Surviving Medical School

Tip #1: Enjoy the first two years.

Medical students are by definition Type A, sub-clinically OCD, basally anxious and unconsciously/consciously competitive individuals. Thus, most med students begin their first day of medical school with the notion that every lecture missed, every test question unknown, and every day off school not used for studying will be promptly notified and flagged in some hidden student portfolio locked in the dean's personal file cabinet.

In fact, much of the first two years of medical school are created to familiarize the student to the basic concepts of medicine and are mostly spent in the classroom as opposed to the hospital floors.

This is important to be aware of for two reasons:

1. Almost all of your measured performance occurs during the clinical rotations of your third and fourth year of medical school.

2. Any trials and tribulations you may experience during your first two years do not reflect how you will perform during real-time patient care.

What does this mean? This means that you have two years to absorb as much bookwork as you can/want in a relatively non-pressured environment. Pass your tests; don't try to ace them. Try studying at a new quirky café or with a beer or glass of wine in your hand. Don't worry about your board exams until its time to actively study for them. You will have plenty of time to readdress these concepts in medicine throughout your medical career.

Tip #2: Explore.

After that first lecture of the first day of medical school, you may be asking yourself, "How the hell am I going to get through four years of this?"

Trust me, those four years fly by faster than you can say pheochromocytoma (get used to these superfluous multi-syllable medical terms).

Often, medical school students are so busy trying to perform in the lecture rooms and clinical rotations that by the time they are nearing the end of their program, they have little insight into what next step in their career is right for them.

Not only are there an ever-increasing amount of specialties sprouting in hospital and outpatient medicine, but there are an infinite number of highly-regarded positions within research, business, law, and journalism that are waiting for creative and ambitious M.D.s like yourself.

There will be incredible opportunities for you after school, but it is up to you to make time out of your busy days to at least consider the next few steps of your career and explore beyond your immediate surroundings.

Tip #3: Be aware and oriented.

Now that we've covered the soft topics, let's get down to what you medical school students are really after when reading articles such as this one. How does one succeed in medical school?
It all comes to being aware and oriented.

To do well in medical school, your third year is the most important year of your four-year degree. Truth be told, a lot of your performance is evaluated away from the patient room and mostly during medical rounds. Unfortunately, you have an extremely limited amount of time and knowledge base to impress the numerous medical teams that you will be participating in and who will be evaluating you. Furthermore, every group of physicians are different, comprised of various personalities and quirks.

Therefore, I can't advise you to act a certain way during medical rounds or prepare some tried-and-true format for your patient presentations; these facets to your overall performance as a stellar medical student constantly change over the course of the year depending on the medical team you are on.

In this flux of vague and often contradictory expectations during your clinical rotations, it is important to be yourself, care about your patients, and be ready to adapt to the personalities and situations around you.

What not to do: There is no need to recite paragraphs from your textbook as if you generated this knowledge on your own or try to maliciously outwit other medical students on your service; everyone on your team has been a medical student at some point in their lives and can easily see through the malarkey.

What to do: Feel it out. When it's a busy day on the medical service, make your presentations as short as possible and hold your quasi-fascinating anecdote or arbitrary medical question for when things settle down. There will be plenty of other times to make an impression to the medical team. On the other hand, when your residents and attending head to lunch or have a little down-time to act more casual, don't be afraid to hang out, get to know them, and have them learn a little more about yourself.

But remember, the patient always comes first. To be aware and oriented of this fact, you are already way ahead of the game when it comes to performing on your clinical rotations.

You Got This

There are many tips and tricks to medical school that can be helpful to those starting out, many more than the petty three that I've attempted to describe above. But in the end, to survive medical school one must be genuinely interested to learn, be ready to jump through hoops when necessary, and be prepared to experience the ups and downs of caring for patients with serious illness. Once you've accepted this, there will be no stopping you from getting your medical degree.

For more by Brian Secemsky, M.D., click here.

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The road to becoming a doctor is long and hard. Your four years in medical school will be some of the most difficult, sleep-deprived, stressful, exhausting, humbling, yet ultimately rewarding of your life. Not everyone can survive the grueling process of becoming a physician.

I completed medical school at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. I did pretty well, but at times worried that I was going to flunk out and become a lab rat for the rest of my life.

Looking back, most physicians have certain words of advice they wished they heard prior to or during medical school. Some of the advice may be practical, some tongue-in-cheek, and others profound. I’ve compiled eleven tips that can help you survive medical school without ending up as a patient.

