What Should I Learn Before Med School?

[FrkyBgStok]

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This is NOT a pre-study thread so please don't immediately disregard.

So most of my classes for this final semester are guided independant study. I should be done with them by mid november. That gives me from then until beginning of august without any school work because I graduate after this semester.

I also drive a semi full time. When in class this is great because I record myself talking or my lectures and study all night (I work nights) by listening to them over and over. So I work about 12 hour shifts and have all this time to myself as it is pretty lonely and I can't talk on the phone. I really don't want to fill this time with Pandora radio. Audiobooks are great, but I listen to everything at double speed so I go through a book a night. Too expensive.

So my question is, does anyone have any input on something to learn, or a way to increase my mental stimulation? I was thinking of learning a new language but I don't really want to learn spanish. I am not thinking practical, more fun. I don't want to learn science or try to prestudy anything for medicine. I am half italian so I was thinking of learning italian. I also thought of russian because no one else I know knows it and why the hell not. Or german. Something fun.

I can't really think of anything else which is why I am looking for input. Even with a generous amount of music time, I can realistically devote at least 3-5 hours every night. I drive all night so it HAS to be audible and I literally have nothing else to do. I definitely want to do something as it is a long time.

Any ideas? Hoping for some good input.

 

[6SAnthony]

Spanish might be helpful. Lots of schools are teaching medical spanish, so maybe having a base line knowledge would be helpful.

 

[Law2Doc]

Spanish might be helpful. Lots of schools are teaching medical spanish, so maybe having a base line knowledge would be helpful.

Agreed. Italian is not a useful language to learn for medicine in the US. Almost no patients who speak Italian in the US won't speak English. But Spanish, Russian and a lot of the Asian languages can pay dividends.

 

[hawkbit]

Why don't you do both spanish, and pick a fun language? It'll change things up, and keep that mind sharp! You could listen to some spanish for an hour or two, then pop in some russian!

I would learn japanese personally, because anime is awesome. Naruto!

 

[LUCPM]

+1 for learning Spanish. Actually, this is what I'm planning to do for the remaining months.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

Bummer. Spanish seems.....not that fun. Des moines also has a large Bosnian population. I feel like many of these languages would be forgotten because I likely won't keep it up through med school and I took 3 years of Spanish in high school which I remember none of. So that is why i wast thinking less practically and more fun. But I will look into these.

 

[Chip N Sawbones]

Any language you learn will help you learn any other language. Taking Spanish in college helped me pick up a little German, and both of those helped me with Mandinka*, which is totally unrelated to either of them. You never think about how to learn English, you just learned it as you grew up. Learning how to speak a language will teach you about things like verb conjugation, sentence structure, and language rules and exceptions, which you can then apply to multiple languages.

If Italian and Russian are what you're interested in, I recommend you go ahead and learn them, even if they never help you at all as a doctor. If you want to learn Spanish well enough to use it in medicine, it will take an awful lot of effort, probably too much unless you are planning on spending significant time in a Spanish-speaking country. Spanish and Italian are very similar, so learning either one of them will be a 50% bonus toward learning the other.


*Spoken in parts of Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Alas, all I remember are the greetings and some truly offensive insults.

 

[JackShephard MD]

This is NOT a pre-study thread so please don't immediately disregard.

So most of my classes for this final semester are guided independant study. I should be done with them by mid november. That gives me from then until beginning of august without any school work because I graduate after this semester.

I also drive a semi full time. When in class this is great because I record myself talking or my lectures and study all night (I work nights) by listening to them over and over. So I work about 12 hour shifts and have all this time to myself as it is pretty lonely and I can't talk on the phone. I really don't want to fill this time with Pandora radio. Audiobooks are great, but I listen to everything at double speed so I go through a book a night. Too expensive.

So my question is, does anyone have any input on something to learn, or a way to increase my mental stimulation? I was thinking of learning a new language but I don't really want to learn spanish. I am not thinking practical, more fun. I don't want to learn science or try to prestudy anything for medicine. I am half italian so I was thinking of learning italian. I also thought of russian because no one else I know knows it and why the hell not. Or german. Something fun.

I can't really think of anything else which is why I am looking for input. Even with a generous amount of music time, I can realistically devote at least 3-5 hours every night. I drive all night so it HAS to be audible and I literally have nothing else to do. I definitely want to do something as it is a long time.

Any ideas? Hoping for some good input.

Try history, biographies, good literature, writing, etc.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

Try history, biographies, good literature, writing, etc.

yeah i planned on doing this as well a little. I got a few audio history books and have about 25 classic novels and another 10 modern novels. I have made it threw about 20 of them so far. I suppose learning a language or two and listening to books and biographies will help keep me occupied.

just trying to stay away from too many books because i get through them in 1-2 nights, and at about $10-15/book average, this is a couple hundred dollars a month.

thanks for all the input everyone.

 

[Isoprop]

While I agree that Spanish is very helpful, I wouldn't kill myself to try to learn if before med school. I would definitely put priority on "learning something fun" rather than "learning something useful" if they are exclusive.

