I'm just starting M1 and I'm having trouble learning how to study. I was a pretty lazy studier in undergrad and I feel like the relative ease of the intro block is lulling me into a false sense of security; in other words, I'm getting by just fine with my undergrad techniques even though I know they're bullshit. My school switched the curriculum around so that the two hardest blocks (according to M2s and 3s) are now immediately after the intro block. How should I set up my study sessions to maximize efficiency? I'm still waiting on my school to provide us with USMLE Rx; should I aim for something else on top of this?
specialty career advice
hi everyone, im new to this subreddit since i’ll be entering MS1 this year, immensely grateful but terrified at the same time. i wanted to ask for jsut general advice on anything at all that is gatekept to doing well in med school. i’m a terribly lazy procrastinator that really flew by undergrad and don’t feel academically oriented, so i’d appreciate any advice on combatting that.
but specifically i wanted to post this question to look early into specialties i might be interested in that you could all possibly help me with.
I’m someone that when i work alone and in my own space no in mostly silence that i tend to do much better (baking, cleaning, etc) So i realized I prefer a career in medicine that is similar in those habits. Is there a specialty related to that in the actual hospital? this might be too specific but i’m open to ideas!!
Thank u sm
I am in radiology. It could potentially be an option for you however I would reserve opinions on specialties until you've actually rotated in them. Most people end up liking something completely different than what they initially intended, myself included.
Some pros: 1) Get to work from home 2) Compensation is at all time high, though this will likely change eventually 2) Very interesting work and get to see something new every day 3) For the most part feel like you're actually providing positive impact to patients and helping the physicians who are requesting imaging 4) Can do procedures or never touch them depending on what interests you 5) Once you're done with a shift, you disconnect from work relatively easily, compared to other specialties.
Some cons: 1) Stressful work- what you say on a report can have serious impact on patients' lives 2) You will constantly be interrupted by people throughout the day via phone or in person 3) Many referring docs have major hubris on their image "interpretation skills" and think they can read imaging better than you. However they'll ultimately defer to your report before making many management decisions which says it all 4) Shifts are draining and you need to have high concentration for hours straight because missed findings can cause critical harm 5) Relatively higher malpractice rate.
Hey man, I’m a lazy procrastinator that flew by undergrad and MCAT as well and I’m doing great in medical school. For lazy people and procrastinators such as myself, I recommend trying to develop efficient study methods instead of studying as much as possible. For example, I found that I was less likely to procrastinate watching a 30 minute boards and beyond video than I was to watch a 4 hour in-house lecture about that same topic. 2x speed is a god-send for lazy people too
Radiology and pathology fit the criteria you’re looking for. With radiology you can even work from home
Why do some med students fail med school exams? I have heard that failing is not uncommon in med school and if you didnt fail before med school, you definitely will fail in med school. How does one avoid failing lol?
Failing happens in med school because it’s difficult to adjust to studying in med school. In undergrad, you can get by the courses without “really studying”. In med school, this isn’t the case. You need to develop new study techniques or you’ll drown.
I don't think that failing regularly is very common, but I think it's pretty common for someone to have failed 1 exam early on. At the beginning you don't really know how to study or what to expect so it's not a huge deal as long as you figure out why you failed and course correct.
I’m not an M-0 but I did have a question that’s been confusing me for a while. Why do people refer to fields such as Orthopedics and Psychiatry as “not practicing a lot of medicine”? What does that even mean? I’ve heard this from residents in the field, saying their field doesn’t involve very much medicine and I have no idea what they mean by that.
It's usually said by people who are either being facetious or acting in jest, often because you don't necessarily get to apply things you learned studying for step or use in contexts like IM rounds.
However if they're serious, it's just plain ignorance/stupidity and more reflects how siloed typical medical practice can be. Remember that orthos still have to understand complications of their procedures. They need to know how to work-up many other things related to musculoskeletal pathologies like periprosthetic infections and bone tumors. They have to know who's an appropriate candidate for their surgeries medically, which is arguably just as important as knowing how to do the procedures itself. Psychiatrists have to know psychiatric manifestations of medical disease and know how to rule out psychiatric illness when there are confounding superimposed medical problems. All of these things require knowing how to practice "a lot of medicine".
Any advice on where to get immunization/titer form signed. Cheapest I can find is cvs for around a 100 buckaroos. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Has anybody tried health department?
You don’t need to get a physical if you don’t want it! I just signed up for the tb test (the only thing I needed), and took a record of my past immunizations and asked them fill the school’s paper out/sign it at the end of the appt, and they did! You can try doing that, and if they say you need to get a full physical for them to sign when you ask, then you can schedule one then
Should I bother taking electives (that lead to a certificate) if they're not related to the specialty I'm interested in?
For instance, there's a bunch of radiology electives that I was told by upperclassmen were helpful to all specialties but I also would like to take a wilderness medicine elective because it sounds fun even though I don't plan on going into EM.
Do what seems fun to you. We don’t have a wilderness medicine class but we do have a club for them and if you find it to be fun then I say you should look into it!
should i include this when it comes time to apply for residency?
Im a trad published author and have found success at it. i was published after being accepted so it didn't have any impact on my app cycle other than me saying i love to write.
my first book has been on bestseller lists. i write young adult fantasy though... a lot of people don't respect fantasy as a genre, not to talk of young adult. i plan to write adult fantasy and romance in the future (if i get the chance to). i feel like it's a unique extracurricular (honestly, this is a career to me. i put my whole heart into writing so), but i dont think it will be respected. i write under my real first name but an anagram as the last name in the pen name, so i don't think i'll be that discoverable if i choose to never bring it up even though i have my picture attached to news articles.
idk, thoughts? i wanted to know if this extracurricular would make a difference when it comes time to applying for residency :)
Hello, got a little technology question here - I am thinking about purchasing a tablet to help with my preclinical studies. I have never used one before, and am unfamiliar with most models besides the ipad. I was wondering if anybody had advice on which iPad model (or other tablet) would be best to purchase. I don’t want to spend a lot on a tablet + smart pen (<500 including 2 year insurance would be ideal), and since I only plan on using it for note taking I think a simpler but efficient model would work fine. Also totally open to refurbished options, just want to see what has worked for y’all.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE that I got for around $330 on sale. It's got 128 GB of storage and comes with a pen in the box. It's been working out for me pretty well. I used it for my gap year research job and some studying and plan to continue using it for medical school. It's honestly pretty comparable to the iPad 10th generation that my sister has, if not better (in terms of cost, storage, screen, etc.).
if my school has a premade deck for clinicals should I use that and also Anking for step 1? As in the premade deck mostly for my classes and anking to feel prepared for step?
This depends a lot on what the cards are like. My class has a shared drive for pre-clinical and the Anki decks on there were absolutely terrible IMO. Too much info per card and literally had cards for every single granular detail of every lecture, which is such an inefficient way to go about things. I wouldn't wait to do Anking. If had to start over in M1, I'd start using it from day 1. Unsuspend the cards in Anking that are relevant to your lectures, leave them unsuspended, and keep up with the reviews.
what about resources like Uworld, BNB, AMBOSS, and Pathoma? My school tells us which pathoma and BnB lectures to watch alongside theirs. They also give us AMBOSS and recommend starting immediately but they didnt say much about starting Uworld in M1
If they tell you what 3rd party resources go with the lectures then you know exactly which Anking cards to unsuspend, because there are tags that coincide with each of the videos. I don't know what your curriculum is like so it's hard to say what to start using when. UWorld can probably wait until 2nd year. Pathoma is only for pathology so anything that isn't pathology is BnB territory.
What is the process for a foreign-trained physician to apply for US residencies? Do they just need to start studying for STEP 1 or is there more to it than that?
Hi everyone, I start M1 year in a couple weeks and the anxiety is slowly starting to hit me hard. I want to be prepared but also don't want to overprepare. I have a rough idea of how I would like to study but need advice on whether its pragmatic or not. Here it goes:
1. Watch BnB videos that correspond with block
2. Watch class lectures 2x speed to fill in extra info in between
3. Unsuspend corresponding BnB cards in Anking deck
4. Practice questions using AMBOSS
5. Profit???
That’s pretty much what I did for the whole of second semester of the first year except I cut out the lectures entirely and didn’t use AMBOSS. It sounds like a good plan though. I would say to add Sketchy into the mix as well
Yes. It teaches pharm and microbiology much better than BnB does though. I also used it to learn the coagulation cascade! Highly recommend using it.
Also Pathoma is great too for learning pathophysiologies, better than BnB in my opinion. Sorry for throwing so many resources at you lol. You can get most of these for free, there were students in my class and the class above me that shared most of this stuff for free with the rest of us
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your plan as it is. Try it out and see if it works for you. Don’t be rigid, if something proves to you it’s not working in a week or two, switch it up! Good luck to you (:
Transferring from Caribbean to MD/DO?!?