Pre-Medical School

Have Fun Before You Start – The day your medical school orientation begins, life as you know it is over. For the next four years you will be dedicated to learning everything it takes to become a doctor. This means that you will never again have a real summer vacation. So the summer before medical school is a key time for you to HAVE FUN. Do some travelling, hang out at the beach, read trashy vampire novels, and see some old friends and family. Just don’t study. Plenty of time for that later.

Minimize Distractions – When preparing for medical school life, it’s best to minimize any distractions from your prime objective: studying. Overall, medical school means study. And then study some more. And when you finish all that studying, you will definitely feel the need to study. That means you should cancel your Netflix subscription, since your days of watching an entire season of Dexter in one sitting are over. You will not have time to play Angry Birds. Don’t spend a ton of dough on a brand new 3-D television. Either you’ll feel obligated to watch it instead of studying, causing your test scores to drop, or you will neglect it and waste your money.

Live Off Campus – One of the biggest mistakes I made was signing up to live in the graduate dorm. Living in a dorm room comes with distractions. The walls are thin, people are awake and talking at all hours, and my room was the size of a veal pen with comparable aesthetics. I spent my first evening as a med student wide awake listening to my neighbor flushing the toilet. All night. This is not the way to start life as a doctor-in-training. You are no longer a college student. Get an apartment.

Relax – You’ve made it. The weeding out process is over. Once you receive the golden ticket of admission to medical school, you are almost certainly going to be a doctor. This is not like undergrad, where the professor tells you, “Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will become a doctor.” On the contrary, it’s more like, “Look to your left. Look to your right. All of you will become doctors… except that shifty-looking guy in the corner.” So relax. The next four years will be tough, but you will survive and get your M.D. or D.O. like the majority of other medical students.

During Medical School

Balance – Don’t neglect sleep, eating a balanced diet, and regular exercise. I took up running in medical school. Now, don’t get me wrong. I hate running. But as a medical student I began running because it was the most efficient and quickest way to burn a bunch of calories and get back to studying as soon as possible. Most importantly, keep in contact with the ones you love, especially your parents, your spouse, and (if you have any) children. You will need these relationships to help support you during the trying times of med school. Plus, you will need people to practice your physical exams and blood draws on.

Run Away – Every so often get away from campus and visit some old friends. Get perspective on life. Sometimes it’s therapeutic to chat with someone over dinner about something other than disgusting parasitic diseases or the Kreb’s Cycle. Spend time talking with people in other fields and remind yourself that there is life outside of medical school.

Look Professional – This is not the Hard Rock Café. You may want to consider getting rid of your chin or lip piercings, gauge earrings, funky hair, Justin Beiber concert T’s, and jeggings. Patients expect their doctors to look mature and professional. Doctors expect the same out of their medical students. Look the part, and others will believe you in the role.

Wear Plastic Shoes – Take a tip from the nurses and buy a pair of plastic shoes, such as Crocs. Your shoes are going to come into contact with a variety of colored bodily fluids, just like your blindingly white short lab coat. Crocs and other plastic/rubber slip-on shoes are comfortable, perfect for a night on call, and easy to hose off after a direct hit from afterbirth on your OB rotation.

Network – Take some time during your few weeks off in medical school to network. Meet doctors in your specialty of interest by shadowing them in their offices and volunteering in clinics. At the beginning of your fourth year you will need at least one doctor to write you a letter of recommendation. In medicine, who you know and what they say about you counts a ton.

Be Realistic – Hard work and desire aren’t always enough. If you fail a bunch of exams and have mediocre board scores you may need to reassess your specialty of choice. Sure, the last student in the graduating class is called “Doctor” – but they probably won’t be called “ophthalmologist,” “orthopedic surgeon,” or “dermatologist.”

Don’t Take It Personally – There is a definite hierarchy in the hospital. As a medical student you’ve got sixteen years of schooling under your belt and were probably at the top of your high school and college classes. So where do you lie on the hospital food chain? The BOTTOM. You will undoubtedly encounter physicians and nurses who treat you like dirt. In my book I described a nurse who threatened to cut off my scrub pants in the middle of an operation, leaving me with only my smiley face Joe Boxers. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Do not take it personally. Embrace the fact that you are a student and use your four years of medical school to learn as much as possible. You owe it to yourself, your teachers, and especially, your future patients.

Good luck!

Anthony Youn, MD, FACS is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Metro Detroit. He is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Oakland University / William Beaumont School of Medicine. He is the author of In Stitches, a critically-acclaimed, humorous memoir about medical school. For more information, visit http://www.institchesbook.com/.

Culled from The Student Doctor Network