Surviving First Year Medical School: Things I wish I knew
I’d like to begin with a disclaimer: I am not the student who “dreamt of being a Dr before I could even talk” (or even all the way through college)… It took me 7 years after I graduated to even consider studying medicine. So, when I started school I, (1) didn’t know anyone -all my friends who wanted to go to medical school were already doctors- (2) didn’t know anything or what to expect (3) I had just moved to another country to study after spending the last 7 years somewhere else. Maybe some of the things you find here are super obvious to you, but I honestly would’ve loved to know them before I started and not catch up little by little as time went by. So, in no particular order, here it is:
1- Medschool is SUPER hard and it’s OK to get scores that are far from perfect. Even if you were top of the class as an undergrad, trust me, if you’re not Acing medical school that DOES NOT BY ANY MEANS equate to you being stupid.
2. Whatever study habits you had as an undergrad are most likely not going to work here. There’s just not enough time to really digest all the information in the way that used to work before
3. USE REVIEW BOOKS I really wish someone would’ve told me that those Board Review Books are not just for boards, they are an excellent source of itemized information that will help you consolidate aspects that are really high yield. It’s not *all* the info you need to know, but they’re a great way to make sure you didn’t miss the important stuff. Books that I absolutely recommend and saved my butt:
- Anatomy lab-> Color Atlas of Anatomy by Rohen & Yokoshi
- Neuroscience-> High Yield Neuroanatomy by Douglas J Gould ; USMLE Roadmap Neuroscience by James S White
- Anatomy, Embryology & Biochemistry-> Lippincott’s Q&A Review There are several books, one for each discipline and they’re great for practice questions
- Physiology-> Medical Physiology by Guyton & Hall (great for practice questions) and what everyone and their momma’s use (because it’s great) Linda S. Constanzo’s Physiology
- Basically every class-> Board Review Series (BRS) great for reviewing, but questions are a bit too simple & First Aid (aka the bible)
4. DO PRACTICE QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU KNOW ALL THE MATERIAL!!!! I can’t stress this enough. Doing those questions even when you won’t know basically any answers will show you how you need to be approaching the material. Especially during anatomy, a least in my case, classes were very descriptive and exam questions took an entirely different approach, and I would’ve known this if I had bothered to do practice questions instead of drowning in a sea of Netter’s cards
5. Study EVERY DAY and don’t trick yourself into thinking that you can “catch up” during the weekend.
5. YOU CAN DO IT, there might be times when you think you made the wrong choice and you’re defnitely not going to make it. I created this blog because I used to be a very positive person, but medschool had the power of making me look at the worst side of everything, especially myself. I finished the first year after a lot of effort and I’m as proud as can be and, while the worst is most likely yet to come, I want to be able to look back and say “well, I didn’t think I was going to get through the first class (I’m talking about you, biochem!) let alone first year and I F*ing made it” and I firmly believe that if you put the effort in, you can make it too.