This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Dr Hetal Chiniwala, M.S. Orthopedics, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital (1998) After 29 years of being associated with medical field, first being a student and then a teacher, the most glaringly useless thing that comes to my mind, that every student does everyday is ; to worry about passing exams, being ahead of others in ranking and thinking it as a key to you success in future to come. Not all top rankers, ‘most studious’ students and best mugging people are successful doctors in life. Infact many of them turn out to be back benchers in the journey called life. Medical practice is just not a theory, it’s also a life long relationship exercise with people from different walks of life. People from different socio economic groups, different religions, different belief systems. As a doctor you have to respect their ways of thinking while treating them. You are not there to judge them, you are just their healer, their trouble shooter. A little disregard shown for their feelings or concerns can define your success or failure. It’s not enough to be a good surgeon or a physician, it’s important to be a smart human being handler to be successful in life as doctor. So apart from exams and studies, spend time to build a character. Buid a strong character in how you deal with your colleagues, your teachers, the nurses, the assistants you interact with in hospital and most important, your patients that you will see in hospital while getting trained. Empathise with them. This is what will turn out to be the most important exam of life and that is what will define your success or failure in future to come And this question was also answered by Pooya Jazayeri, Board Certified Anesthesiologist Nothing. And everything in the first two years. Medical school is traditionally structured so that each year builds on the year before. The first year you learn basic sciences like anatomy, biochemistry and developmental biology. The second year, you use what you learned the first year to study physiology, pathology and neurobiology. There is a big shift in the last two years. Instead of being in the classroom, you spend your time in the hospital following residents and attending physicians to learn how to diagnose and treat patients. The third year you rotate through the main fields in medicine: internal medicine, pediatrics, ob/gyn, family practice and general surgery. Then, in the fourth year, you can choose other specialties as electives based on what field you want to study. As an anesthesiologist, I did extra rotations in anesthesiology, plus the related fields that I had to know well: critical care, surgery, and pediatrics. What I have described is the traditional model. Many schools now are implementing vertical integration. That means they take some of the third and fourth year stuff and teach it to you in the first two years. This is because the first two years are really boring, and getting to work with patients early on keeps the students motivated. The problem is that you don’t have the basic knowledge you need yet, so it’s kind of a waste of time. So if I had to say some part of medical school was a waste, I would say it’s the vertical integration. Although, really, I got a lot out of it. I remember going to old folks homes to learn about geriatric issues, and to high schools to learn how to deal with adolescents. I had a special seminar on breaking bad news to patients, which I still use. We had paid models that came in and let us do physical exams on them, including pelvic exams. None of that was a waste. It was fun, and it made me the doctor I am today. Source
