What Should A Med Student Do During Med School To Become A Better Doctor?

This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Paul Bolin, M.D. (physician)



You particularly asked for “early med school life”, so I assume you are still mostly in the classroom and not in your clinical years yet. It’s always hard to know because people on here rarely specify if they’re attending the four-year medical school model that we have in the U.S. and Canada, or the six-/seven-year model that predominates in the rest of the world.

As far as being in the classroom, the best thing you can do is maintain good study habits. Wake up at a good time in the morning, take good notes, and get good sleep. These things will carry over as you study for licensing examinations (the notes will be very useful both for that and for your exams in school). Good sleeping habits are not only good for your overall health, but they will also serve you well into your clinical years. I was always (and still am) a night owl when I studied early in medical school. Our lectures were all posted online and there was no mandatory classroom attendance. Consequently, I rarely woke up for morning lectures. I was used to staying up late and sleeping late. Having to wake up early when I started my clinical years was very foreign to me and it hit me like a brick wall. So, try and get into the habit of waking up and going to sleep with the rest of the world. It will at least make for a smoother transition.

As you progress in medical school, there are a lot of important things in your clinical years. One that often gets overlooked is your relationship with the nurses. You can learn a lot from them. They are not your inferiors. Medical students seem to think that because they are working towards the vaunted M.D. degree that they are somehow more intelligent than nurses and therefore better than them. Even to this day, as someone who has been an M.D. for going on six years now, I continue to learn from my nurse colleagues. They have a fundamentally different approach to health care, and it enriches me when I take what lessons I can to inform my own approach. It makes me a better doctor. All of this is especially true when you come into contact with older nurses. Avail yourself to learn from their wisdom. Not only will it make you a better future doctor, but it’s always good to have allies on the unit when there are attendings, residents, and other medical students who may be gunning for you. Academic medicine can be such a toxic environment…

Best of luck to you,

Paul

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