What makes you like studying Medicine?

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Medstart108

Medstart108

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Does anyone here enjoy studying medicine? By that i mean you like reading the textbooks, you can easily just read the required readings without even loosing concentration once. The information fascinates you and you often do extra for fun.

In high school when i read history textbooks i literally had no trouble reading the required readings. I would find myself reading 10 to 20 pages extra without even realizing it. I read through my entire american history textbook even though our class didn't cover the whole thing. I also spent free time on websites just reading about history. As a kid whenever i went to the library i would borrow books (for kids) on civilization and history. My friends thought i was a bit crazy, since history is a pretty unpopular subject at my school (it was cool to hate it).

I thought studying medicine would be sort of similar. My strength lies with my good memorization skills, so i thought medicine would probably be less interesting than history but still very interesting (there were always different things about the human body that i wanted to know more about). However, i'm finding myself reading just a few pages of my textbook, then getting distracted and doing something else. I don't even finish my required readings. Its no longer fun its more of a chore. I think i find i liked history books more because of the ease of understanding the english. In medicine, the textbooks are full of "medical words" that take longer to get through and understand. I often find myself looking back to different sections to remind myself which breaks my thought.

Does anyone who love medicine as much as i loved history? If so, what interests you about it? I loved history because i loved learning more about the past and found it really exciting learning about how things used to be done. It also helped that I could tell my friends about what i knew whenever the topic would come up. How can i also love studying medicine like i love studying history?

Thanks 😀
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It sounds to me like you're pursuing the wrong profession.
 
Have you read medical textbooks geared toward high school students or history textbooks geared toward professional students? My point is that perhaps you are frustrated with the detail-oriented nature of being in a professional school, learning every detail of the subjects you are studying. At the end of the day, I think most people would rather read a simple, well-written history book than the details of sodium channels. At the end of the day, studying anything at the level required of med school requires a lot of work and it will feel like work.

Also, I'd bet that historians put a lot more effort into making their writing interesting than the average medical professional.
 
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Medicine texts are extremely dense, even review texts. It takes a superior amount of effort to stay concentrated on the material. I'm not saying that there's "no one out there that can just breeze through the texts," but that would be the exception rather than the rule. I love medicine, but I can't concentrate on the material for hours on end without taking a break. Sometimes it is a chore. You'll never find every single thing in medicine fascinating...That's absurd.
 
The only time I can read, Harrisons for example with unwavering concentration is after ive seen a patient and im trying to make sense of the history, physical and what the next steps and treatment consists of. Other than that it is kinda of a chore to read dense textbooks to learn information.
 
I've never read a medical textbook, as I rely on my syllabus with a few review books sprinkled in here and there. However, I do find some of the topics really interesting. Usually once a day or so I realize how cool it is that I get to learn about all of these things related to the human body/condition. That doesn't mean I like sitting in the library for hours studying it, but I know I like it better than if I had a 9-5 desk job! However, during test week I hate everything haha.
 
If you cut the material needed to learn by about half for the same time period I would probably enjoy reading it a lot more. When you've gone through 500 pp slides and realize you need to get through another 500 more just to stay on track with your test review for the day...your enthusiasm for the material starts to drop off.

Also, reading stuff is a lot different than actually having to learn it. I don't know many people that like to sit their ass in a chair for 10 hours straight memorizing anything for days on end.
 
Does anyone here enjoy studying medicine? I'm trying to come up with an answer that isn't sarcastic but it's pretty difficult. I guess I already failed.
 
OP you are a normal person. You are also early in your career so don't sweat it. For me, I did not like readying and studying "medicine" all that much M1-M2. It got a little better M3 year but you are still forced to read and study a huge amount of info that may not be of particular interest. However the difference is that you are actually seeing patients and can begin to apply your studying to real life situations, something you can't do M1-M2. When M4 comes around and you have seen the stuff a lot and you are more focused on your area, studying is not so much a chore as you'll find yourself wanting to broaden your knowledge base to become a better doctor. So yeah, just tough out the first few years trying to learn as much as possible and then when M4 hits it gets a lot better. Also after Step 2 CK and a couple rotations you'll find your functional knowledge much improved over your M3 counterparts.
 
