How to Survive Medical School: Making It Through Academic Hell

So you want to learn how to survive medical school?

If so, you are wise to prepare for one of the most rigorous academic training known to man. Every year, someone drops out, another fails out, and yet another is left back. This will be the reality for pretty much all medical school classes. The question is: how do you prevent yourself from being among the casualties?

At the time of me writing this, I am a second year medical student in UMDNJ in Stratford, NJ. Although I love my school very much, it is academic hell. But if you gave me a choice of any medical school to attend, I would still make the same choice.

Throughout my one and a half year in medical school, I have only one academic goal. It is not just surviving medical school, but to do above average. For most of my classes, I have achieved my goal.

And I want to show you how. I do not only want to show you how you can survive medical school, I want to show you how you too can do above average.

Now some of you may be thinking just because I did above average, does not mean you can do it too.

• Maybe you think I am a genius. I am not.
• Maybe you think I have a fantastic memory. I do not.
• Maybe you think I am smart. I am no smarter than the average applicant. One of my professors always claims to have average intelligence. If that is the case, my intelligence is less than average. I strongly believe that since you are at average intelligence or higher, my how to survive medical school guide would work for you.

What to Expect in Medical School?

The number one reason why students do poorly or even fail out is because of overconfidence. They think that medical school will be like college. I was not a pre-med major so maybe this does not apply to pre-med students, but I know that lots of my classmates in business class certainly did not study all the time. The smart ones, especially, spent a minimal amount of time doing homework and studying.

But when you are in medical school, unless you have a photographic memory or had previous exposure to the materials as a nurse or whatnot, you will be spending a TON of time studying. There will be times when you can go out and have fun, but it will be sparse compared to the college party days.

The course load in college is light compared to medical school. Preparing for exams in college does not compare to preparing for exams in medical school. For example, some people may consider organic chemistry to be one of the harder pre-medical classes. And I admit, I had to spend a bit more time on that class too. Each week, I would spend 9 hours on organic chemistry:

• 3 hours of class
• 3 hours of lab
• 2 hours to write lab report
• 1 hour to do homework

So if I took 5 courses that requires as much work as organic chemistry (which is VERY unlikely for a college student), I would spend 45 hours per week. That is already more than what most college students spend studying per week, let alone per month.

As a medical school student, expect to spend 60 hours studying per week or more. That averages out to a little more than 8.5 hours a day. And if you go to class, which can go from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, that is already over 8 hours right there. And most people study way past 5:00 PM. Hence, most people study over 8 hours a day.

Do you want to know what the sad part is? Even after 60 hours of studying, there is even more you could study to feel more prepared for the exams. No matter how much you prepare, you will always feel inadequate. This pertains even more for classes which are taught by researchers, who are overall very poor teachers. You will be bombarded with tiny details. Some of them are even testable. A lot of people say learning in medical school is akin to drinking from a fire hydrant.

You Can Survive

I am not going to lie to you. It is going to be a long and sometimes lonely road. If you did not start medical school yet, there are a ton of reasons to turn back. But if you are determined to go, this guide will teach you how to survive medical school.

In order to get through medical school, you will need to be efficient. There is too much to know and too little time to learn them. You will no longer have the luxury of time that you had in college. If you struggled in college and if you don’t change how you study, you will fail medical school. If you breezed through college, you could still fail medical school. It is a totally different beast. So how to survive medical school?

You will need to develop a study system. As I mentioned before, I consider my intelligence to be average or lower when compared to my classmates. But what I do have to my advantage is a study system I have developed for myself throughout my first and second year. Since day 1, I took a deep look at how I study and how I retain information. My system capitalizes on how I retain the information not just for upcoming exams but for the future as well.

This “how to survive medical school” guide is broken down into many different sections. You can click on the links in order and get a good idea of what medical school is like and how to prepare for it. Or just visit the sections that you most need help in.

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