Things I Wish I Knew before starting Medical School

It has been a month since I last blogged. To be honest, blogging has not at all been on my mind up until this past week when my “summer break” finally started (I use that term loosely because I am, like many of you guys, working this summer, but it’s a break from school nonetheless).

The last month of medical school at UofT was the most hectic! May started off with our Brain and Behaviour final exam (passed!), followed by our Clinical Skills final exam (a practical exam known as an OSCE – probably the most fun exam of the year), then our Determinants of Community Health final, and finally, our Pharmacology exam (good thing this exam was only covering the last two weeks of school!). Without a doubt, we had more exams in our final month than any other month during the year – but I guess that made finishing all the more sweet.

Medical school was a brand new educational experience for me. While it is similar in many ways to undergrad, there are of course many huge differences. I definitely had to make adjustments, and when I couldn’t, had to deal with heavy lessons (that hopefully I better take into account during my 2nd year of medical school). The following are a few things I wish I could’ve told myself before starting the year.

Pace Your Studying

This might sound obvious to those of you who already do this, but there are a lot of medical students who got through undergrad learning everything they needed for an exam the night or two before. I still procrastinated a lot this year, but as everyone knows, procrastination makes things really difficult (stress, exhaustion, etc.). If I could do things over again (and if I could muster up the motivation), I would spend one or two days a week reviewing everything covered that week. That doesn’t even mean necessarily studying hard; at the very least it means familiarizing myself with the material so that when I do need to study for the exam, I will have the key concepts already ingrained in my memory. Of course, there are students who study/review everyday or every other day. Do what works for you so that you aren’t cramming so much at the end.

Practice Clinical Skills Regularly

Our final OSCE required us to know all the practical clinical skills we learned throughout the past year (history taking, physical exams, etc.). The week leading up to the OSCE, many of us put in a lot of heavy review and practice. When I look back at it now, clinical skills was relatively easy – if you put in the practice. Many of us didn’t practice regularly, which led to a lot of practice in the week(s) leading up to the OSCE. But once you have the stuff done pat, it’s basically muscle memory. I wish I practiced more regularly so that my clinical sessions during the year would have gone more smoothly, and then I could have just walked into the OSCE with little practice required. Moreover, you will be using these clinical skills all throughout clerkship, residency, and for some physicians, the rest of their lives. It’s arguable that if there is one thing you should make sure you know inside and out from 1st year of medical school, it’s the clinical skills stuff.

Ignore the Rush and Take Your Time

It’s easy to get caught up on the rush of choosing your residency. Although you don’t apply for residency programs until your 4th year of medical school, it helps to begin exploring early. However, given the competitive nature of the process (with some programs being significantly more competitive than others), it’s easy to get caught up in the rush of trying to position yourself to have a strong application. Research, networking, extra-curriculars – it’s easy to feel pressured and scared to fall behind when you see some of your classmates getting involved and building their C.V.’s to a specific specialty from day 1.

That being said, I think it’s more important to realize that the choice you make for residency is huge – where you end up significantly determines much of your medical career. You might feel pressured to decide very early on and start working towards something specific without fully exploring your options. It doesn’t help that a lot of opportunities become available early on in the school year. It is so easy to, for example, apply for a research position early on in the year and then realize months later that you would never want to work in that field ever (and then wish you had waited to apply for a completely different research position, or spend your summer doing something completely unrelated to research entirely). I myself felt like I changed my mind constantly throughout the school year in terms of where I saw myself being in medicine.

So take your time, explore, and don’t get swept up in the rush.

Learn How You Learn Best

Feel free to take initiative in your learning. Some people learn best by coming to class. Some people never come to class and just watch the recorded lectures later online. Beyond mandatory things, don’t feel obligated to do things a specific way. You know what works for you!

Take Advantage of Everything Being a Medical Student has to Offer

A friend of mine recently shared the following quote with me: “school really begins at 3pm” (or the case of UofT med school, 5pm, haha), basically referencing how much of our education comes through additional opportunities outside the classroom. Medical students have relatively easy access to the medical world in terms of shadowing, electives, research, etc. Often times it’s as simple as just asking.

Summer Plans

I’m really enjoying my summer break so far. I’m doing a research project at a hospital right now full time, but it’s not stressful which is great for me. Spending my time seeing lots of friends and pursuing side projects.

In an attempt to make myself more productive this summer, I set up a personal planning document listing my goals for the summer, and coming up with the necessary action plans to achieve them. I’m going as far as setting end of month goals, and then coming up with an action plan each week for what I need to achieve those goals. Having this plan has made me a lot more organized, and thus, more likely to get things done because I always know what needs to be checked off on my list.

Unfortunately, my goals might be a bit too ambitious. My goal last week for this blog was to write 3 times. Fail. Oh well, here’s to a more productive week!