duckie99 said:
OP you are a normal person. You are also early in your career so don't sweat it. For me, I did not like readying and studying "medicine" all that much M1-M2. It got a little better M3 year but you are still forced to read and study a huge amount of info that may not be of particular interest. However the difference is that you are actually seeing patients and can begin to apply your studying to real life situations, something you can't do M1-M2. When M4 comes around and you have seen the stuff a lot and you are more focused on your area, studying is not so much a chore as you'll find yourself wanting to broaden your knowledge base to become a better doctor. So yeah, just tough out the first few years trying to learn as much as possible and then when M4 hits it gets a lot better. Also after Step 2 CK and a couple rotations you'll find your functional knowledge much improved over your M3 counterparts.
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Studying isn't a chore as an M4 because there really isn't any.
 
DrSnips said:
Studying isn't a chore as an M4 because there really isn't any.
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Sure some M4 students don't study at all. I disagree with that approach. It's not very hard to read a cardiology book during a cardiology rotation. You can also read NEJM and/or JAMA. I'm not saying sit around and memorize stuff like M3, but reading a textbook about something that would be potentially applicable to your future is just as good at this point imo. You won't have a lot of time during residency to read a cardiology textbook, for example. Granted if you're doing peds and you're on a plastic surgery rotation then I would not suggest reading a plastic surgery book. However I would advise reading stuff that you will need/want to know in the future when you actually have time to do so.
 
Ideally, everyone in medicine is genuinely in love with science and medicine, just like you have your passion for history. Obviously, this is far from the case. Still, the people who just want to be a doctor for the sake of being "a doctor" aren't necessarily going to be worse of a practicing medical clinician I don't think.

Anyways... the ridiculously intense pressure and density of material you have to memorize/learn in an equally ridiculously small window of time will make the process of learning science and medicine insanely taxing and tedious to even the most devoted to the subject among us.Yes, science is a lot more difficult to learn than something like history so you have to be able to endure through and embrace that challenge and enjoy the progress you do make in your understanding. Even for those of us who have an intense, severe passion for medicine and science, it's likely in a specific subject area. All of us will have to spend a LOT of time learning things you we don't care about *cough* **** embryology *cough*.

I personally think neuroscience is one of the most fascinating subjects. Does that mean I love the neurophysiology and neuroanatomy unit? **** no. Again, way too much difficult to fully digest information to have to learn in too short of a time. You also don't get to learn the practical aspects of the subject - you have to learn small minutiae that you'll never have to think of ever again in your life once your done with medical school. I didn't (as a first year) get to really study any of the interesting practical aspects like affective/cognitive diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorders and the practical diseases we do cover (e.g. Bell's palsy, motor aphasias, Downs) are only briefly surveyed. Does that mean I still don't absolutely love the subject? Answer to that is also hell no 🙂

Further, don't read texts lol. At least at my school that's completely unnecessary. Just study what's on the power points. Google/Wiki only for information that is relevant to ppt slides that you need to know - because it's faster to find the info than paging through a dense textbook. If you want to prep for Step or want nice, succinct summaries about something, then read form BRS/First Aid/Kaplan kind of materials- not general science text books.
 
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I wouldn't say I enjoy studying in of itself. I enjoy the sense of accomplishment derived from having mastered a topic (after studying for and killing an exam for example) This is why:

While I am not yet a 3rd year, our curriculum throws us into clinical environments weekly as 2nd years. I've seen patients in clinics, watched surgeries, and incubated a few times (with an attending literally holding my hand or at least guiding it). Doing things successfully is very motivating. Equally motivating is getting embarrassed by an attending or classmate (or patient). Some people call it achievement addiction.

