What's something you wish you knew/did as an incoming OSM1?

[Hippocrates II]

Things must have really changed the last few years.

Do you think they do a good job of avoiding the minutiae? The upperclassman assigned to me was telling me that he thought kcu piled on too much irrelevant info, but I suppose it's difficult to know what's worth learning and not learning as an m1.

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[chizledfrmstone]

Do you think they do a good job of avoiding the minutiae? The upperclassman assigned to me was telling me that he thought kcu piled on too much irrelevant info, but I suppose it's difficult to know what's worth learning and not learning as an m1.

I read medium Robbins instead of big Robbins so that’s probably why I remember it differently than other people. I wasn’t as stressed out as everyone since we had a massive group (~20 people) working on the notes too. Maybe there was more stuff than we really needed but if you passed the courses comfortably you could pass boards without dedicated time.

 

[brotherbanjo]

Biggest thing for me was to stay focused on what I need to do and not getting stressed out by the rest. The vast majority of everyone will have an opinion on what you should be doing with your time, and the hardest thing for me was to stay focused on what I knew I needed to do and letting myself let go of the rest. No one makes it to med school by chance, and I think we’re all good learners at this point. We’ll figure it out. A lot of the stress of med school is unnecessary imo and just comes from comparing ourselves to each other.


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[shur711]

Thank you all for the great advice! I'll be sure to implement a lot of this as I start my first year.

Follow up question: In undergrad people put a lot of stress on extracurricular activities to boost up your resume (volunteering, shadowing, club activities, research, etc.). Now that we're in med school, does stuff like that still matter? Like should I be actively trying to get involved in stuff like research and different organizations, volunteering, etc., or should I just focus on my studies and try to get the highest board scores possible? How much weight does everything else have at this stage?

 

[brotherbanjo]

Thank you all for the great advice! I'll be sure to implement a lot of this as I start my first year.

Follow up question: In undergrad people put a lot of stress on extracurricular activities to boost up your resume (volunteering, shadowing, club activities, research, etc.). Now that we're in med school, does stuff like that still matter? Like should I be actively trying to get involved in stuff like research and different organizations, volunteering, etc., or should I just focus on my studies and try to get the highest board scores possible? How much weight does everything else have at this stage?

General advice I got was grades first, and if you can do other stuff, then go for it. If not, don’t stress about it. Some people will just volunteer a few times during the year. You can always join a club and run for a leadership position and then worst case you can always drop it and do a re-election for a replacement if you realize you need more school time. A few people did that in our class did that

You can look at reports from residency directors for different specialities to see how they rank the importance of different factors for applicant consideration


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[TheaterOfTheme]

Lol no I hate our curriculum. But as I do practice questions and get more and more into board material it’s obvious that even the rando minutia I thought was pointless actually has merit. However I learn directly from textbooks and other sources, I don’t use class material at all.

I really like that approach--I for one dislike powerpoint learning. I recently took up reading robbins after pathoma and really like it. However, how do you ensure you get class specific info? We just have too many classes with random a** info that would never show up anywhere else. Like random nutrition and preventative medicine stuff to just weird (poor) ways of presenting material.

 

[MedicineN'Jazz]

Yeah I got that too at interviews when I was doing that. It’s a complete lie. Study groups are a huge waste of time.

God, finally someone who gets me!

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

However, how do you ensure you get class specific info?

Sometimes if I’m really worried the prof went off the rails with material I’ll cram their PPs the weekend before the test.

 

[sas95]

Does anyone know where I can download the latest Zanki?

 

[MedicineN'Jazz]

Does anyone know where I can download the latest Zanki?

Reddit! I don’t have the link on me but you can find it using Google —> Reddit (add on)

 

[Goro]

OP, I hope that you have noticed that there are quite a number of different views of what resources are useful. To that end, you need to find what works for you.

Also keep in mind that what worked n UG probably will not work in med school, due to the sheer volume of material.

Read this:

• Goro's Guide to Success in Medical School (2017 edition)

Dude, maybe you are lucky and a have a good curriculum. At our school, we are CLEARLY and FREQUENTLY being taught material that will NEVER show up on boards. It has actually progressively worsened with each class we've taken. The last course of our 1st year had so many nonsense classes in it. Probably 10 hrs of lecture that was complete add-on nonsense. We also have a few PhDs who love to go super in depth on anatomy and cel bio material that is so far from relevant. In general, I agree though. I hate it when people say things like "Low Yield" or "High Yield" in regards to material. If there is yield to be gained from material, it is indeed always "High Yield" in my opinion.

