is where P/F shines and is of benefit. But, I digressed enough.

 

[Perrotfish]

nvm

 

[Lawpy]

In MS3 its not a nice vs. mean thing. Its a 'what am I doing here' thing. During clinicals you pay your school the cost of a modest home, and in exchange your school tells you to follow around some random indentured servant called a resident. The resident has a job to do that takes '80' hours/week, and that job has nothing to do with you. I don't know who gets to keep all of the money because I never got to meet him.

As you can guess, the variance in resident quality is of secondary importance. The nice ones try to teach you for a few minutes in between work. The mean ones scold you for a few minutes in between work. Mostly, though, they work. And you can't write orders, or sign notes, or do procedures, or help in any way. You could if they let you, you'd be no more clueless than the Interns or new NPs who do the same thing, but they won't. So you can't.

That's MS3. You're just kinda... there. Until they let you graduate. Box, meet check.

So the value of MS3 basically depends on the helpfulness of the team you get assigned? And what makes MS4 particularly more meaningful than MS3?

 

[WingedOx]

nvm

despite your delete, I think your summary is pretty accurate.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

nvm

Nvm, Lawper managed to quote your post.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[DrFizition]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

 

[futuremdforme]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

Assuming you took the MCAT in the past 2 years (which you probably had to...) it's not really necessary. It depends on your curriculum and it's hard to know what the emphasis will be before your will be there.

 

[WedgeDawg]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

Yeah, I would recommend studying the effect of ethyl alcohol in vivo on concentrations of alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver of the Homo sapiens sapiens,

 

[moisne]

My girlfriend is getting her PhD in mathematics and I'm sure she would gaffaw @ the med school is the hardest thing ever in academics statement. You can't win a Fields Medal by rote memorization

It all depends on the person. If you are better at memorizing, med school should be easier than... math. If you can memorize **** and rely on derivation or whatever (unless you are trying to derive the schrodinger equation), math would be way easier. Upper level math isn't even math anymore.... You almost never see numbers haha.

 

[Glandzburg]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

The 'W T F' will be there for most people and it isn't worth wasting your last months of freedom trying to avoid it. If you did well enough on the MCAT to get in, you have enough basic understanding to build on once medical school starts (it will build FAST).

EDIT: See above where the "eating five pancakes per day" analogy was discussed, and @Psai very accurately pointed out that any "pre-studying" you try to do will amount to pre-eating 2 pancakes. It's a low-yield use of your last bit of free time.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

Brush up on video games and Netflix.

 

[onepik]

Brush up on video games and Netflix.

Med school is all about dat chill and netflix

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

I mean, there's nothing wrong with browsing a textbook just for your leisure and curiosity, but nothing more. If you don't have the pressure of a looming exam, you won't retain anything meaningful. Plus, you don't know what information in the books will be relevant to class at your med school. Med school material is 100% unlike undergrad material, so you will not know what is important or even how to actually comprehend what you are studying. Thus, You will not really be able to get ahead, so you should just enjoy your last few months of freedom. Trust me, when you're in the thick of med school you will treasure any day off you can get - don't waste the ones you have left.

 

[Markymark15]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

Learn how to cook easy and healthy meals. Trust me, this will help. Junk/fatty foods are not good for your mind or body.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Learn how to cook easy and healthy meals. Trust me, this will help. Junk/fatty foods are not good for your mind or body.

They're good for gainz tho

 

[Markymark15]

They're good for gainz tho

This kind of gainz?

 

[getdown]

So the value of MS3 basically depends on the helpfulness of the team you get assigned? And what makes MS4 particularly more meaningful than MS3?

With the advantage of retrospection I would say that the benefit of MS3 year is highly contingent on what the student puts into it. You can be like most students during the rotation and focus on either getting out as fast as possible or doing enough to try to get an honors. What you should actually be doing is trying to learn HOW things work and how to efficiently do things. How do you do this? By actually trying to help the residents on your team, follow them around, get involved in what they're trying to do. I understand that this is often harder done than said since you're often the last to know things and you don't know how things work yet but if you do this intern year won't be such a shock.

MS4 is more meaningful because you actually know how things work now in the hospital. You still can't write orders and stuff but a good MS4 can be a huge benefit to the team by predicting what's going to be needed to get the ball rolling (contacting PCP for records, faxing requests, getting supplies for procedures, etc) and doing the tedious little things that just makes the day go faster and helps the team go home sooner.

I wish during MS3 orientation they would tell us this as I would have personally approached the year differently but hindsight is 20/20.

 

[getdown]

I have a question for you all. I understand that I should not really study before medical school. But I did want to review basic science topics (taking a gap year). Any specific ones you guys recommend that I brush up on so that week 1 won't be a total 'W T F' for me?

At the risk of sounding redundant. It's pointless. I can say this as someone who actually tried to study between M1 and M2 year by reading path and micro stuff in preparation for the beast that is M2. It didn't help as much as I thought since you just don't know what's important yet and I was using syllabi from the previous year to do so. Trying to brush up on stuff without even knowing what your particular school even cares about is even more pointless. Just enjoy your time before med school.

 

[Bogardmed]

the fire hydrant analogy is very true

 

[Raininleuf]

ya the fire hydrant thing is foreallll

 

[FriedKEEN]

the concepts are not hard. its the amount that is insane

 

[Psai]

the concepts are not hard. its the amount that is insane

Some of the concepts are hard

 

[Daneosaurus]

i would think its the difficulty in balancing the hard work ur doing with not feeling too isolated / having a relationship. any med students / physicians down to comment on whether having a partner helps or detracts from school?

It does both. You spend a lot of time studying and the other person feels isolated by how much you have to put in just to not fail. You mostly want to spend time with them, too, and feel guilty for not being able to. But they are there for you when you got crushed on an exam.

 

[seminoma]

I see the pancake analogy mentioned by a few people. Personally I think the pancake thing is way more accurate than the fire hydrant. Fire hydrant makes it seem like you have no control over the information or the pace/volume. The (my) reality was that there are way more than 5 pancakes to eat everyday, but if you eat the right 5 everyday you'll still do well.

Both analogies really only apply to the first 2 years. Sure there's still a lot of info in MS3, but it's much easier to learn and retain.