The 5 Nuances of Medical School That Will Help You Stay Sane

Streamline your studying

Streamlining one’s study techniques is often one of the more difficult concepts to grasp at the onset of medical school. This is because in undergrad you managed to do that thing, it worked, you did it for every test, and boom, now you’re in medical school. Well, in medical school you find out that that thing actually wasn’t very efficient. Flash cards, group studying, writing out notes, even going to class everyday, all of that which seemed to take care of business in undergrad takes too much time to be truly effective in medical school. What becomes abundantly clear is that succeeding in medical school, while simultaneously enjoying one’s life, requires continually refining one’s study techniques in order to learn the most, the best, in the least amount of time. Though the concept is simple: pay attention to material, insert information into your brain, and regurgitate it come test time; as one dives head first into the process, it becomes surprisingly complicated. It requires constantly experimenting new methods, comparing your techniques with others, as well as figuring out what to know as well as what not to know. It involves getting meta with yourself and understanding how you learn, what motivates you to learn, and how to manage your time so that you can best learn. I could seriously go on, but it would be useless because this process will constitute much of one’s personal journey through medical school, and it’s unique to everybody. Enjoy.

Diminishing the Ego

Medical school is a surprisingly humbling experience. Basically, in medical school there is a significant chance you will be average. Why? Because statistics. More specifically, it’s because most of the competition didn’t get into medical school. About 50% of the people who wanted to go to medicine either dropped out or weren’t accepted. Those are the same people that occupied the bottom of the curves that propped up your college GPA, and made you feel special for a significant portion of your life. Admit it, it feels good having top grades or feeling like you’re slightly ahead of the curve. Well, most of you are going to have to say goodbye to that feeling. You’re in a tank full of sharks that you will be repeatedly, and frustratingly compared to for four years in order to prepare you for tests that compare you to all medical students in the nation. In other words, it’s hard to ignore your place on the bell curve. For many, they never cared in the first place. But for most, coming to terms with the fact that, indeed, you can’t do anything, is a process of repeatedly diminishing one’s ego. Realizing your limitations and not letting the realization make you sad or depressed. There is only so much one can do, and though it’s healthy to push oneself, one can only go so far. At the end of the day, all you can do is your best, and there’s no reason to be ashamed of where that lands you.

Remain cognizant of your self-confidence

Self-confidence is a completely underrated facet of success in medical school. Self-confidence prevents counter-productive second-guessing during tests, it allows you the ambition to complete significant daily goals, and most importantly, it feels good. Unfortunately, it’s also surprisingly easy to lose. As mentioned before, most medical students derive a portion of their self-confidence from their ability to get good grades. Unfortunately, grades are fickle. Getting just two more points out of three hundred can be the difference between the grade you have, and the grade you want. Lets not forget the litany of facts that you are expected to memorize and regurgitate during high stress, timed conditions, that you will likely misremember, forget, or never know. At some point you might find yourself questioning your abilities, and think you’re incapable of doing anything. However, it’s important to fight that. An excellent way to keep up your self-confidence is by being active in something outside of grades, and the perpetual pursuit of medical knowledge, that makes you feel confident in yourself. This could be drawing, writing, working out – whatever you are particularly good at that reminds you that you are indeed awesome. Also, try to minimize how much you compare yourself to those around you. Medical school attracts some pretty phenomenal people and comparing yourself to others can turn into a proof positive way to never feel good about yourself.

Give Up on Trying to do Everything.

Even outside of grades, there is so much that needs to be done all of the time that you will likely never feel fully satisfied. Between learning the flood of information, keeping up with extracurriculars, maintaining significant relationships in your life, remaining physically active, continuing hobbies – all the while performing all of them well, at a certain point it is simply impossible. At a certain point things get in the way like basic hygiene or sleeping. There is an even closer point where one simply doesn’t have the motivation. Adding just one more hour of study, or one more marginally useful CV booster requires losing another hour from something you care about. Time with friends, family, significant others, or just pursuing your wonton wants eventually becomes a legitimate need. Pushing yourself too far, and ignoring these needs almost invariably leads to burn out. Eventually spending less time doing school related activities is beneficial, or taking a day completely off is required. Understanding one’s own needs, and the healthy mediums by which you can enjoy them is actually incredibly important knowledge to have in medical school.

Decide to be Happy

Ultimately, happiness is a perception. And just like any other perception, it can be influenced. Eventually you have to set aside time where you simply decide to be happy. To simply ignore the omnipresent pressure to get work done, the guilt of not getting enough work done, and the anxiety of not performing work well enough, and simply enjoy something, or nothing, fully. The ability to tune out the noise and the stress, while focusing completely on what makes you happy is a skill, and one of the best skills to develop in medical school.

Another avenue is just convincing yourself that you like the material. Altering your perception of boring material in a way that makes it fun and interesting is one of the best way’s to get through it. For instance, I hate histology. Reading histology to me is like making sense of children’s finger painting (e.g. That circle is cancer, that other circle is not cancer, and that squiggly line is a keratinocyte…). However, when I have to study histology, I like to think of it differently. I like to think of it as a snap shot of what my cells are like right now. These workers that make up my body, that live, work, replicate, and die simply to allow me to exist. Every cold I have is a war between my immune cells and viruses. Every time I go to a bar, there is a host of liver cells, working me back to sobriety. It’s actually pretty cool. God knows I’ll never be a pathologist, but for now, and for the two years I have to learn it, I can make myself comfortable with it, and allow myself to be just that much happier in the meantime.

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