It's been a while since I last blogged and I think it would be appropriate to say that medical school is a balancing act. The work load is ridiculous; we are learning a year worth of anatomy in 3 months and sometimes have class from 8am to 9pm! Even the professors realize and tell us that we cannot learn everything. Their advice? “Don’t work hard, study smart”.
This is not me BUT my room is pretty close to that when I am studying :)
Study smart? How? My anatomy professor says to go out and have fun, enjoy the island, sleep enough and only study 2 hours a night. Now, I KNOW he is exaggerating because the average number of hours I study a night is nowhere near 2 hours (more like 8 hours!). But I think his message is an important one.
Balance.
Medical school is difficult; but so far I would say the concepts are not hard, it is the amount of material we have to learn in a small amount of time. How do you memorize 200 slides in one night so that you are ready for the next day’s lecture? You can’t! I think the key is to understand the concepts behind what we are taught. The body works in a way that is logical and most efficient. Putting together the material taught into their specific relationships will make me remember everything without rote memorization (I am NOT saying that I shouldn’t memorize anything because there are many many things that we need to know that seem insignificant now… - I guess the details will separate those that pass with those that do great.)
I still have to figure out how to “study smart”. I have changed my studying technique numerous times now and I hope it is the right way. We have our first set of exams on Monday and Tuesday and I have to admit I am very nervous. Our passing mark is 75%.
So yes, medical school is not for everyone. You need to be determined to study 24/7, eat on the go and be sleep deprived. You have to persevere and not give up. The hardest part is to not disappoint myself.
Balancing act - that's a good point, however you will find that life beyond medicine will be also a balancing act...it's very intense now though, as the first semester is always the most difficult of all. I trust you and your instincts, so just be yourself and do the "work", everything else will fall into place.
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Is that a 75% passing with or without the curve?
ReplyDeleteAsim, there is no curve. They do correct each test if needed but that is in terms of badly worded/unfair/ double answer questions - this depends on the difficulty of the test and how the class performed. So the pass rate is 75% for all tests and for the cumulative average at the end of each course.
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