Monica Rose
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The Ultimate Medical Student Guide

Medical School

For my last post while I’m still the medical student representative for PhiDE, I created a guide to my previous posts, and I’ll answer some FAQ’s.

General Medical School Things: 

  • Explaining the medical school journey to loved ones 
  • Clinical Rotations: What does “a day in the life” look like?, patient presentations, tips for success, surprises along the way 

For M1’s and M2’s: 

Study Tips: 

Rotation-Specific Posts:

Fourth Year Advice: 

Residency Interview Series: 

How did you study during the preclinical phase?

A lot of my M1-M2 readers will ask me this, and the reason that I haven’t explicitly answered this in other posts is because the honest answer is that I never developed a “system” that I stuck with 100% with each block. I was intermittently trying new study methods, constantly asking other classmates how they were studying, and always felt some anxiety that I wasn’t “studying right”.  I know it’s hard to accept, but I think that having to switch study methods up (at least slightly, not usually a complete overhaul) quite often is normal during the preclinical phase, and even throughout all of medical school.  Many medical school curricula are “systems based”, and learning about certain body systems for the first time may require slightly different types of learning. 
With that probably discouraging caveat out of the way, I’ll still share how I studied and offer some actual advice.

What my studying actually looked like: 
I attended 80-90% of my school’s in-person lectures.  I always planned on having done at least a brief skim of the information before the lecture, but most of the time that plan had failed and I was actually hearing a lot of the information for the first time.  Most in-person lectures I felt fairly lost. I tried to take notes, but those notes weren’t always useful to me in the end. 
At home, during the first half of the preclinical phase I started with new information by trying to read and take notes on the assigned textbook readings. No matter what, your first pass of the new information will be the most difficult and painful. For me, this first pass was either lecture or these textbook readings. I would then supplement those readings by going through the corresponding STEP resources like Pathoma, Boards & Beyond, and Sketchy. In the second half of the preclinical phase, I switched it up and usually started with STEP resources before I would go to the textbooks, unless I really liked the textbook. This was much more efficient.
Also during the first half of the preclinical phase, I did very few practice questions before exams. (My school uses old STEP questions for our exams.) This was a huge mistake. However, I didn’t fail any exams, and once I stopped being stubborn and insisting that “practice questions don’t work for me” and gave it a try, my scores and comprehension improved immensely. 

Many people have specific study “techniques” that consistently work for them; for me that has always been creating my own “study guides”.  In medical school, I used an iPad and apple pencil and wrote out a study guide (or multiple study guides) for each exam. As I mentioned in my Step studying posts, I still refer to these for review to this day! Here’s a small example of what some of my study guides might look like (this is for personal use only, this information was taken directly from many other sources.):

What I wish my studying looked like: 
First pass of new information before lecture using STEP resources such as Boards and Beyond, Pathoma, Osmosis, and Sketchy. I would take pretty thorough notes at this first pass (or annotate the pre-made notes if applicable). 
Attend lectures and try to annotate or add details to the notes I took / referred to from my STEP resources. 
Skim through assigned readings and continue to add notes. Read for detail in sections I’m still struggling with.
Start practice questions (I used Kaplan and Osmosis questions, but there are tons more options like the Boards and Beyond questions, Amboss, etc.) ASAP and keep adding to my existing notes.

Whenever I feel like I have a basic understanding of certain topics, I’d start my comprehensive “study guide”.  I found writing out the words better than typing at this point, but all my previous notes were typed. Sometimes the weekend before my exam was primarily making the study guide, or sometimes I had been adding to it for several days already. 

Right before the exam, I would find the corresponding First Aid pages and review what is in there and compare it to my study guides. 

I do also admit that I wish I would have given Anki a try during the preclinical phase. I’ve never used flashcards or spaced repetition before medical school, so I was reluctant to try it, and I did fine on Step 1 never having used flashcards.  However, after seeing how well it worked for Step 2 and how the spaced repetition really works, I do wish I had at least given it a try. 

(It’s now been a couple of years since I was studying this information for the first time. There are constantly new resources coming out that you can consider, and I’d ask your faculty and your current M2’s for more input on resources.) 

Is it possible to “have a life” outside of medical school?
How do you balance medical school and your personal life?
What does your “wellness” look like in medical school?

It is possible to “have a life” independent of medical school yes, but it takes planning and effort. 

For me, my biggest time investments outside of medical school went to: 
Maintaining my relationship (which was long-distance at the beginning of medical school, and now at the end of medical school we’re planning our wedding), 
Being a dog mom (first to my lab Holly and after she passed to my white german shepherd Luna), 
Getting outside for hikes (thanks to my best friend Danielle), and working out. 

The actual amount of time I dedicated to my wellness things above VARIED WIDELY based on what stage of the journey I was on.  There were months where I spent almost no time on my wellness, and that’s okay, what matters is that I learned from those experiences and kept moving forward.  Medical school and just this whole journey as a whole is so long and is notorious for causing “burn out,” which is why wellness is such a huge topic. That being said, I can’t emphasize enough that it is so important for you to figure out what things help you feel grounded, reenergized, and clear-headed and to constantly work on incorporating that into your daily life. I’ve given this advice before, and I continue to learn for myself how important this is, and I know these skills will gain a new importance as I start residency. 

My general advice for improving your work-life balance: 
Plan ahead.
Have a scheduling system that works for you and use it diligently. 
Be forgiving of yourself when things don’t go as planned. 
Communicate with your support system, especially during the difficult times of medical school. 
Try to treat your wellness time (meditation, the gym, walking, hiking, journaling, etc) with the same level of respect as you treat your medical school appointments. (In other words, you can’t reschedule your rotations, you don’t have a choice but to show up on time. Strive to treat that gym class you keep missing with that same level of urgency and importance.) 
During the difficult times, know that it will get better. 

What is the hardest part about medical school?

Medical school is hard. I would absolutely make the same decision again to pursue my dream of becoming an ER doc, but I definitely wouldn’t want to go through the rigors of medical school a second time, if that makes sense.  I think the answer to this question will vary depending on who you ask because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.  

For me, the hardest part about our 18 month preclinical phase was just trying to understand such a large amount of completely new information. As I’ve mentioned before, medicine really is it’s own language, and building that initial foundation so that you have the skills necessary to start learning in the setting of patient care is extremely difficult and often discouraging.  If I could talk to my previous self who was getting discouraged and feeling overwhelmed, I’d remind her that the first pass of anything is the most difficult one, and I have a lifetime more of learning and growing to do in the medical field going over the same information just in different contexts. 

The hardest part about the clinical phase for me was definitely just the stress that came with knowing I was being constantly evaluated and judged and graded.  As I wrote about in my post about being a sub-intern, there are so many things you’re trying to balance at the same time, all while seeing brand new things on a daily basis.  I tend to be very hard on myself internally, as I think many of us on this journey are, so having the added pressure of knowing others were also judging my performance was a lot at times. 

There were some things I would remind myself of, that sometimes helped: 

  • You’re not supposed to know everything. 
  • It’s okay to have off days where you feel unmotivated and gross and tired and discouraged. Just remember that those days will end and will be followed by great days.
  • It’s supposed to be hard.
  • Try to trust the process.
  • You’ve always wanted to be here, now you’re here, make the best of it.
  • Being a medical student is not all that you are. There is “real life” outside of school, still happening, still worth living and making time for.

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I hope my medical student readers find this post helpful! As I’m ending my medical school journey, I’m really proud that I’ve been able to help other students through this blog, and I hope to continue writing for many years to come.