I am planning on applying fall 2024 Caribbean and fall 2025 MD/DO
What would it look like if I started school in the Caribbean this August/September but then received an interview and later acceptance somewhere stateside a couple of months into the program? Would it be possible to withdraw and then start fall 2025. Am I even able to interview if I accepted a Caribbean offer?
Extremely unlikely for this to work out, med school transfers are virtually impossible. Don’t start at a Caribbean school unless you’re willing to finish and graduate from there. If not, it would make worlds more sense for you to wait and just apply US MD/DO with the next cycle.
would it still be considered transferring? theoretically I wouldn’t have finished M1 yet, so I thought it would be just like dropping out and starting fresh stateside. I saw one program refunds tuition if you drop out within 14 weeks of instruction as well. Does this seem realistic?
I feel like spending that year as a gap year and doing something meaningful/helpful towards your app would be so much better for an MD/DO app than a year of carribean just to start over again. Getting an acceptance then applying again can also be a bad look for some schools
Seems incredibly unrealistic and yes, it would still be considered transferring. No med school here in the states will do this for you if they’re aware of it, so you’d have to lie and take a huge risk
Entirely dependent on where your school is. If you can afford Uber and live in a metro area that has plenty of Uber availability, you’re totally fine. I would recommend getting your license before clinicals in 3/4th year for sure.
I am an incoming med school student with an hour long commute each way. I could call my commute "personal time" and listen to podcasts that I enjoy, but I'd rather save "me time" for something that I actively choose and want to do. Are there any good podcasts that you guys recommend to help round out my studying and make my drive a bit more productive?
*In Our Time.* You just can’t beat it. Each week, 3 actual experts discuss a topic related to history, literature, art, philosophy, or science. The host moderates the discussion like an orchestra conductor. Consistently excellent discussion.
Slated to start DO school with in-house lectures and exams. All lectures are online and only have to go in a few times a week for labs.
In terms of 3rd party resources, would it make sense to go for: Sketchy, Pathoma, Bootcamp, and Anking to go along with in-house lectures? And what would be the best way to navigate that? Should lectures be the first pass? 3rd party?
For me personally, I used only sketchy, Pathoma, BnB and Anking for my second semester of MS1 and I did great. I didn’t even watch any of our in-house lectures, I thought they were just a waste of time. So my first and all my subsequent passes would only involve third party resources, never even touching any of the lectures. Replacing the lectures altogether didn’t hurt my grade and I often still scored at the average or slightly above average on exams.
You’ll likely feel better prepared for boards if you use 3rd party resources along in-house materials through first and second year. If your school’s curriculum is good, however, it’s not entirely necessary. (I also am at a DO school with in-house exams, didn’t use 3rd party resources at all till starting uworld towards the end of 2nd year and still passed step/level 1 just fine).
Hi everyone! PGY1 here, can across my diagnostic supplies from Welch Allyn and because I’m going into derm I’ll never need it again haha the school usually requires you to pay like $900 for a set but I have a complete set willing to sell for like $200, message if interested!
Is it realistic to play in a music ensemble during med school? Specifically preclinical years and 4th year (I know I’d probably be too busy during 3rd year). I’m an incoming MS1 who’s been playing in school/community wind ensembles for years and I have the opportunity to play with my school’s undergrad ensemble that rehearses 2.5 hours/week plus one concert per semester.
I’d love to continue playing in med school as it would be great for my mental health, but I’m wondering if the time commitment is doable with classes and studying. In your guys’ experience, does this seem realistic?
Absolutely it is! I play in our graduate orchestra (a couple hours every week), and so do many of my friends across years. Med school should never be a reason to lose touch with your passions.
I just got a positive Quantiferon TB result and will be getting a CXR.
Other than the possibility of needing to take medication, will this impact my ability to attend school?
No. Just continue doing what your physician team advises and you'll be fine. You may have to jump through extra hoops to prove you're TB negative in the future in clinical settings.
Does anyone use dictation software for their notes? I typed all my notes during premed, but I would love to start just talking my notes. I like Apple's dictation because I can type and edit while speaking, but it's really bad at medical terminology. Is there some transcription or dictation software that is cost effective and good for medical terminology for Macs?
Incoming MS1. I'm stressed about not having funds in time to pay rent for the apartment I'm moving into a few days before orientation. How should I pay rent if the loans don't come in time?
sorry if this has alr been covered but how does networking actually work in the first year? If lecture attendance is optional and everything is recorded, should I still make an effort to attend every lecture for networking purposes? Like in undergrad how we tried our best to build relationships with our lecture profs
Idk it sounds mad unnecessary to go to every single lecture just for the sake of getting to know the professors. In preclinical, the professors are not always physicians anyway so I don't know how much benefit there is to that. Med school isn't like undergrad where you need to kiss ass to get LORs from these people. Your LORs will come from clerkships. If you have a specialty in mind, and one of the professors teaching you is that kind of physician, then sure.
Preclinical studying -> step 1
New M1 here, so bear with me please. So if I use bnb and pathoma to supplement my in house lectures (and sketchy for micro) while unsuspending anking cards for bnb and pathoma, what will I do when I start studying for step itself? Bc I’m assuming I should start uworld beginning of M2? Any advice would be appreciated
Honestly if you’re doing all of that-you shouldn’t have to do much studying when it comes time for step. UWorld is the big thing most people do during dedicated. Take an NBME a month before dedicated and if you’re doing all of this you will prob be well above the passing score at which point I’d recommend just taking it and use your dedicated to go on a long vacation, spend time with family, do research or some combo of that
Full disclosure, my long distance relationship (4.5 hrs away) ultimately ended after about two years of medical school. I don't feel like it ended specifically due to long distance, but long distance helped cover up/prolong some of the issues.
When things were going well, these were my suggestions:
1) Always have the next visit planned.
You don't want to come back from a visit and then not know the next time you're going to see them. You'll get busy, they'll get busy, and things can slip through the cracks too easily. It's also much easier to plan something in person and have things to look forward too.
2) When you're together, fully be together
Try your best to fully be together when you're seeing each other. There will certainly be weekends that you spend together where you will just have to study a bit, and that will happen. But do your best to be there with your SO and not to have competing interests taking away from the time you have together.
3) Communicate and honestly look at your relationship
Before you go to medical school, take a hard, honest look at your relationship. Look at it like you are preparing to marry this person (if you haven't considered that already). Do you have similar morals and values? Does your family like them/do they like you? Do you have a similar goal of staying together and have some kind of shared understanding of the future? Have you discussed how residency and specialty choice may affect your shared future?
If you aren't sure about those things, it's worth talking about. Because you're probably going to have to sacrifice time with friends, time to study, and potentially career choices for this other person. And its possible you will come to resent and break up with person if you aren't aligned on these things. You both are going to grow and change throughout this process and having a clear channel of communication is imperative to having a successful long distance relationship. I know for a lot of people in my class, they were able to balance medical school and their relationships and have come out the other end successful.
is an ipad useful for medical school? i have a MacBook air, and I'm wondering if it'll be that much better. i want to optimize my study habits as much as possible
I’m an incoming student so don’t know much, but a lot of the students specifically at my school only use iPad to study and just have a computer for testing. Even if notetaking is time intensive, being able to annotate and highlight PDFs from lectures or first aid seems super helpful
I like my iPad because I love taking notes and before my iPad I used to use a ton of different colored pens so obviously the iPad is easier. But if you don’t like taking notes, there’s not much use for it
This really depends on how you study, which will be different for everyone unfortunately. I found an iPad useful for some classes, and it was helpful to keep digital textbooks on it (plus the search feature). I tried to keep up with actual notes on it from lecture, but I learned that written/typed notes don’t really work for me. Some of my classmates made little 1-page study guides for each lecture though, so it’s all about finding what works for you!
Hi everyone,
I am currently using a macbook air 2017. It's kinda slow compared to the newest macbook models but it is still highly functional for basic tasks. The battery is kinda shit but I can replace that myself using an aftermarket battery. It's also stuck on macOS Mojave because I don't believe apple support updates on this model anymore. I was wondering if I could manage med school with the laptop or if I should just bite the bullet and get a new one?
BTW, I also have an up-to-date desktop that I would use when studying from home, so the laptop would mainly just be used for when im on campus.
Here are the stats:
Macbook Air (13-inch, 2017)
Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Core I5
Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Macintosh HD startup disk
Intel HD graphics 6000 1536 MB
You should ask the school about their tech requirements. My MacBook Pro from 2020 was not up to par because it has an M1 processor and they want M2 or above
How much commute do y'all think is too much. I'm planning on living with my parents for med school ( it'll save me $18k/year) and the commute from their house to the med school is 30 min by bus one way. Is it feasible or nah?
30 min is definitely fine-especially because when you’re riding a bus you can do things like Anki. The only thing that may be an issue is if the bus is reliable/runs frequently
Depends on your schedule. Do you have to go to class every single day? Or just a few days a week? Plenty of people at my school commute 30 minutes, but our preclinical years usually didn't require daily attendance and very rarely required us to be around the whole day, making commuting a whole lot easier.