Gawd, whenever I hear my students say this, my superior rectus muscles go into spasm from my rolling my eyeballs. We once had OMSIs (Is!!!) complaining that a particular subject in OMSII was going to have ~ 6 hrs of coverage, and that wasn't going tobe on COMLEX. "Do we really need 6 rs on X???!! Every clinician said "yeah, you do." In addition, I wrote questions on that material for NBOME.

To add to the study group comment. Your school will likely have presentations on how to study/be efficient in med school. Take these with a grain of salt bc these people doctorates in education and have never been to med school.

For some people group study is a waste of time, probably because it's too distracting or people can't focus. But I have noticed for a long time that my weakest students tend to study by themselves (or with other weak students). When they switch to a group with strong students, their grades tend to improve.

I'm not an education PhD, but with but we do tend to pick up on what weak students do, and what good students do. One doesn't have to be a chicken to comment on the quality of eggs.

If any professor is teaching about their research instead of the material, burn them at the stake. Ditto those who always say "it's in the book" when you ask them for specifics on what to study. Pin them down figuratively, and if they still aren't helpful, then literally.

 

[Ho0v-man]

OP, I hope that you have noticed that there are quite a number of different views of what resources are useful. To that end, you need to find what works for you.

Also keep in mind that what worked n UG probably will not work in med school, due to the sheer volume of material.

Read this:

• Goro's Guide to Success in Medical School (2017 edition)

Gawd, whenever I hear my students say this, my superior rectus muscles go into spasm from my rolling my eyeballs. We once had OMSIs (Is!!!) complaining that a particular subject in OMSII was going to have ~ 6 hrs of coverage, and that wasn't going tobe on COMLEX. "Do we really need 6 rs on X???!! Every clinician said "yeah, you do." In addition, I wrote questions on that material for NBOME.


For some people group study is a waste of time, probably because it's too distracting or people can't focus. But I have noticed for a long time that my weakest students tend to study by themselves (or with other weak students). When they switch to a group with strong students, their grades tend to improve.

I'm not an education PhD, but with but we do tend to pick up on what weak students do, and what good students do. One doesn't have to be a chicken to comment on the quality of eggs.

If any professor is teaching about their research instead of the material, burn them at the stake. Ditto those who always say "it's in the book" when you ask them for specifics on what to study. Pin them down figuratively, and if they still aren't helpful, then literally.

And some of them do have useful information, and others do not. It’s 50/50. To turn your analogy around; one doesn’t need a PhD in anatomy necessarily to convey the information. But I’d certainly prefer to receive an education from someone who went through the highest level of rigor in anatomy to guide my learning. Likewise, I’d prefer a med student/physician to tell me how to learn in med school over someone who probably obtained their degree online.

 

[Goro]

And some of them do have useful information, and others do not. It’s 50/50. To turn your analogy around; one doesn’t need a PhD in anatomy necessarily to convey the information. But I’d certainly prefer to receive an education from someone who went through the highest level of rigor in anatomy to guide my learning. Likewise, I’d prefer a med student/physician to tell me how to learn in med school over someone who probably obtained their degree online.

The one caveat is that the advice you get from a single med student or doctor may be 100% off the mark for you. For example, some people like to going to lecture. But if lecture is a waste of time for you, that advice will be useless. As you can see from this thread alone, some people swear by flash cards, and others hate them.

The key thing will be to distill advice to see which ones work best for you. But there is not single correct way to study for med school.

You'll never get a faculty member who got their training online.

 

[Ho0v-man]

The one caveat is that the advice you get from a single med student or doctor may be 100% off the mark for you. For example, some people like to going to lecture. But if lecture is a waste of time for you, that advice will be useless. As you can see from this thread alone, some people swear by flash cards, and others hate them.

The key thing will be to distill advice to see which ones work best for you. But there is not single correct way to study for med school.

You'll never get a faculty member who got their training online.

With regards to the last bit, I was referring to the doctorates of education.

 

[Goro]

With regards to the last bit, I was referring to the doctorates of education.