What surprised you the most about med school?

[Dr Who]

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Now that you are a med student, what surprised you the most about med school? We all knew that med school is hard and tedious but were there other things about the medical student "culture" that took you by surprise? The school, other students or the faculty?
I am interested in negative and positive aspects of your experiences.

 

[MSHell]

It is way too much like high school - people wise. The only thing that keeps me sane is avoiding most of my classmates.

That and the fact that I have found the "binge and purge" method of studying (more like memorizing) and am doing much better academically.

We'll see how long this will last.

 

[8744]

That it was not as hard as I imagined it was going to be.

 

[sacrament]

That it was not as hard as I imagined it was going to be.

Me too. I remember being incredibly freaked out and nervous before school started, despite having endured some pretty rigorous educational trials previously. 'Twas all for naught, for medical school is sort of a pain in the ass but never really "grueling." (Other than, so far, the surgery clerkship.)

 

[Lactic Folly]

Four months in, not much.. perhaps the large number of med school extracurricular activities here. Also, it takes more work to set up shadowing as a med student than I anticipated.

 

[Energon]

It is way too much like high school - people wise. The only thing that keeps me sane is avoiding most of my classmates.

👍 👍 So true So true.

 

[thackl]

That it was not as hard as I imagined it was going to be.

Agreed. It's a huge pain in the ass, but just not as bad as I thought it would be.

 

[mikedc813]

I agree that it is like high school. It's amazing how similar the social scene is. It's much more fragmented in terms of how people hang out than I remember college ever being.

The hardest academic adjustment was getting used to how much studying there is to do. I probably study 5 times more than I did in college per week, something like that. It simply is a heck of a lot of work. I didn't really think it would be that much when people told me before I got to med school. I really struggled to adjust.

 

[12R34Y]

Way easier than I imagined. I mean really......don't go to lecture (EVER, unless required) thus giving you almost every single day off except for labs. Studying during those times you would be in lecture...........Wala! done around noon each day and home with the family. weekends off etc.....

that is the first two years in a nutshell for me. loved it.

Now third year is a different beast. Your time isn't your own as much, but still nothing as bad as I thought.

later

 

[shocker]

1. Not as hard

2. Procrastination still works, somewhat. Now, instead of two days before test (undergrad) it takes 1.5-2 weeks. So I get 2-2.5 weeks of relaxing.

 

[Smile'n'Wink MD]

I don't know where the rest of these guys go where they say it's not as hard as they thought it would be! Are you guys kidding me?!! It is HARD! More than I could have imagined. It's more that the stress is overwhelming for me personally.

What surprised me was how well I got along with my class and what a great bunch of people they are. We are really diverse and always hanging out with one another.

Despite all the crappy days I wished I was rather an absent-minded cashier at McDonald's instead of a med student, once you pass, med school ain't that bad...

 

[automaton]

i'm surprised how uninteresting it is. i'm only a second year though.
i'm often pleasantly surprised by the goodness of my classmates.
but i'm also surprised at the lack of ethics of some of them. (i no longer believe in the adcom omniscience myth)
i'm surprised i've been able to do pretty decently without significantly altering my abysmal study habits.
i'm surprised how much i've adapted to coping with endless bullsh*t.

 

[MD Dreams]

Med school was/is tough for me, but that's perhaps because I wasn't the best student in the past. I think if I had better prepared in college, it wouldn't be so bad. I'm actually looking forward to the clinical years, the basic science years were terrible.

I'm a little dissappointed at how little cohesiveness there is between the student body. I made many life long friends in college, but in med school, asides from a few all others are strangers to me. Kind of sad, especially at such a challenging time in our lives.

 

[8744]

I don't know where the rest of these guys go where they say it's not as hard as they thought it would be! Are you guys kidding me?!! It is HARD! More than I could have imagined. It's more that the stress is overwhelming for me personally.

What surprised me was how well I got along with my class and what a great bunch of people they are. We are really diverse and always hanging out with one another.