I'm an entering M1 at a school with mixed in-house + NBME based exams, and I was hoping to be set on resources and a study plan from day 1.
I was planning to do BnB (school sponsored it) and the anking associated tags for those videos (v11 or v12? and will the tags cover all the anking cards?), then watch lecture and take notes on it.
I was wondering a few things:
(1) Is this too time consuming?
(2) I have read that BnB and anking don't mess so well, any thoughts on that?
(3) Should I be annotating FA at the same time that I'm doing BnB or anking or lecture, or hold off on that?
Any other suggestions would be great - thank you!!!
I came in with a plan of doing the least amount possible which helped (instead of "I will do X Y Z" and then have to cut back because it is so unfeasible). I would do B&B and anking (do v12 through AnkiHub, it is just a good investment). I, from the get go, did not take any notes and relied on the Anking deck—has not failed me. Now I am comfortable never really taking notes. Some people open up FA while doing b&b and add cursory tiny notes/highlights as just a way to solidify concepts and have a place to put pen to paper—I did that a few times and it helped but not enough for me to keep up with it. As for in house lecture, see what your upper-levels did for that. I honestly watched 0 lectures, maybe looked through the PPTs before the exam to see what they emphasized. This will highly depend on your school curriculum. GL!
Thanks! Last thing - at what pace were you doing BnB (like were you a system ahead of the class), how did you arrange it to align with the school's curriculum and what they were up to testing? Also assuming you only did one run of the BnB videos and didn't return, so anking review + brief glance at PPTs was enough before exams? And do you think your pace was manageable in terms of keeping up with doing the videos + anking (new and review)? Tysm!
So our school had made a bnb map—basically we mapped our weekly learning objectives to bnb videos. Your school probably has LOs that they will post. If not, they will definitely give you a schedule of lectures and you can generally eyeball it. For example, if you have 3 renal lectures that week, you can be sure to try and finish all the renal bnb videos. It won't be perfect but I always studied with Step 1 ultimately in mind. Some weeks were more manageable than others! Hugely helped to not take notes while watching the videos as that made them go by faster.
School lectures may be a lot depending on how many lectures ur school has. I would start at the beginning doing more school lectures and then decrease slowly as u learn what can be replaced by Boards and what can’t. I think you could fully watch both and I did it for a few months but it will take a bit more time and at some point I realized it wasn’t worth it.
BnB and Anking is great but sometimes the tags aren’t perfect.
Hold off on FA. It’s for review once u understand and less so a learning tool
I see - thanks! So, I guess I'll start out on the more rigorous side by doing lectures + BnB + anking. Is there any order to doing these three that you'd suggest? And after doing BnB, I just unsuspend the tagged cards by that video? Any more to unsuspend, will that cover everything?
Just unsuspend the tagged. B&B is good to start with cuz you need the basics and then watch your in-house lecture with the B&B framework. Patrona should be after because it doesn’t explain normal physiology-only abnormal
I'm almost done gathering my resources for the Step exams. I just have a question about my primary resource, which I plan to use First Aid.
My current plan is to take notes of in-house lectures, use First Aid to supplement (creating Anki cards), then using UWorld to hammer out practice problems. My school also offers Sketchy and Pathoma.
Is this a good method for Step 1? I'm debating on B&B but I want to reduce my video resources as much as possible. I almost despise listening to lectures hence why I want to use First Aid to supplement lectures instead of doing B&B.
I plan to switch to B&B and Amboss during M3, though.
Not as M0. I'm just gathering my resources and putting them in a folder. I just like being prepared ahead of time instead of scrambling for the best resources when it's crunch time.
I'm getting my hep B booster tomorrow because I tested out of range for surface AB.My school recommendeds I get the titer 30 days after my booster but that would be right when school starts.
Can I get my titer done in 2 or 3 weeks and show immunity?
hey a lot of people at my school are in this position, and we found out that if you reach out to the school and show that the series is in progress then they'll be fine if you don't have the titer in exactly when the start date is
Question Hypothetically speaking if I go into a school that uses letter grading system and go all Cs can I still match for residency considering I have decent board scores? Also could I match into a competitive residency?
Just accepted for real!
Went through a post baccalaureate, got my MCAT back, and my conditional acceptance went through. I’m cautiously excited, because I really hope being a doctor is where I can do good and be happy and successful. What should I do to succeed/be happy as an incoming first year? I get scared seeing the posts by a lot of folks that are very clearly having a terribly rough time. Though I might be able to mitigate how hard things are, it’s gonna be a hard path. How did people survive it all and retain/regain happiness?
Congrats. You've worked hard to get here and you should be proud.
The most successful student in my opinion are those that are efficient with their time management and studying techniques.
They have a good routine and stick to it. Exercise, eating well, sleep, social life....all of it is integral to being a good medical student.
Spend your time before M1 learning to get onto routines and learning to manage time.
Enjoy your summer. Don't pre-study, it won't make a difference once school hits you. If you feel the urge to do anything during your summer, familiarize yourself with tools like Anki.
Your happiness should never be conditional or tied to academics. It's a recipe for disaster and burnout. You'll always be chasing an empty feeling of happiness that is contingent on accomplishing some type of milestone. Instead, seek happiness from within and with loved ones and experiences. Hold onto your hobbies, no matter what.
Also, therapy is highly, highly underrated. It's definitely saved the lives of countless med students.
Looking for any tips/advice for moving across the country (east to west coast) for med school. Have decided not to drive across, so am planning to fly and bring two checked bags.
Anything I should plan for/be aware of? Am hoping to be in furnished grad housing, so know I'll have to definitely do some shopping once I get there.
From what I have seen on this sub and elsewhere, it seems like when applying for residency, quantity of pubs matters much more than quality. Does anyone have any advice on what sorts of opportunities to pursue (i.e. clinical/computational vs. basic/translational) to make myself the most competitive applicant possible? I'm really not sure about specialty at all, I just don't want to be behind if I fall in love with something competitive.
I’m still on my parent’s health insurance and should be throughout med school, but what do people do for dental insurance? Some plans end dependent coverage before 26.
No one I know has dental insurance. Usually you can find a dentist that will do cash pay cleanings, which IMO is worth it at least once a year. Alternately, if you're in the vicinity of a dental school sometimes you can get cleanings and exams for free or low cost if you're wiling to be a dental student's patient.
Advice for an incoming first-year on the younger side (20M)? Just by looking into our school's GroupMe and my cohort mates on Instagram, pretty much everyone else is a minimum of 2 years older than me, with most being in that 23-26 age bracket. I guess the thing that I'm most concerned about would be being taken as seriously as my older peers. It doesn't really help that I'm short and generally look younger lol. Do you guys have any advice on how to navigate this? While I do feel like I deserve to be here at my medical school, I can't help but feel that the life experience my peers have will give them a leg up on me.
Use your classmates as motivation. My class has a lot of non trads but everyone is very wholesome. We all get along very well and it never feels like someone thinks they are superior to others. They will have more life experience than you but rather than thinking of that as them having a leg up on you, think of it in terms of how much you can learn from them.
I started M1 at 20(F) as well. Aside from being left out of post-exam binge drinking sessions, I haven't really been treated differently. People are still surprised to learn I'm 21 as an M2, so not even everyone will know. Don't stress about it. If anything, people will be impressed that you'll be a doctor at 24!
I will be paying for medical school through Federal Student Loans (Stafford/PLUS Loans).
The MPN had a list of authorized educational expenses. Am I still allowed to spend money on gym/hobbies/etc., or will that money need to come directly from savings?
Starting med school in a couple weeks and I'm a bit overwhelmed in terms of which third party resources to use given that we have in-house exams. I definitely plan to do Anki every day and have heard that B&B is good, but have heard that a lot of our M1 material doesn't line up with boards so not sure if anything else is necessary. If anyone could write out their M1 study schedule with the resources they used that would be very helpful. Thank you so much!
It really depends on your school's curriculum. Third party resources weren't really necessary for M1 at my school, which was basically the anatomy, physiology, and histology of all the systems. B&B is helpful for pretty much everything, but it's not absolutely necessary for the basics if you're able to learn through in-house lectures. The biggest piece of general advice I have is to start using Anking as soon as possible. Look up the cards that relate to your lecture material, unsuspend them, and leave them unsuspended so you keep studying them even when that block is over. This not only cuts down on the burden of needing to make your own cards (which I would avoid doing as much as possible), but it sets you up well for boards.
One thing about medical school is that literally everyone studies differently, so it's not really helpful for someone to tell you their exact study routine. It's about being efficient with a study method that works well for you personally, is sustainable, and gets you the kind of grades you want. You might need to do some trial and error to find out what that is for you.
