What was your hardest year of med school?

[nope80]

I've heard so many mixed things and wonder what the majority think is the hardest year of med school?

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[Bartelby]

Go first year, go! (A guy can dream, right?)

 

[WellWornLad]

Might be a better poll for the residents' section. Those who have lived through all the years have probably moved on.

 

[eighty-twenty]

Nothing was as hard as internship.

 

[45408]

Nothing was as hard as internship.

...and every year of med school was harder than college.


I voted M2. It all depends on what you consider hard. I would just hate hate to repeat that year.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Overall, 1st year was the most difficult and the most miserable. But my absolute nadir in the whole process was around the first week of February in 2nd year...still 6 weeks away from spring break, it's cold/dark, been dealing with all the BS for over 18 months. You know that you're well along through the classroom work, but you've got Step 1 prep staring you right in the face when the official classwork is done...talk about depressing.

 

[Tiger26]

Second year sucked--big time

 

[mTOR]

So far I'm REALLY getting rocked by 2nd year.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

For me, third year. I worked damn hard second year but it was on my own time and schedule. Third year, which I still enjoyed, means giving up control of your schedule and life to a great degree and by the end it was driving me batty.

 

[Blesbok]

2 year by far.

At least 3rd year you get to learn by application and between shelves there is a few weeks of downtime before ramping up the studying again.

 

[tacrum43]

I voted for 2nd year, but then I haven't had surgery yet during 3rd year...

I thought 2nd year was the most academically demanding and going into 3rd year with very little vacation after studying and taking Step 1 sucked. However, I did like that your schedule was much more your own during 1st and 2nd years. On the more difficult rotations 3rd year where you're on Q4 call, it feels like you basically live in the hospital.

 

[Ashers]

M3.

I was miserable most days (except on 2 rotations), yet I still had to be enthusiastic and put on the show of "Oh yes, even though I'm probably going to go into some other non-related specialty and I'm working my butt off on this rotation, I don't mind you making fun of my choice every day," or "I love running your patient notes all over the hospital while you eat a donut."

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind joking or doing some scut, but I had some absolutely miserable times last year that I never want to repeat, and I wouldn't wish them on anyone. There were also some decent times when other specialties tailored parts of their rotation to make it more interesting for me, or so I could see how integrate things between fields, and I appreciated that.

 

[RySerr21]

M3.

I was miserable most days (except on 2 rotations), yet I still had to be enthusiastic and put on the show of "Oh yes, even though I'm probably going to go into some other non-related specialty and I'm working my butt off on this rotation, I don't mind you making fun of my choice every day," or "I love running your patient notes all over the hospital while you eat a donut."

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind joking or doing some scut, but I had some absolutely miserable times last year that I never want to repeat, and I wouldn't wish them on anyone. There were also some decent times when other specialties tailored parts of their rotation to make it more interesting for me, or so I could see how integrate things between fields, and I appreciated that.

that made me chuckle.

 

[deleted77919]

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[78222]

M2 year by far (and I am 3/4 through with 3rd year so I think I can safely say it's not M3).

M1 was hard for the first few months and hard because I hated a lot of the material because it had nothing at all to do with clinical medicine. After a few months though it was pretty "easy"

M3 has been a pretty good year for me. With a few exceptions I have enjoyed all my rotations and although the hours can be pretty rough, I've felt good about what I've done at the end of the day.

 

[78222]

M3.

I was miserable most days (except on 2 rotations), yet I still had to be enthusiastic and put on the show of "Oh yes, even though I'm probably going to go into some other non-related specialty and I'm working my butt off on this rotation, I don't mind you making fun of my choice every day," or "I love running your patient notes all over the hospital while you eat a donut."

Maybe I've been less miserable third year because I've never tried to pretend I was interested in a field when I wasn't. My neurology resident: "Interested in Neurology at all?" Me: "hah, no, god no".

 

[meister]

Maybe I've been less miserable third year because I've never tried to pretend I was interested in a field when I wasn't. My neurology resident: "Interested in Neurology at all?" Me: "hah, no, god no".

I think I'll take this approach. People can usually see right through me anyway.

I'm not going to vote in this thread until I'm an intern in 3.5 years.

 

[Long Dong]

3rd year doing rotations like ob/gyn having no sleep and nasty fluids all over the place.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

For me, third year. I worked damn hard second year but it was on my own time and schedule. Third year, which I still enjoyed, means giving up control of your schedule and life to a great degree and by the end it was driving me batty.

 

[Ashers]

Maybe I've been less miserable third year because I've never tried to pretend I was interested in a field when I wasn't. My neurology resident: "Interested in Neurology at all?" Me: "hah, no, god no".

I didn't pretend to be interested when I wasn't, starting in my first rotation, I said I wanted to do ortho. I just have an issue where I'm unable to slack off at work, so I work my butt off and try to not look as miserable as I felt (that took lots of energy on some rotations), and some people thought I wasn't working as hard as I could (my enthusiasm wained after 4 weeks of OB/gyn with 2 left). I also generally liked the patients on most rotations (not psych or OB/gyn), so I thought it'd be bad to come in miserable every day.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Most people concur that it's either M2 or M3. M2 because these studying is much more intense (and important) than M1 and because of the boards. M3 because of the clinical rotations with long hours, subjective evaluations, and intangibles Probably people who are more book-oriented would hate M3 more and people who are more hands-on would hate M2 more.

 

[Blesbok]

Most people concur that it's either M2 or M3. M2 because these studying is much more intense (and important) than M1 and because of the boards. M3 because of the clinical rotations with long hours, subjective evaluations, and intangibles Probably people who are more book-oriented would hate M3 more and people who are more hands-on would hate M2 more.

Subjective evaluations are the worst part of 3rd year imo. You can work as hard as someone else and get a worse grade just because you got unlucky and got the ****ty resident.

 

[Jwax]

Most people concur that it's either M2 or M3. M2 because these studying is much more intense (and important) than M1 and because of the boards. M3 because of the clinical rotations with long hours, subjective evaluations, and intangibles Probably people who are more book-oriented would hate M3 more and people who are more hands-on would hate M2 more.

I felt M1 was so much more emotionally challenging than M2 has been. Yes, I feel like the workload has increased significantly, but I am at least interested in maybe half the stuff we are learning this year as opposed to the maybe 10% that was interesting last year. Like many places, we have test blocks every 5 or 6 weeks, so usually I have 2 or 3 weeks of calm followed by 2 or3 weeks of doing just about nothing besides studying. This was a huge adjustment from the 2 or 3 days (or more realistically, one night) that I spent studying in UG. I was also much more afraid of failure 1st year and have had to adjust to not being a perfect student. This took until the end of first year. The day after our last exam first year, I felt so light-hearted and emotionally free that I really realized how much stress I had been carrying around at all times during 1st year and I decided then that I wasn't going to do that this year. It's worked - no nervous wrecks or emotional breakdowns for me this year.

Of course, I haven't started studying for boards yet.

 

[Sean2tall]

I said third. To me there's no real comparison. I guess if you really hate studying, then you could say first or second. First because it's an adjustment or second because the nature of the material changes. Third was the only year that was grueling at times, then fourth of course was a piece of cake. But I pretty much studied from home for 1st and 2nd and then did whatever else I wanted. If you attend all classes and then try to study afterward, that could make it more tedious, but I look back somewhat fondly on the first two years of just hanging out with my friends and reading stuff.

 

[themudphud]

Easily second year. Not so much hard as it was high volume. Beforehand they told us our vocabulary would increase by ~10,000 words during that year. Pretty crazy.