Despite all the crappy days I wished I was rather an absent-minded cashier at McDonald's instead of a med student, once you pass, med school ain't that bad...

Sure, it's difficult sometimes but it is a lot easier than picking avacados in the hot sun ten hours a day, six days a week. And it is stressful but I can think of any number of jobs which are a whole lot more stressful. Hell, as some of you know I was a Marine Infantryman, a job which is both physically demanding and extremely stressful. It's not as intellectually challenging as medical school, naturally, but you don't have to hump a 120 pound combat load up and down mountains in medical school. All you have to do is sit in air-conditioned splendor studying with more vacation time than you will get for the rest of your life.

I think if some of our young friends who are matriculating this year approach medical school as a regular job in the professional world they will be a lot less stressed out.

As someone observed, you don't even have to show up (hardly) for first and second year. Make a schedule. Budget your time. Discipline yourself to spend only ten hours a day between lecture and study and you will be amazed at how pleasantly the time will pass.

Sleep. Exercise. Drink. Chase girls. You will have time for all these things with a little self-discipline and if you learn to study efficiently. (Efficient studying is a whole 'nother thread but involves things like avoiding study groups, using review books, turning off SDN, avoiding highlighting or any superfluous note-taking, etc.)

 

[waterski232002]

I was a drunk frat guy in college, and literally studies about 1-2 days a week on average, and NEVER on a weekend. Also never went to class (shich really didn't change in med school either. I probably did a total of 5-10 hrs/wk of actual work in college....

As for my med school experience... I've gotta say, it's not a joke like undergrad. I actually had to study like a madman 10-12 hrs a day, everyday (usually 6 or 7 days a week) during the first 2 years... this really put a beating on me. But then I crushed the boards, and all is well.

What suprised me that most was how easy medicine becomes after you put up with all the BS in the first 2 years. As a 4th year now, med school is such a joke. I mean, by the time you get done, you've studied every major disease at LEAST 4 times (2nd yr, step I, 3rd yr rotations, step II). I remember how hard I thought managing a patient was going to be... hahaha

 

[sacrament]

but i'm also surprised at the lack of ethics of some of them. (i no longer believe in the adcom omniscience myth)

I love that myth. "Dude, you so have to be yourself during the interview, because interviewers are like HUMAN BULLSH1T DETECTORS, and you will get the smackdown! They will see right through you like you're a piece of Saran Wrap!" wtf, are you kidding, your interviewer is some bored endocrinologist who has a million things he'd rather be doing, and a high school production of "Our Town" could probably suspend his disbelief.

 

[sacrament]

Sure, it's difficult sometimes but it is a lot easier than picking avacados in the hot sun ten hours a day, six days a week. And it is stressful but I can think of any number of jobs which are a whole lot more stressful. Hell, as some of you know I was a Marine Infantryman, a job which is both physically demanding and extremely stressful. It's not as intellectually challenging as medical school, naturally, but you don't have to hump a 120 pound combat load up and down mountains in medical school. All you have to do is sit in air-conditioned splendor studying with more vacation time than you will get for the rest of your life.

So true. When people complain about med school being hard, I don't know what they're talking about. It's a lot of studying. That's not "hard." It might be boring, frustrating, aggravating, mind-numbing, and soul-killing to sit in one place and do nothing but study for hours on end, but it isn't hard. It just sucks. I'd much rather do that than be working on the highway like I once did.

 

[flash]

The high school like scene is interesting to me. I've heard it from a bunch of people. What factors contribute to this in your opinions? Why is it like this is what I'm trying to understand.

EDIT: did a search on "high school" and "clique" and found a big thread. Thanks anyway.

Crossing my fingers about U Miami next year...err, later this year.