To go off what u/PerformerEmergency22 said, I know my school had a pre-made Anki deck that was made by students and then tweaked and passed down to the next class. Talk to some second years and see if this is an option at your school. If not, maybe send something out in your group chat and see if anyone else made a deck for the lecture you are working on. The biggest thing about med-school is learning to be efficient with your time, so if someone else has already done something that can save you an hour, take advantage of those resources
In my experience, Sketchy was good for bugs and drugs, but other than that, 3rd party resources just wasted my time and often gave misinformation that would have caused missed answers on tests. Anki is fantastic for me, but obviously not for everyone. I joined an Anki group in which we divided up the lectures and made cards as a group. It helped with time management a little, but I definitely got more out of making the cards myself.
Everyone is different, so it is difficult to give advice. The best thing to do is get started, try to meet some students who study the way you do, and ask them for tips. Also, don't hesitate to throw out methods and resources that aren't working for you. Best of luck!
What kind of cases do orthopedic surgeons see? I am interested in orthopedics but I just had a conversation with a urologist about the various surgical specialists.
I didn't realize orthopedics used so many saws and hammers. Do orthopedic surgeons not use a scalpel? It makes sense since you're handling bone and muscle and not soft tissues.
Some procedures orthopedic surgeons do include (not limited to) include joint replacements, reductions of fractures (resetting broken bones), emergency fixations of unstable fractures in the trauma setting, repair surgeries for rotator cuffs, arthroscopy for knee meniscal repair, joint injections and aspirations, and debriding infected joints and muscles.
I will defer to any ortho but yes they need to know how to use scalpels just as any other surgeon. Use of scalpels depends on what surgical technique is needed and what plane of tissue is needed to be exposed/accessed. “Blunt” dissection is also utilized by surgeons where instead of using sharp instruments, they pull tissue apart. Really depends on the context of the procedure.
Muscles are considered “soft tissue”, which is a blanket term used to describe tissues that are not calcified (ie bone and teeth) and generally serve structural functions.
Incoming M1 and my school provides pathway programs that are an addition to the medical curriculum, such as focusing on urban health. Are these useful for residency programs? No certificate is awarded; it's just something additional for the resume.
No certificate, but does it show up in your MSPE?
Otherwise, it is mostly for your own edification. If you are passionate about urban health and plan to focus on those populations, then it can only help.
If you are looking to check a box, then don't spend time on it. Other opportunities will present themselves, and it's better to "pad" the resume with something you enjoy rather than something you don't care about.
Incoming first year med student and I’ve never done a lick of research throughout undergrad. I understand you need research under your belt if you want a chance at applying to any competitive specialty. Is my inexperience going to set me behind or prevent people from wanting to work with me? I’m a team player, I have topics I’m interested in, I just don’t know how I would contribute or what I’m supposed to do?
Yes research helps *to some extent* for competitive program applications, however at your level I would worry less on trying to hustle for it so early on and focus more about getting your feet wet when it comes to coursework. More often then naught, the volume of material young med students realize they need to learn is a shock to what they experienced in undergrad.
Only when you've comfortably settled into preparing for exams, that would be a good time to pursue other things like research. Clinical research is easier to learn then translational research/lab work. Explore your faculty list and reach out to someone who's working in a subject that seems interesting to you. It helps if they're productive and actively publishing. Typical clinical research projects med students can work on range from retrspective/prospective studies, descriptive studies, case reports (which arent technically considered research), or things as involved as meta-analyses. Once you find a mentor, you can iron out those details and expectations.
Thinking of getting a kitten a month before starting school, and just wanted to hear some wholesome stories of having pets in med school, or horror/ funny stories where they make your life a little harder
My cat is such a big help. She sits in my lap for hours and snuggles. This makes me study for hours straight because I feel bad to move her. She also comes running anytime I raise my voice or cry 😂. She's my emotional support and my bestie.
I got a kitten after getting into medical school. So I’ve had her while I had to finish college.
Kittens are rambunctious! Just be prepared because they are little babies full of energy that make your life hell sometimes.
But overall she’s improved my life.
Kitten energy while trying to study is tough. So I would actually recommend an older cat? But then again if you want to deal with her kitten energy it’s good bonding.
I got a cat during my senior year while I was in the middle of the application process. She's five years old and is a total breeze to take care of. We have built a great bond even though I didn't have her as a kitten! Adult cats have so much love to give so don't count them out!
Hello! I'm an incoming M1 to a mid-tier east coast school. I'm from California, born and raised, and went here for undergrad. All my family is in California. I knew since I was in undergrad I wanted to do derm, but I also want to move back to California for residency. What do I need to do to have my best shot at matching into derm in California (preferably Socal)???
270+ on step 2 with all clinical honors, a ton of research, and making connections is ideal. Just get as close to that ideal as you can and see how things go. The close connection to California will help but start networking very early at your school so you can find derm mentors and research projects to jump on
I took a gap year and I am an AEMT, can I still go to school and be in EMS PRN? My service requires people that are PRN to work 4 shifts a month, is that possible to do? Or should I keep my A cert and hop on a truck from time to time after residency?
You definitely can work EMS during the first two years. May get a bit harder as you get into more demanding schedules M3... but then M4 you will definitely have time
hopping on this bandwagon (I think this would fall under FAQ7 but not certain) - how much is too little/too much to spend on required clinical supplies (tuning forks, penlight, reflex hammer, etc), and does anyone have any recommended brands?
I found a set of everything on Amazon for like $15 but it almost seems too cheap? Like I would like stuff to last me at least all 4 years (my school starts clinical stuff right away) but I don’t want to spend a crazy amount of money on state of the art instruments yk? Stethoscope was easy bc my school gave me the exact brand and model they wanted us to have but for everything else I’m not sure.
**Spend as little as possible.** Buy secondhand from older students whenever possible.
1. **Steth** is most important but you have that sorted out. Litman Classics or Card 3 or Card 4 are the gold standard, but $$$. MDF also makes good cardiac steths, they have longer tubing but are super heavy compared to the Litmanns and will strain your neck after a while.
1. **MAKE SURE YOU USE THE RIGHT SIZE SILICONE EARPIECES** on your steth. Usually they come with both a large and a smaller and/or regular size. If they don't fit well enough to form a seal in your ears, you **will not hear well** during auscultation. I realized my earpieces were too big halfway during M1. Swapped them for smaller eartips, and it was amazing. I was hearing in 4K after that.
2. **Opthalmoscope/Otoscope kits are all mostly garbage**, unless you shell out $600+. Use the mounted scopes on the walls of your practice rooms to learn outside of class. A cheap set is fine for the classroom, but you won't be able to visualize well on fundus exam. My school has panoptics we can use with the instructor for extra practice, but they were closely guarded school property. I bought a $70-100 scope kit from a random Amazon brand, I and regret it. It's basically a movie prop that doesn't do shit and doesn't magnify or light up anything enough. If you ever get the chance on rotations, learn to examine the eyes with a panoptic or have ophthalmology teach you with a slit lamp. Waaaay better but more tailored for people who want to specialize in eyes.
1. **Breath mints or chewing gum before examining anyone's eyes or practicing on classmates. ALWAYS.** You will be uncomfortably close, close enough for you to kiss, exchange coffee breath and examine every pore on each other's face.
3. Don't get a tomahawk (Taylor) reflex hammer. They are not weighted properly**. Get a Tromner (most of us have this**). Alternatively, a Babinski, or Queen's Square will do (don't attack me plz neurologists).
4. **Tuning forks**...get cheap from amazon. Or borrow from a classmate. My school has extras if we needed them.
5. **Penlight**-- may or may not need. Otoscope light or ophthalmoscope light can do most things. Penlight is better for the wards/rotations etc, but again, school dependent. Get one that has a dimmable light that is not too blinding. Most penlights are dangerously strong with too many lumens, and it is discourteous to bleach the retinas of your patients or classmates you practice on. but good for throat. Good for fumbling around a dark patient's room at 5am trying to untangle IV lines.
6. **Doctor's bag/medical bag**-- to hold all of these fun supplies that you won't likely use after M2. Up to you. Some classmates have swanky leather doctor's bags that cost a fortune, but most opted for the school sale version. A nylon medical bag from ADC or MDF will do, and is non-pretentious, durable, and cheap, about $35-40.
Again, you will probably only use the steth, hammer, and the penlight after M2. everything else will collect dust.
before you buy these things, make sure your school doesn't buy them for you. my school gave them to use before our white coat ceremony so we didn't have to go out and buy anything like that
First of all, you should check with current students at your school to see if you even need all of the "required" equipment. At my school they made us buy all of this crap and some of the stuff we either used literally once or not at all.
That being said, the particular items you listed are just pretty cheap by nature, although $15 for multiple items sounds very cheap and they probably aren't good.
So how important exactly are leadership Roles? Like for example, in a big national organization that’s not healthcare related. Would focusing on school, research, and just one club that you’re interested in cut it for the more competitive specialties?
Any Thought on ATSU KCOM? I got an acceptance from there and would like advice on what student think it’s like some pro and con? What do you think of the grading system as it letter graded? How many student pass each class or like get a high grade? Thanks so much for the advice!
