Going into term one, people told me medical school was like “drinking out of a fire hydrant.” FALSE! While graduate school can be overwhelming, getting in was the most challenging part thus far. Above all, I prefer the pancake analogy: Medical school is like eating five pancakes daily, but whatever you do not eat today gets added to the next. If you took a few days off and did not eat your pancakes, you must eat 20 by day four.
Every day, I made a schedule of everything I would like to do. However, most days I did not finish but that was OKAY. If there were more hours in the day, we would be unstoppable! It is important to create a feasible schedule including breaks. You can have a life! Nonstop studying without a social life is a speedy road to burnout. At least twice a week, I would go out and spend time with friends. Of course, exam weeks were an exception. A full week before exams I would not leave my home at all (term one was completely online for me).
A typical day for me consisted of waking up at 8AM, pre-reading the lectures for the day, attending classes and post-reading lectures/labs for the remainder of the day. On days where I would have labs, I spent my time in between lectures and labs preparing. I think it is important to attend every class even if you do not know what is going on. This is where post-reads are important. A post-read allows you to go in-depth and review at your own pace. I would stop all work around 10PM to wake up and do it again the next day. On weekends, I would review the entire week and do practice questions.
All in all, my first semester was much better than I expected! I did not feel faculty “weeding out” students as I did throughout my undergraduate studies and my colleagues were very helpful. I did not feel a competitiveness amongst us at any point of term one. Everyone is trying to do their best and if you have gotten into medical school already, you will be fine!
I loved the analogy and the personal experience was very relatable! Thank you for sharing.
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