 

[azzarah]

(+): The faculty at my school, the amazing learning opportunities, and the diversity of my classmates
(-): The gunners, pathology exams, Baltimore

 

[MSHell]

About the high school clique thing, I think it's the fact that people have worked so hard to get where they are and now they think they've earned the right to be exclusionists, to randomly bash people and to complain about the system and every g*ddamn thing under the sun because they will have the coveted MD after their name, if I don't beat them to death first!

I agree the work is not "hard", there is just so much of it!

 

[irlandesa]

(+) Boston, big variety of clinical sites, the experience of working with BWH residents at Faulkner, power of the Tufts name come residency app time (not like Harvard, but it sure can't have been my credentials alone that helped me)

(-) The majority of the administration at Tufts and the "career advice" they offer (and a few of them are about as approachable and supportive as rabid pit bulls), horrified by the misogyny and anti-Catholic sentiments (and false information) espoused by the Ob/Gyn course director at NEMC, ridiculous tuition, and a few arrogant classmates that insist on making everyone else's live miserable.

 

[Elysium]

Of course med school isn't like working in a friggin' coal mine or some damn thing but it isn't Club Med either. I worked in the "real" world (full time, sometimes 16 hour days on film sets - where my job was to stand around in 16 degree weather and shout out "rolling" every time we started shooting to a bunch of bored grips) and it was a cake walk compared to the hellishness of exam blocks. Plus, you have to add in that it's all such a goddamned bore and you'd rather be doing anything else than memorizing the cranial nerves or some other crap like that. I know that former engineers (like a certain someone I know 😉 ) usually find med school fairly easily compared to their engineering programs, but for people who watched movies and wrote papers about Christ Symbolism in John Ford films, it's a major wakeup call.

For me, especially being in a small class, there's a tremendous amount of gossip and cliques.

It's kinda a pain in the ass sometimes.

 

[8744]

Of course med school isn't like working in a friggin' coal mine or some damn thing but it isn't Club Med either. I worked in the "real" world (full time, sometimes 16 hour days on film sets - where my job was to stand around in 16 degree weather and shout out "rolling" every time we started shooting to a bunch of bored grips) and it was a cake walk compared to the hellishness of exam blocks. Plus, you have to add in that it's all such a goddamned bore and you'd rather be doing anything else than memorizing the cranial nerves or some other crap like that. I know that former engineers (like a certain someone I know 😉 ) usually find med school fairly easily compared to their engineering programs, but for people who watched movies and wrote papers about Christ Symbolism in John Ford films, it's a major wakeup call.

For me, especially being in a small class, there's a tremendous amount of gossip and cliques.

It's kinda a pain in the ass sometimes.

Har. Har. Maybe I think it's easy because I am a fourth year, in the middle of seven weeks of vacation, living off the fat o' the land and eating the cheeses and hams.

The other thing is that I have always had to study to get decent grades as an undergraduate. Many of my classmates apparently breezed through their undergraduate curriculum effortlessly and, as you note, are shocked by the necessity to study hard in medical school to barely pass.

Also, many of my classmates slacked off during the first month of medical school only being shocked into action by their low score on the first test and remainined in a quasi-panic state for the rest of the year. I started first year spooked and studied the first day of first year as if my very life depended on it.

I was pretty thrilled to get a "B" every now and then on a test during first and second year. I have heard tell of medical students comitting suicide because they missed the "A" by one point.

 

[surrender903]

cant stand the cliques, gossip is nice to hear but not to be spread from me, meaning i like to hear it but not spread it.

i expected hard work from day 1 and it is what it is. they dont call us doctors for nothing.

 

[lata]

med school cliques surprised me... didn't expect the small minds.... but then again i pretty much kept away from these people after the first two semesters!
-- took me that long to realize that some of the students are still in junior high mode!!
enjoyed some of the profs and the few friends i met!

 

[thackl]

med school cliques surprised me... didn't expect the small minds.... but then again i pretty much kept away from these people after the first two semesters!
-- took me that long to realize that some of the students are still in junior high mode!!
enjoyed some of the profs and the few friends i met!