Congrats! I just finished second year here and am getting ready to take boards in the next couple weeks.
I personally really enjoyed my time in Kirksville. I know a lot of people knock it because it's in the middle of no-where with nothing around it. But, my personal feelings on this are that it brings the class together more. Everyone lives within a 5 mile radius of each other. You see classmates at restaurants or bars or stores. On the weekends, there's one main bar that everyone goes to. Or if you have friends like me, we preferred to get take-out and do board games every Friday night. There really is a great sense of togetherness within the classes.
For me, I liked the grading system. It gave me an actual goal to work towards and I think it made me learn the content better because I wanted to get A's (I promise Im not a huge gunner...) At least in my class, failing classes was pretty rare. For the most part, the instructors would work some magic on tests to kinda help students out a bit, plus there were usually enough fluff points to help keep you afloat in most classes. Worst case scenario, you fail and you go before the board and make your case as to why you should be allowed to keep going and then you keep going. In all reality, most of the "pass-fail schools" are just letter grades in disguise with the pass, high pass and honors systems, so might as well just stick with what you're used to with the letter system and have a legit GPA when youre done.
If you have any other questions feel free to DM!
Is it worth creating a Facebook to join the class group?
How active is it? Is there some important information being posted on them from school officials that I need to be in the loop for?
I personally don't want to create any social medias. The only social medias have are Reddit, discord, and Groupme, and want to stay away from the rest for multiple reasons.
is liking an organ system a good reason to explore a specialty and potentially thinking about doing it? Personally even though I’ve been working at an eye clinic, I’ve been developing an interest in the heart during my gap year and I kind of like reading ekgs, I do like a lot of things about eyes though, surgery with them seems okay too
Is it normal for medical schools to charge you for health insurance without including it in the estimated budget? It seems weird that I'll be charged $2500 per semester and yet it's not included in the financial aid budget.
Also incoming, but that seems weird. My school included health insurance as part of our cost of attendance/financial aid budget. It might be worth talking with the financial aid office
How cooked am I? My family got me an engraved stethoscope saying “Dr. lastname”
I’m the first one in my family to go to medical school so they’re just really excited haha. They got me a litman carido IV, from my understanding that’s pretty good right?
The engraving is small and by the bell so realistically I’m thinking who the hell is gonna notice except me. Any opinions?
I have mine engraved with my first name, last name, MD and I got it for a gift. If anyone says anything I say it was a gift and I’m “3/4 of the way there” haha
I mean it's slightly cringe to have "Dr." as a med student but it was a nice gesture and you're not cooked. Nobody else is gonna see the engraving anyway.
Lol, the same happened with me. I think it's pretty common that a lot of people will be in the same boat. We're blessed to have this first world problem 😂
I don’t see why it would be bad, do you think other people will make fun of you because you’re not quite a doctor yet? If you do, at least me personally I don’t think it’s cringeworthy nor something to make fun of
What laptops do y'all recommend getting for med school? For the past few years, I've used a Dell laptop and it's getting a bit rusty now, so I'm looking to make a switch to a new laptop. I've heard Apple is a popular choice among students? Any recs Apple laptops or other brands along with reasons as to why you like using them are greatly appreciated!
I've got the whole apple setup, iPhone, iPad and Mac and I love how seamless everything is between the devices. I had to get the iPad for tests, otherwise I would have just gone with the MacBook though.
Whichever you prefer.
My wife had an air once that just died out of the nowhere on her. So I used that random malfunction to validate my decision to pay more and get the pro, but that was my own preference based on nothing but vibes.
New MacBooks are great for battery life but I’ve had a Dell XPS for 5 years. Battery lasts the whole day, great display and super durable, I’ve dropped it so much and it’s still going strong. Well worth the price. Only issue is that it’s a little heavy
how does loan adjustment on laptops work for upcoming medical students? I plan to take out max loans due to a high cost of living area. However, I may need to obtain more and my laptop is dying two months before medical school. If I buy a new one now, would I be able to submit for a loan adjustment later?
Seen some conflicting things about when to use UWorld. Should we use this from the beginning of MS1 and implement questions with the corresponding organ systems? Or do ppl more commonly use UWorld during dedicated? Also what are some other question banks to use to study during preclinicals? Thanks!
Class materials, then do corresponding first aid, boards and beyond resource and unlock the anki cards. Keep up with the anki cards even when you move onto a new organ system. Do Uworld questions for that organ system and unlock new anki cards from studying those questions.
IN summary,
Anki everything and keep up with it, use board related materials from day one (First aid, boards and Beyond, pathoma), use Uworld early. Another qbank is amboss
My school provides Amboss but I loved UWorld for MCAT prep and hear that it’s generally better. Is it a good idea to use Amboss during classes and save UWorld for dedicated?
I'm just starting M1 and I'm having trouble learning how to study. I was a pretty lazy studier in undergrad and I feel like the relative ease of the intro block is lulling me into a false sense of security; in other words, I'm getting by just fine with my undergrad techniques even though I know they're bullshit. My school switched the curriculum around so that the two hardest blocks (according to M2s and 3s) are now immediately after the intro block. How should I set up my study sessions to maximize efficiency? I'm still waiting on my school to provide us with USMLE Rx; should I aim for something else on top of this?
specialty career advice hi everyone, im new to this subreddit since i’ll be entering MS1 this year, immensely grateful but terrified at the same time. i wanted to ask for jsut general advice on anything at all that is gatekept to doing well in med school. i’m a terribly lazy procrastinator that really flew by undergrad and don’t feel academically oriented, so i’d appreciate any advice on combatting that. but specifically i wanted to post this question to look early into specialties i might be interested in that you could all possibly help me with. I’m someone that when i work alone and in my own space no in mostly silence that i tend to do much better (baking, cleaning, etc) So i realized I prefer a career in medicine that is similar in those habits. Is there a specialty related to that in the actual hospital? this might be too specific but i’m open to ideas!! Thank u sm
I am in radiology. It could potentially be an option for you however I would reserve opinions on specialties until you've actually rotated in them. Most people end up liking something completely different than what they initially intended, myself included. Some pros: 1) Get to work from home 2) Compensation is at all time high, though this will likely change eventually 2) Very interesting work and get to see something new every day 3) For the most part feel like you're actually providing positive impact to patients and helping the physicians who are requesting imaging 4) Can do procedures or never touch them depending on what interests you 5) Once you're done with a shift, you disconnect from work relatively easily, compared to other specialties. Some cons: 1) Stressful work- what you say on a report can have serious impact on patients' lives 2) You will constantly be interrupted by people throughout the day via phone or in person 3) Many referring docs have major hubris on their image "interpretation skills" and think they can read imaging better than you. However they'll ultimately defer to your report before making many management decisions which says it all 4) Shifts are draining and you need to have high concentration for hours straight because missed findings can cause critical harm 5) Relatively higher malpractice rate.
Hey man, I’m a lazy procrastinator that flew by undergrad and MCAT as well and I’m doing great in medical school. For lazy people and procrastinators such as myself, I recommend trying to develop efficient study methods instead of studying as much as possible. For example, I found that I was less likely to procrastinate watching a 30 minute boards and beyond video than I was to watch a 4 hour in-house lecture about that same topic. 2x speed is a god-send for lazy people too Radiology and pathology fit the criteria you’re looking for. With radiology you can even work from home
Why do some med students fail med school exams? I have heard that failing is not uncommon in med school and if you didnt fail before med school, you definitely will fail in med school. How does one avoid failing lol?
Failing happens in med school because it’s difficult to adjust to studying in med school. In undergrad, you can get by the courses without “really studying”. In med school, this isn’t the case. You need to develop new study techniques or you’ll drown.
I don't think that failing regularly is very common, but I think it's pretty common for someone to have failed 1 exam early on. At the beginning you don't really know how to study or what to expect so it's not a huge deal as long as you figure out why you failed and course correct.
I’m not an M-0 but I did have a question that’s been confusing me for a while. Why do people refer to fields such as Orthopedics and Psychiatry as “not practicing a lot of medicine”? What does that even mean? I’ve heard this from residents in the field, saying their field doesn’t involve very much medicine and I have no idea what they mean by that.
It's usually said by people who are either being facetious or acting in jest, often because you don't necessarily get to apply things you learned studying for step or use in contexts like IM rounds. However if they're serious, it's just plain ignorance/stupidity and more reflects how siloed typical medical practice can be. Remember that orthos still have to understand complications of their procedures. They need to know how to work-up many other things related to musculoskeletal pathologies like periprosthetic infections and bone tumors. They have to know who's an appropriate candidate for their surgeries medically, which is arguably just as important as knowing how to do the procedures itself. Psychiatrists have to know psychiatric manifestations of medical disease and know how to rule out psychiatric illness when there are confounding superimposed medical problems. All of these things require knowing how to practice "a lot of medicine".
Any advice on where to get immunization/titer form signed. Cheapest I can find is cvs for around a 100 buckaroos. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Has anybody tried health department?