I study because my ego would not suffer the consequences of falling behind.
I study because not knowing what I'm doing is extremely stressful.
I study because feeling like a BAMF relative my classmates releases DA which feels good

That being said, I found first year thoroughly unfulfilling and I hated studying through this period of time. 2nd year has been awesome (emphasis on pathology, pathophys, and pharmacology). I'm guessing 3rd year will be better
 
GalenAgas said:
I study because feeling like a BAMF relative my classmates releases DA which feels good
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I also have to agree with this. Not really an ideal motiviation to learn that material but it's definitly an important factor. I have low self esteem/pessimistic tendencies so even doing "well" on tests doesn't make me feel that good. But when I know I only a handful or less amount of people in a class of 100+ bright and/or hardworking people did better than me on some ridiculously hard examination, that definitely makes you feel good and makes you really want to do it again. I'm not a gunner though lol. I don't actively sabotage my classmates and I do like helping classmates, especially when they ask me specifically for help.
 
Medstart108 said:
Does anyone here enjoy studying medicine? By that i mean you like reading the textbooks, you can easily just read the required readings without even loosing concentration once. The information fascinates you and you often do extra for fun.

In high school when i read history textbooks i literally had no trouble reading the required readings. I would find myself reading 10 to 20 pages extra without even realizing it. I read through my entire american history textbook even though our class didn't cover the whole thing. I also spent free time on websites just reading about history. As a kid whenever i went to the library i would borrow books (for kids) on civilization and history. My friends thought i was a bit crazy, since history is a pretty unpopular subject at my school (it was cool to hate it).

I thought studying medicine would be sort of similar. My strength lies with my good memorization skills, so i thought medicine would probably be less interesting than history but still very interesting (there were always different things about the human body that i wanted to know more about). However, i'm finding myself reading just a few pages of my textbook, then getting distracted and doing something else. I don't even finish my required readings. Its no longer fun its more of a chore. I think i find i liked history books more because of the ease of understanding the english. In medicine, the textbooks are full of "medical words" that take longer to get through and understand. I often find myself looking back to different sections to remind myself which breaks my thought.

Does anyone who love medicine as much as i loved history? If so, what interests you about it? I loved history because i loved learning more about the past and found it really exciting learning about how things used to be done. It also helped that I could tell my friends about what i knew whenever the topic would come up. How can i also love studying medicine like i love studying history?

Thanks 😀
Click to expand...

Read the big Robbins path book. It's as interesting and story-based as medicine can get.
 
HomerJayBYU said:
Have you read medical textbooks geared toward high school students or history textbooks geared toward professional students? My point is that perhaps you are frustrated with the detail-oriented nature of being in a professional school, learning every detail of the subjects you are studying. At the end of the day, I think most people would rather read a simple, well-written history book than the details of sodium channels. At the end of the day, studying anything at the level required of med school requires a lot of work and it will feel like work.

Also, I'd bet that historians put a lot more effort into making their writing interesting than the average medical professional.
Click to expand...

Actually you're wrong. Historians, English Professors, Philosophers, etc, for the most part, have what is called "science envy." In other words, they resent that scientists can easily distance their work from the public, because the public is completely ignorant about science and technology. So basically, what these guys do is that they try to make their books as convoluted and boring as possible, so people won't read them.
 
Medstart108 said:
What makes you like studying Medicine?
Click to expand...


So far, as a second year...absolutely nothing. Like you said, it is a tremendous chore. I see classmates spending entire days in the library, so obviously some people are eating it up (or are just terrified enough to stay focused), but at least in the way that it's presented in school and in texts, it's a drag and it's dull, at times excruciatingly so.

Every week we go visit the hospital, where we get a history/physical on assigned patients and discuss them with a preceptor. I'd say this is the only time school has been remotely interesting, and it's not even "school". Hoping that at least bodes well for third year.
 
I think it depends on the student. I study like everyone else, but I also have fun outside of medical school. For me, I can easily balance life and medical school while still making a solid passing grade. However, I would have to sell my soul if I wanted to Honor.

I do enjoy studying medical topics, however in the context of clinical practice. The PhD detail is what bores me.

I cannot explain to you why I like doing it. It is like trying to explain why you love someone.

Also, if you are spending all day, every day in the library then you are doing medical school wrong.
 
Porfirio said:
I think it depends on the student. I study like everyone else, but I also have fun outside of medical school. For me, I can easily balance life and medical school while still making a solid passing grade. However, I would have to sell my soul if I wanted to Honor.