They weren't popular then, so they are going through it now.

 

[8744]

cant stand the cliques, gossip is nice to hear but not to be spread from me, meaning i like to hear it but not spread it.

i expected hard work from day 1 and it is what it is. they dont call us doctors for nothing.

You know, I like almost everybody in my class and they are some of the finest people I have ever met but because I have a wife and kids as well as being 41 I never socialize with my classmates. I have been to exactly one class social function in four years.

I mention this because if you don't like the cliqueish nature of your class you can always eschew hanging out with them.

 

[lotanna]

like everyone, not just the clique but how folks can act like so junior high for real. But I learned early, i just do my stuff, hang with those I want to, and those that I dont want to see, I just avoid. That solved the problem, u end up seeing ur classmates 24/7 that anything extra can really get to u. I really enjoyed my break needless to say.

 

[Singh]

What surprised me most during med school was seeing how fast one forgets the curriculum learnt! When I studied anatomy, I was sure that I would never forget it again because I knew so many details in my sleep. A few months after my anatomy exam, I realised how much I had forgotten. 😡

What also surprised me was to see how my discipline fell during med school. To start with I was very determined to become the best doctor in the world, but as times pass, I become less and less determined. Right now I am happy being a middle-class physician in the future.

I found med school quite tough, but not in the same way as I struggled with chemistry, psychology and maths in high-school. Med school requires the student to memorise an awful lot - that's the hard part.

 

[dancinjenn]

That med school sucks. I am not having an EASY time, I don't like having to struggle to remain mediocre.

 

[novacek88]

The lie that medical school is only memorization. Unlike college, quesitons will not be asked in a straightforward manner. So you must own a genuine understanding of the concepts IN ADDITION to memorizing everything. To some people, understanding the material is intuitive but these are the geniuses. For every other normal student, don't listen to those who say you only need to memorize everything because that's b.s. Make you have a crystal clear picture of everything you read otherwise you will be toast on exam time. Anatomy in particular requires a good conceptual understanding because clincally related questions require an understanding of anatomy.

 

[skypilot]

Of course med school isn't like working in a friggin' coal mine or some damn thing but it isn't Club Med either. I worked in the "real" world (full time, sometimes 16 hour days on film sets - where my job was to stand around in 16 degree weather and shout out "rolling" every time we started shooting to a bunch of bored grips) and it was a cake walk compared to the hellishness of exam blocks. Plus, you have to add in that it's all such a goddamned bore and you'd rather be doing anything else than memorizing the cranial nerves or some other crap like that. I know that former engineers (like a certain someone I know 😉 ) usually find med school fairly easily compared to their engineering programs, but for people who watched movies and wrote papers about Christ Symbolism in John Ford films, it's a major wakeup call.

For me, especially being in a small class, there's a tremendous amount of gossip and cliques.

It's kinda a pain in the ass sometimes.

Brainstem sections are even worse than Cranial Nerves. 🙂

 

[thackl]

Brainstem sections are even worse than Cranial Nerves. 🙂

Nice 😡 I start them on Monday. Thanks for ruining my weekend 👎

 

[gioia]

The high school like scene is interesting to me. I've heard it from a bunch of people. What factors contribute to this in your opinions? Why is it like this is what I'm trying to understand.

This is what matters: Did you like High school?

 

[PowderHound]

You really do need to know EVERYTHING. They will find a way to test you on most of the details you would have thought were just "accesssory information" in undergrad

 

[prettypea]

I was told, before entering:

a) It would take a long time.
b) It was so hard, you'd be lucky to still be standing once you were done.

Now, after a year I can only say that I had no idea it would be this much fun! Everything is so interesting, too, I just wish there was enough TIME to read and understand it all. Some people are *****s, granted, but there are a few good apples in the bunch, too. Also, like the others posted, not as hard as one thought it would be. The biggest change is that my time management skills are always under constant scrutiny. I never thought I would be this organized.