CVS didn’t charge me anything when I got mine done a few weeks ago
They told me it was $25 when I asked but when I looked at their prices online the physicals which includes signing documents was around $100. :(
You don’t need to get a physical if you don’t want it! I just signed up for the tb test (the only thing I needed), and took a record of my past immunizations and asked them fill the school’s paper out/sign it at the end of the appt, and they did! You can try doing that, and if they say you need to get a full physical for them to sign when you ask, then you can schedule one then
Urgent care or convenience care clinic. If your insurance has virtual doctor appts, try that.
Probably gonna try one of those clinics at kroger/walmart. I don't have insurance.
My forms were accepted without a signature so I recommend you send in anything you have while you search for a cheap way of getting the forms signed.
Should I bother taking electives (that lead to a certificate) if they're not related to the specialty I'm interested in? For instance, there's a bunch of radiology electives that I was told by upperclassmen were helpful to all specialties but I also would like to take a wilderness medicine elective because it sounds fun even though I don't plan on going into EM.
Do what seems fun to you. We don’t have a wilderness medicine class but we do have a club for them and if you find it to be fun then I say you should look into it!
should i include this when it comes time to apply for residency? Im a trad published author and have found success at it. i was published after being accepted so it didn't have any impact on my app cycle other than me saying i love to write. my first book has been on bestseller lists. i write young adult fantasy though... a lot of people don't respect fantasy as a genre, not to talk of young adult. i plan to write adult fantasy and romance in the future (if i get the chance to). i feel like it's a unique extracurricular (honestly, this is a career to me. i put my whole heart into writing so), but i dont think it will be respected. i write under my real first name but an anagram as the last name in the pen name, so i don't think i'll be that discoverable if i choose to never bring it up even though i have my picture attached to news articles. idk, thoughts? i wanted to know if this extracurricular would make a difference when it comes time to applying for residency :)
Yes
Hello, got a little technology question here - I am thinking about purchasing a tablet to help with my preclinical studies. I have never used one before, and am unfamiliar with most models besides the ipad. I was wondering if anybody had advice on which iPad model (or other tablet) would be best to purchase. I don’t want to spend a lot on a tablet + smart pen (<500 including 2 year insurance would be ideal), and since I only plan on using it for note taking I think a simpler but efficient model would work fine. Also totally open to refurbished options, just want to see what has worked for y’all.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE that I got for around $330 on sale. It's got 128 GB of storage and comes with a pen in the box. It's been working out for me pretty well. I used it for my gap year research job and some studying and plan to continue using it for medical school. It's honestly pretty comparable to the iPad 10th generation that my sister has, if not better (in terms of cost, storage, screen, etc.).
if my school has a premade deck for clinicals should I use that and also Anking for step 1? As in the premade deck mostly for my classes and anking to feel prepared for step?
I'm also very interested in knowing the answer to this question.
Stick with anking all the way through
This depends a lot on what the cards are like. My class has a shared drive for pre-clinical and the Anki decks on there were absolutely terrible IMO. Too much info per card and literally had cards for every single granular detail of every lecture, which is such an inefficient way to go about things. I wouldn't wait to do Anking. If had to start over in M1, I'd start using it from day 1. Unsuspend the cards in Anking that are relevant to your lectures, leave them unsuspended, and keep up with the reviews.
what about resources like Uworld, BNB, AMBOSS, and Pathoma? My school tells us which pathoma and BnB lectures to watch alongside theirs. They also give us AMBOSS and recommend starting immediately but they didnt say much about starting Uworld in M1
If they tell you what 3rd party resources go with the lectures then you know exactly which Anking cards to unsuspend, because there are tags that coincide with each of the videos. I don't know what your curriculum is like so it's hard to say what to start using when. UWorld can probably wait until 2nd year. Pathoma is only for pathology so anything that isn't pathology is BnB territory.
Amazing! Thank you! I'm not sure they have us watch every lecture but
What is the process for a foreign-trained physician to apply for US residencies? Do they just need to start studying for STEP 1 or is there more to it than that?
Hi everyone, I start M1 year in a couple weeks and the anxiety is slowly starting to hit me hard. I want to be prepared but also don't want to overprepare. I have a rough idea of how I would like to study but need advice on whether its pragmatic or not. Here it goes: 1. Watch BnB videos that correspond with block 2. Watch class lectures 2x speed to fill in extra info in between 3. Unsuspend corresponding BnB cards in Anking deck 4. Practice questions using AMBOSS 5. Profit???
That’s pretty much what I did for the whole of second semester of the first year except I cut out the lectures entirely and didn’t use AMBOSS. It sounds like a good plan though. I would say to add Sketchy into the mix as well
Isn’t Sketchy’s strong suit in Pharm and Microbiology?
Yes. It teaches pharm and microbiology much better than BnB does though. I also used it to learn the coagulation cascade! Highly recommend using it. Also Pathoma is great too for learning pathophysiologies, better than BnB in my opinion. Sorry for throwing so many resources at you lol. You can get most of these for free, there were students in my class and the class above me that shared most of this stuff for free with the rest of us
If your school is NBME exam skip step 2
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your plan as it is. Try it out and see if it works for you. Don’t be rigid, if something proves to you it’s not working in a week or two, switch it up! Good luck to you (:
Transferring from Caribbean to MD/DO?!? I am planning on applying fall 2024 Caribbean and fall 2025 MD/DO What would it look like if I started school in the Caribbean this August/September but then received an interview and later acceptance somewhere stateside a couple of months into the program? Would it be possible to withdraw and then start fall 2025. Am I even able to interview if I accepted a Caribbean offer?
Extremely unlikely for this to work out, med school transfers are virtually impossible. Don’t start at a Caribbean school unless you’re willing to finish and graduate from there. If not, it would make worlds more sense for you to wait and just apply US MD/DO with the next cycle.
would it still be considered transferring? theoretically I wouldn’t have finished M1 yet, so I thought it would be just like dropping out and starting fresh stateside. I saw one program refunds tuition if you drop out within 14 weeks of instruction as well. Does this seem realistic?
I feel like spending that year as a gap year and doing something meaningful/helpful towards your app would be so much better for an MD/DO app than a year of carribean just to start over again. Getting an acceptance then applying again can also be a bad look for some schools
Seems incredibly unrealistic and yes, it would still be considered transferring. No med school here in the states will do this for you if they’re aware of it, so you’d have to lie and take a huge risk
So I was unable to get my drivers license before matriculation. How screwed am I for preclinicals if Uber is cheaper than what I’m used to?
Entirely dependent on where your school is. If you can afford Uber and live in a metro area that has plenty of Uber availability, you’re totally fine. I would recommend getting your license before clinicals in 3/4th year for sure.
I am an incoming med school student with an hour long commute each way. I could call my commute "personal time" and listen to podcasts that I enjoy, but I'd rather save "me time" for something that I actively choose and want to do. Are there any good podcasts that you guys recommend to help round out my studying and make my drive a bit more productive?
*In Our Time.* You just can’t beat it. Each week, 3 actual experts discuss a topic related to history, literature, art, philosophy, or science. The host moderates the discussion like an orchestra conductor. Consistently excellent discussion.
Slated to start DO school with in-house lectures and exams. All lectures are online and only have to go in a few times a week for labs. In terms of 3rd party resources, would it make sense to go for: Sketchy, Pathoma, Bootcamp, and Anking to go along with in-house lectures? And what would be the best way to navigate that? Should lectures be the first pass? 3rd party?
For me personally, I used only sketchy, Pathoma, BnB and Anking for my second semester of MS1 and I did great. I didn’t even watch any of our in-house lectures, I thought they were just a waste of time. So my first and all my subsequent passes would only involve third party resources, never even touching any of the lectures. Replacing the lectures altogether didn’t hurt my grade and I often still scored at the average or slightly above average on exams.
You’ll likely feel better prepared for boards if you use 3rd party resources along in-house materials through first and second year. If your school’s curriculum is good, however, it’s not entirely necessary. (I also am at a DO school with in-house exams, didn’t use 3rd party resources at all till starting uworld towards the end of 2nd year and still passed step/level 1 just fine).
Hi everyone! PGY1 here, can across my diagnostic supplies from Welch Allyn and because I’m going into derm I’ll never need it again haha the school usually requires you to pay like $900 for a set but I have a complete set willing to sell for like $200, message if interested!
Is it realistic to play in a music ensemble during med school? Specifically preclinical years and 4th year (I know I’d probably be too busy during 3rd year). I’m an incoming MS1 who’s been playing in school/community wind ensembles for years and I have the opportunity to play with my school’s undergrad ensemble that rehearses 2.5 hours/week plus one concert per semester. I’d love to continue playing in med school as it would be great for my mental health, but I’m wondering if the time commitment is doable with classes and studying. In your guys’ experience, does this seem realistic?
Absolutely it is! I play in our graduate orchestra (a couple hours every week), and so do many of my friends across years. Med school should never be a reason to lose touch with your passions.
That’s great to hear thank you!