I do enjoy studying medical topics, however in the context of clinical practice. The PhD detail is what bores me.

I cannot explain to you why I like doing it. It is like trying to explain why you love someone.

Also, if you are spending all day, every day in the library then you are doing medical school wrong.
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These are statements that my "cool" (read: alcoholic) classmates make, and I don't like them for it. You're paying to be in med school, and your understanding of the material (grades for the most part) has a strong correlation of how well you'll do on Step. If people take the time to study their asses off, I respect them for it, not chastise them for not going out all the time and not "having a life" outside of med school. Who are you to say that?

I lived it up in undergrad and partied almost every weekend of my junior and senior year. I don't need to validate my social life by bragging about how I have a life outside of med school. People have different goals. Respect it. If someone wants to honor and needs to spend that time in the library, let them be. Don't act like you're cooler than them because you don't study all the time. I've honored and high passed the majority of our blocks because I'm willing to work for it; doesn't make me any more or less of a person.
 
Work said:
These are statements that my "cool" (read: alcoholic) classmates make, and I don't like them for it. You're paying to be in med school, and your understanding of the material (grades for the most part) has a strong correlation of how well you'll do on Step. If people take the time to study their asses off, I respect them for it, not chastise them for not going out all the time and not "having a life" outside of med school. Who are you to say that?

I lived it up in undergrad and partied almost every weekend of my junior and senior year. I don't need to validate my social life by bragging about how I have a life outside of med school. People have different goals. Respect it. If someone wants to honor and needs to spend that time in the library, let them be. Don't act like you're cooler than them because you don't study all the time. I've honored and high passed the majority of our blocks because I'm willing to work for it; doesn't make me any more or less of a person.
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So what if grades have a strong correlation with Step? Do grades and Step scores have a strong correlation with being a good physician?

The rest of your post is nothing but a personal attack and false judgments with stereotypes. You need to get some balance in your life.
 
I think he meant that if you have to spend literally ALL day studying, every day, you are taking the wrong approach to studying, since it's probably ineffective. It's definitely possible to do well while taking at least one hour or more to chill!

Balance FTW! Play hard and work hard is a cliche saying, but it's true. Personally, if I only worked hard, I would collapse after a few months, since I would be WAAAAY too burnt out and depressed. On the contrary, if I only played hard, I would get kicked out after a few months 😳

The "alcoholic" classmates are the ones that are forced to go to AA meetings. The ones that can hold their liquor without passing out know how to keep a fun and safe balance 😛
 
The only thing I've had a genuine interest in, so far, was the clinical stuff. When you think how low yield most of the things we learn actually is, it can be depressing. What keeps me going is that "light at the end of the tunnel" (3rd year lol). I think all of this is perfectly normal. If not, I've made a very co$tly mistake :meanie:
 
BeastInfection said:
So far, as a second year...absolutely nothing. Like you said, it is a tremendous chore. I see classmates spending entire days in the library, so obviously some people are eating it up (or are just terrified enough to stay focused), but at least in the way that it's presented in school and in texts, it's a drag and it's dull, at times excruciatingly so.

Every week we go visit the hospital, where we get a history/physical on assigned patients and discuss them with a preceptor. I'd say this is the only time school has been remotely interesting, and it's not even "school". Hoping that at least bodes well for third year.
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I agree. 1st year was better in the sense that learning physiology and whatnot is at least somewhat conceptual, whereas much of 2nd year is memorizing the plethora of diseases that exist (even though many of them are interesting).
 
Once in a while a good clinical pearl jumps out at you or you'll learn about an interesting disease. When you begin to understand some of the "why's" about pathologies, it can be fun. But due to the sheer volume of information, it ends up being 5% interesting and 95% boring and dry. And nothing is worse than having to invest large portions of your day into learning something totally uninteresting to you. And even the fun parts get tainted by the amount of stress you have to deal with. That said, working with patients can be fun, and finding the right diagnosis makes you feel awesome. But getting to that point tends to be kind of a pain in the butt.
 
Porfirio said:
So what if grades have a strong correlation with Step? Do grades and Step scores have a strong correlation with being a good physician?
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I'm not sure. However they do have a strong correlation with viability of getting into competitive specialties and residency locations (understanding that not everyone wants to go into derm... but not all FM/peds/psych/IM residencies are the same either).
 