If it were me, I'd learn astronomy, but you can't really do that from audio CD.

 

[Isoprop]

I would learn japanese personally, because anime is awesome. Naruto!

Non-trad who likes anime? Brofist

 

[MD Odyssey]

yeah i planned on doing this as well a little. I got a few audio history books and have about 25 classic novels and another 10 modern novels. I have made it threw about 20 of them so far. I suppose learning a language or two and listening to books and biographies will help keep me occupied.

just trying to stay away from too many books because i get through them in 1-2 nights, and at about $10-15/book average, this is a couple hundred dollars a month.

thanks for all the input everyone.

Here is my advice, although since I'm not in medical school, your mileage may vary.

Learn to cook! I've heard countless med students and residents complain about having to get by on hospital food or the drive-thru that gain weight because they don't have time to cook. Learn how to cook and work efficiently in a kitchen - it will pay you huge dividends later. I'll give you some examples.

1. Omelet. An omelet should take, from start to finish, including clean-up time 5 minutes. About the same for scrambled eggs.
2. Learn to make decent sandwiches. I'm not talking Wonder bread and deli meat - things like foccacia sandwiches from sauteed chicken breast with pesto, goat cheese, and roasted red peppers. 20 minutes of work on Sunday afternoon, and you can have lunches ready rest of the week.
3. Learn to prep some vegetables that you can use throughout the week - slice up mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes that you'll use throughout the week.
4. Have a half dozen staple dishes you know how to make quickly that give a high meal:time ratio.

If you haven't spent a lot of time in kitchens and get most of your meals from the drive-thru, you should really take some time to learn how to cook so that you can take your lunches to school / hospital instead of having to depend upon the crap in the cafeteria or the local Chipotle.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

Thanks for the advice MD Odyssey. Unfortunately, I don't go out to eat. I eat a pretty good, balanced diet, mainly because I wanted to get healthy and I wanted my kids to be healthy, so my wife and I got together and changed everything about our eating. I am down about 30lbs because of it and she is down 60 (I am jealous of her, but I love my avocados). But definitely a good idea.

 

[Autarkeia]

When I can't get my hands on The Learning Company materials, I go with iTunes University courses. They're great for mental stimulation for its own sake.

 

[chrissyxf]

My city's library carries audiobooks- check out your local library- free 🙂 and they aren't just novels, they have some learning courses too.

 

[dmf2682]

Thanks for the advice MD Odyssey. Unfortunately, I don't go out to eat. I eat a pretty good, balanced diet, mainly because I wanted to get healthy and I wanted my kids to be healthy, so my wife and I got together and changed everything about our eating. I am down about 30lbs because of it and she is down 60 (I am jealous of her, but I love my avocados). But definitely a good idea.

Good for you man, that's awesome. Congratulations on your acceptance, btw.

 

[ManBroDude]

Sounds like you need to get into podcasts, my friend! I recently was turned on to a podcast called Medpod101, and it's aimed at MS1's and 2's as a cliff's notes of all the major presentations you'll see in FM/IM/EM. It's pretty cool stuff, I've listened to the first 6 free ones (I think there's over a hundred for only twenty bucks). There's some controversy as to them using outrageously stereotypical ethnic/racial voices (as comedic relief), but whatever. Anyway, it's really helped me follow my docs' medical decision-making in the emergency room while I'm scribing. Most are 15-30 minutes long, although they're pretty dense and move along very quickly. I had to repeat the tachycardic arrhythmias one like 5 times to "get" it all.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/medpod101-learn-medicine/id261465941

 

[mafunk]

If you want to learn a language, check out the Michael Thomas Method. It is quite easy, enjoyable and helpful for learning languages. He was the language teacher to the stars before he died and created learning cd programs for many languages.

Other than that why not check out itunes university or itunes podcasts. There are a TON of amazing things to learn from those resources. I don't know what you think is 'fun' so don't have any specific suggestions, other than peruse the offerings and see what sparks your interest.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

Yeah I went to the library and decided I was going to learn German, followed by Russian if I can. I am also going to utilize different podcasts and educational material. Thanks everyone for the input. Lots of good stuff.

 

[wholeheartedly]

After I read your first post I was definitely going to suggest whatever language you think might be fun.

My other suggestion was going to be to check out educational fun lectures through Itunes U or MIT open courseware if you're into that sort of thing. Checking out audiobooks from the library also sounds like a good option.

While long lonely drives suck it's kind of a cool position to be in to have that kind of time to devote to picking up something cool.

 

[gunito]

Brazilian portuguese is a fun language and itll help understand s.panish pretty easily

 

[ShyRem]

I would have voted for Swahili and Arabic.

 

[UpwardTrend]

A trucker? Awesome! Did they ask you about it in interviews? I did a summer OTR with United Van Lines and loved it. I didn't drive but I lived the life of truck stop showers and crappy food. To this day, I still yell out "four wheeler" when my wife is driving and I see a car on the shoulder.