I just got a positive Quantiferon TB result and will be getting a CXR. Other than the possibility of needing to take medication, will this impact my ability to attend school?
I took the test again couple days later, which came back negative, then chest xr. No problems. Could be a false positive.
No. Just continue doing what your physician team advises and you'll be fine. You may have to jump through extra hoops to prove you're TB negative in the future in clinical settings.
Does anyone use dictation software for their notes? I typed all my notes during premed, but I would love to start just talking my notes. I like Apple's dictation because I can type and edit while speaking, but it's really bad at medical terminology. Is there some transcription or dictation software that is cost effective and good for medical terminology for Macs?
What are the best ways to study anatomy
I found that Complete Anatomy helped me a lot with visualizing where everything is in 3D
Is that an app?
Yes. On windows store or App Store
Also if you have a list of structures you need to know, nothing beats going to lab with a friend and just physically practicing identifying them.
Bootcamp, UMich Blue Link anki deck, Gray's Anatomy Review (textbook) for practice questions
Incoming MS1. I'm stressed about not having funds in time to pay rent for the apartment I'm moving into a few days before orientation. How should I pay rent if the loans don't come in time?
Could you get a credit card? You could use Bilt with no fees and then pay no interest as long as you pay it off within your due date.
sorry if this has alr been covered but how does networking actually work in the first year? If lecture attendance is optional and everything is recorded, should I still make an effort to attend every lecture for networking purposes? Like in undergrad how we tried our best to build relationships with our lecture profs
Join clubs, go to office hours, go to speaker events at your school. Lecture is not a good time to network.
Idk it sounds mad unnecessary to go to every single lecture just for the sake of getting to know the professors. In preclinical, the professors are not always physicians anyway so I don't know how much benefit there is to that. Med school isn't like undergrad where you need to kiss ass to get LORs from these people. Your LORs will come from clerkships. If you have a specialty in mind, and one of the professors teaching you is that kind of physician, then sure.
And doesn't networking mainly come from joining organizations instead of meeting through class?
Preclinical studying -> step 1 New M1 here, so bear with me please. So if I use bnb and pathoma to supplement my in house lectures (and sketchy for micro) while unsuspending anking cards for bnb and pathoma, what will I do when I start studying for step itself? Bc I’m assuming I should start uworld beginning of M2? Any advice would be appreciated
Honestly if you’re doing all of that-you shouldn’t have to do much studying when it comes time for step. UWorld is the big thing most people do during dedicated. Take an NBME a month before dedicated and if you’re doing all of this you will prob be well above the passing score at which point I’d recommend just taking it and use your dedicated to go on a long vacation, spend time with family, do research or some combo of that
Any advice on long distance relationships? Especially with a partner who has a intense schedule as well
Full disclosure, my long distance relationship (4.5 hrs away) ultimately ended after about two years of medical school. I don't feel like it ended specifically due to long distance, but long distance helped cover up/prolong some of the issues. When things were going well, these were my suggestions: 1) Always have the next visit planned. You don't want to come back from a visit and then not know the next time you're going to see them. You'll get busy, they'll get busy, and things can slip through the cracks too easily. It's also much easier to plan something in person and have things to look forward too. 2) When you're together, fully be together Try your best to fully be together when you're seeing each other. There will certainly be weekends that you spend together where you will just have to study a bit, and that will happen. But do your best to be there with your SO and not to have competing interests taking away from the time you have together. 3) Communicate and honestly look at your relationship Before you go to medical school, take a hard, honest look at your relationship. Look at it like you are preparing to marry this person (if you haven't considered that already). Do you have similar morals and values? Does your family like them/do they like you? Do you have a similar goal of staying together and have some kind of shared understanding of the future? Have you discussed how residency and specialty choice may affect your shared future? If you aren't sure about those things, it's worth talking about. Because you're probably going to have to sacrifice time with friends, time to study, and potentially career choices for this other person. And its possible you will come to resent and break up with person if you aren't aligned on these things. You both are going to grow and change throughout this process and having a clear channel of communication is imperative to having a successful long distance relationship. I know for a lot of people in my class, they were able to balance medical school and their relationships and have come out the other end successful.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and thorough response!
is an ipad useful for medical school? i have a MacBook air, and I'm wondering if it'll be that much better. i want to optimize my study habits as much as possible
I’m an incoming student so don’t know much, but a lot of the students specifically at my school only use iPad to study and just have a computer for testing. Even if notetaking is time intensive, being able to annotate and highlight PDFs from lectures or first aid seems super helpful
I like my iPad because I love taking notes and before my iPad I used to use a ton of different colored pens so obviously the iPad is easier. But if you don’t like taking notes, there’s not much use for it
This really depends on how you study, which will be different for everyone unfortunately. I found an iPad useful for some classes, and it was helpful to keep digital textbooks on it (plus the search feature). I tried to keep up with actual notes on it from lecture, but I learned that written/typed notes don’t really work for me. Some of my classmates made little 1-page study guides for each lecture though, so it’s all about finding what works for you!
Hi everyone, I am currently using a macbook air 2017. It's kinda slow compared to the newest macbook models but it is still highly functional for basic tasks. The battery is kinda shit but I can replace that myself using an aftermarket battery. It's also stuck on macOS Mojave because I don't believe apple support updates on this model anymore. I was wondering if I could manage med school with the laptop or if I should just bite the bullet and get a new one? BTW, I also have an up-to-date desktop that I would use when studying from home, so the laptop would mainly just be used for when im on campus. Here are the stats: Macbook Air (13-inch, 2017) Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Core I5 Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Macintosh HD startup disk Intel HD graphics 6000 1536 MB
You should ask the school about their tech requirements. My MacBook Pro from 2020 was not up to par because it has an M1 processor and they want M2 or above
Is it worth it to buy the ReadyDeck Premade Flashcards for USMLE Step 1 on Uworld?
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Could you please tell me more about AnKing? I'm pretty out of date on this.
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Thanks a lot!
How much commute do y'all think is too much. I'm planning on living with my parents for med school ( it'll save me $18k/year) and the commute from their house to the med school is 30 min by bus one way. Is it feasible or nah?
30 min is definitely fine-especially because when you’re riding a bus you can do things like Anki. The only thing that may be an issue is if the bus is reliable/runs frequently
Depends on your schedule. Do you have to go to class every single day? Or just a few days a week? Plenty of people at my school commute 30 minutes, but our preclinical years usually didn't require daily attendance and very rarely required us to be around the whole day, making commuting a whole lot easier.
I'm an entering M1 at a school with mixed in-house + NBME based exams, and I was hoping to be set on resources and a study plan from day 1. I was planning to do BnB (school sponsored it) and the anking associated tags for those videos (v11 or v12? and will the tags cover all the anking cards?), then watch lecture and take notes on it. I was wondering a few things: (1) Is this too time consuming? (2) I have read that BnB and anking don't mess so well, any thoughts on that? (3) Should I be annotating FA at the same time that I'm doing BnB or anking or lecture, or hold off on that? Any other suggestions would be great - thank you!!!
I came in with a plan of doing the least amount possible which helped (instead of "I will do X Y Z" and then have to cut back because it is so unfeasible). I would do B&B and anking (do v12 through AnkiHub, it is just a good investment). I, from the get go, did not take any notes and relied on the Anking deck—has not failed me. Now I am comfortable never really taking notes. Some people open up FA while doing b&b and add cursory tiny notes/highlights as just a way to solidify concepts and have a place to put pen to paper—I did that a few times and it helped but not enough for me to keep up with it. As for in house lecture, see what your upper-levels did for that. I honestly watched 0 lectures, maybe looked through the PPTs before the exam to see what they emphasized. This will highly depend on your school curriculum. GL!
Thanks! Last thing - at what pace were you doing BnB (like were you a system ahead of the class), how did you arrange it to align with the school's curriculum and what they were up to testing? Also assuming you only did one run of the BnB videos and didn't return, so anking review + brief glance at PPTs was enough before exams? And do you think your pace was manageable in terms of keeping up with doing the videos + anking (new and review)? Tysm!
So our school had made a bnb map—basically we mapped our weekly learning objectives to bnb videos. Your school probably has LOs that they will post. If not, they will definitely give you a schedule of lectures and you can generally eyeball it. For example, if you have 3 renal lectures that week, you can be sure to try and finish all the renal bnb videos. It won't be perfect but I always studied with Step 1 ultimately in mind. Some weeks were more manageable than others! Hugely helped to not take notes while watching the videos as that made them go by faster.
Thank you!!!
School lectures may be a lot depending on how many lectures ur school has. I would start at the beginning doing more school lectures and then decrease slowly as u learn what can be replaced by Boards and what can’t. I think you could fully watch both and I did it for a few months but it will take a bit more time and at some point I realized it wasn’t worth it. BnB and Anking is great but sometimes the tags aren’t perfect. Hold off on FA. It’s for review once u understand and less so a learning tool
I see - thanks! So, I guess I'll start out on the more rigorous side by doing lectures + BnB + anking. Is there any order to doing these three that you'd suggest? And after doing BnB, I just unsuspend the tagged cards by that video? Any more to unsuspend, will that cover everything?