I would like to think that I'm spending my 20s and perhaps even some of my 30s learning a skill that is intrinsically valuable. If civilized society were to collapse, I would still have valuable skills if only to care for myself.

Sounds ridiculous and that's way oversimplified, but that's ultimately what it comes down to. That's also why I couldn't do the equivalent of filling out TPS reports for the entirety of my career. I couldn't be satisfied with my life if the purpose of my vocation was to grease the wheels so that The Man could take home some additional cash. I suppose that's what happens with medicine to some extent, but at least I can sleep well knowing that I provided a service that someone will hopefully benefit from.
 
The material is extremely interesting but the speed they feed it to us at makes it unenjoyable and rote memorization. I think med school will eventually become 5 years given how much "new material" we have to learn year after year (compare now versus 20 years ago)
 
I've got to say that I've in the past struggled with similar thoughts. The thing about medicine though, unlike History or Mathematics (my go-to) is that it's not readily-integrated. You can't just read it and either have a scene play out or start to think about the logic. This comes later. You have to build a much sturdier and more elaborate foundation. When I read history, a scene emerges effortlessly. When I do a math problem - even a a hardcore proof - I'm not constantly looking things up, but rather just following logical steps. In medicine, I only get glimpses at the analogous "clinical intuition," in which I hope to bask over the course of my lifetime and both play out scenes as well as problem-solve with less effort.

I've also gotta say, Edinburgh is an extremely historical medical school; perhaps try contextualizing your subjects in the local, highly accessible history...?
 
I'm a science geek who completed a PhD in an esoteric part of biochemistry in a physiology department. So I love science and some of the pesky details. However, medical school is ruining the fun, so I complain a lot about how things are crap, illogical and useless. For example, anatomy is a hated subject by many medical students, however my "like" for it has been subdued and held captive by the illogical and rote-memorization treatment that is needed to pass the respective exams. On the other hand, I enjoy having to use the knowledge to figure out/think through a clinical problem.

Medical school is quite tedious and we all find tedium boring. But even some of the fun things in life have some elements of tedium. Some of my fun/best experiments in graduate school required purification of liters upon liters of cultures of several mutants. I remember working with 21 liters of at least 10 different mutants. It was tedious. After going through the three-day protein purification process, if the experiments failed, you had to go back to the drawing board and repeat. It's life.
 
Does it really need to be like this? I think there could be some changes. A major curriculum overhaul perhaps. The whole "rite of passage" thing really pisses me off, and I think that is one of the reasons why there is so little change in medical education.
 
johnmendes said:
Does it really need to be like this? I think there could be some changes. A major curriculum overhaul perhaps. The whole "rite of passage" thing really pisses me off, and I think that is one of the reasons why there is so little change in medical education.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. There has got to be a more efficient and effective way for learning this material and these skills than the current process.

(sent from my phone)
 
johnmendes said:
Does it really need to be like this? I think there could be some changes. A major curriculum overhaul perhaps. The whole "rite of passage" thing really pisses me off, and I think that is one of the reasons why there is so little change in medical education.
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That and no incentive to change.

I agree things can be much better, but most med schools aren't that interested in having an efficient and effective curriculum.
 
History reads like a story book and you only need to be familiar with proper nouns (names, places). Medicine/science is different. There's no story, no theme, no plot, no folklore. You can't read medicine likethe way you read for history. But once you've mastered reading medicine (and what appears to be a foreign language), it gets easier and easier to read because you're familiar with how the body works and why certain things are relevant (or not) to you.
 
I really don't think a systems based block system using a pass-fail system is that bad...I mean there is obviously a good amount of studying and memorizing useless things but it doesn't "piss" me off.
 
Renaissance Man said:
I really don't think a systems based block system using a pass-fail system is that bad...I mean there is obviously a good amount of studying and memorizing useless things but it doesn't "piss" me off.
Click to expand...

I was ranting a bit, sorry about that.

Sadly my school has neither of those. Guess i just need to handle stress better/deal with it.
 
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