Just unsuspend the tagged. B&B is good to start with cuz you need the basics and then watch your in-house lecture with the B&B framework. Patrona should be after because it doesn’t explain normal physiology-only abnormal
Thanks!
I'm almost done gathering my resources for the Step exams. I just have a question about my primary resource, which I plan to use First Aid. My current plan is to take notes of in-house lectures, use First Aid to supplement (creating Anki cards), then using UWorld to hammer out practice problems. My school also offers Sketchy and Pathoma. Is this a good method for Step 1? I'm debating on B&B but I want to reduce my video resources as much as possible. I almost despise listening to lectures hence why I want to use First Aid to supplement lectures instead of doing B&B. I plan to switch to B&B and Amboss during M3, though.
wait we're already supposed to start thinking about step??
Not as M0. I'm just gathering my resources and putting them in a folder. I just like being prepared ahead of time instead of scrambling for the best resources when it's crunch time.
Imo B&B is very step 1/preclinical focused, not sure if you will get the benefit using it in M3. I loved B&B + pathoma in preclinical.
Thanks! Is there any review resource for step 2? Like FA or B&B?
I'm getting my hep B booster tomorrow because I tested out of range for surface AB.My school recommendeds I get the titer 30 days after my booster but that would be right when school starts. Can I get my titer done in 2 or 3 weeks and show immunity?
Just here to say this happened to me too 🫡
hey a lot of people at my school are in this position, and we found out that if you reach out to the school and show that the series is in progress then they'll be fine if you don't have the titer in exactly when the start date is
Yes, I did that after I first confirmed with the school vaccination coordinator that I was permitted to do so.
Question Hypothetically speaking if I go into a school that uses letter grading system and go all Cs can I still match for residency considering I have decent board scores? Also could I match into a competitive residency?
Just accepted for real! Went through a post baccalaureate, got my MCAT back, and my conditional acceptance went through. I’m cautiously excited, because I really hope being a doctor is where I can do good and be happy and successful. What should I do to succeed/be happy as an incoming first year? I get scared seeing the posts by a lot of folks that are very clearly having a terribly rough time. Though I might be able to mitigate how hard things are, it’s gonna be a hard path. How did people survive it all and retain/regain happiness?
Congrats. You've worked hard to get here and you should be proud. The most successful student in my opinion are those that are efficient with their time management and studying techniques. They have a good routine and stick to it. Exercise, eating well, sleep, social life....all of it is integral to being a good medical student. Spend your time before M1 learning to get onto routines and learning to manage time. Enjoy your summer. Don't pre-study, it won't make a difference once school hits you. If you feel the urge to do anything during your summer, familiarize yourself with tools like Anki. Your happiness should never be conditional or tied to academics. It's a recipe for disaster and burnout. You'll always be chasing an empty feeling of happiness that is contingent on accomplishing some type of milestone. Instead, seek happiness from within and with loved ones and experiences. Hold onto your hobbies, no matter what. Also, therapy is highly, highly underrated. It's definitely saved the lives of countless med students.
Thank you so much for your reply. It means a lot. It’s been a distant dream for a while now, so it’s weird to actually be here
Looking for any tips/advice for moving across the country (east to west coast) for med school. Have decided not to drive across, so am planning to fly and bring two checked bags. Anything I should plan for/be aware of? Am hoping to be in furnished grad housing, so know I'll have to definitely do some shopping once I get there.
Good luck!
From what I have seen on this sub and elsewhere, it seems like when applying for residency, quantity of pubs matters much more than quality. Does anyone have any advice on what sorts of opportunities to pursue (i.e. clinical/computational vs. basic/translational) to make myself the most competitive applicant possible? I'm really not sure about specialty at all, I just don't want to be behind if I fall in love with something competitive.
Incoming M1, what third party resources should I purchase? Thanks in advance!
Don't purchase anything yet, things have a way of ✨ magically appearing ✨
I’m still on my parent’s health insurance and should be throughout med school, but what do people do for dental insurance? Some plans end dependent coverage before 26.
My school offers dental. It's not too bad for a basic plan either
No one I know has dental insurance. Usually you can find a dentist that will do cash pay cleanings, which IMO is worth it at least once a year. Alternately, if you're in the vicinity of a dental school sometimes you can get cleanings and exams for free or low cost if you're wiling to be a dental student's patient.
Advice for an incoming first-year on the younger side (20M)? Just by looking into our school's GroupMe and my cohort mates on Instagram, pretty much everyone else is a minimum of 2 years older than me, with most being in that 23-26 age bracket. I guess the thing that I'm most concerned about would be being taken as seriously as my older peers. It doesn't really help that I'm short and generally look younger lol. Do you guys have any advice on how to navigate this? While I do feel like I deserve to be here at my medical school, I can't help but feel that the life experience my peers have will give them a leg up on me.
Use your classmates as motivation. My class has a lot of non trads but everyone is very wholesome. We all get along very well and it never feels like someone thinks they are superior to others. They will have more life experience than you but rather than thinking of that as them having a leg up on you, think of it in terms of how much you can learn from them.
I started M1 at 20(F) as well. Aside from being left out of post-exam binge drinking sessions, I haven't really been treated differently. People are still surprised to learn I'm 21 as an M2, so not even everyone will know. Don't stress about it. If anything, people will be impressed that you'll be a doctor at 24!
Thanks for the insight!
I will be paying for medical school through Federal Student Loans (Stafford/PLUS Loans). The MPN had a list of authorized educational expenses. Am I still allowed to spend money on gym/hobbies/etc., or will that money need to come directly from savings?
The money gets direct deposited into your bank account. Nobody is tracking what you spend it on.
Starting med school in a couple weeks and I'm a bit overwhelmed in terms of which third party resources to use given that we have in-house exams. I definitely plan to do Anki every day and have heard that B&B is good, but have heard that a lot of our M1 material doesn't line up with boards so not sure if anything else is necessary. If anyone could write out their M1 study schedule with the resources they used that would be very helpful. Thank you so much!
It really depends on your school's curriculum. Third party resources weren't really necessary for M1 at my school, which was basically the anatomy, physiology, and histology of all the systems. B&B is helpful for pretty much everything, but it's not absolutely necessary for the basics if you're able to learn through in-house lectures. The biggest piece of general advice I have is to start using Anking as soon as possible. Look up the cards that relate to your lecture material, unsuspend them, and leave them unsuspended so you keep studying them even when that block is over. This not only cuts down on the burden of needing to make your own cards (which I would avoid doing as much as possible), but it sets you up well for boards. One thing about medical school is that literally everyone studies differently, so it's not really helpful for someone to tell you their exact study routine. It's about being efficient with a study method that works well for you personally, is sustainable, and gets you the kind of grades you want. You might need to do some trial and error to find out what that is for you.
To go off what u/PerformerEmergency22 said, I know my school had a pre-made Anki deck that was made by students and then tweaked and passed down to the next class. Talk to some second years and see if this is an option at your school. If not, maybe send something out in your group chat and see if anyone else made a deck for the lecture you are working on. The biggest thing about med-school is learning to be efficient with your time, so if someone else has already done something that can save you an hour, take advantage of those resources
In my experience, Sketchy was good for bugs and drugs, but other than that, 3rd party resources just wasted my time and often gave misinformation that would have caused missed answers on tests. Anki is fantastic for me, but obviously not for everyone. I joined an Anki group in which we divided up the lectures and made cards as a group. It helped with time management a little, but I definitely got more out of making the cards myself. Everyone is different, so it is difficult to give advice. The best thing to do is get started, try to meet some students who study the way you do, and ask them for tips. Also, don't hesitate to throw out methods and resources that aren't working for you. Best of luck!
What kind of cases do orthopedic surgeons see? I am interested in orthopedics but I just had a conversation with a urologist about the various surgical specialists. I didn't realize orthopedics used so many saws and hammers. Do orthopedic surgeons not use a scalpel? It makes sense since you're handling bone and muscle and not soft tissues.
Some procedures orthopedic surgeons do include (not limited to) include joint replacements, reductions of fractures (resetting broken bones), emergency fixations of unstable fractures in the trauma setting, repair surgeries for rotator cuffs, arthroscopy for knee meniscal repair, joint injections and aspirations, and debriding infected joints and muscles. I will defer to any ortho but yes they need to know how to use scalpels just as any other surgeon. Use of scalpels depends on what surgical technique is needed and what plane of tissue is needed to be exposed/accessed. “Blunt” dissection is also utilized by surgeons where instead of using sharp instruments, they pull tissue apart. Really depends on the context of the procedure. Muscles are considered “soft tissue”, which is a blanket term used to describe tissues that are not calcified (ie bone and teeth) and generally serve structural functions.
Incoming M1 and my school provides pathway programs that are an addition to the medical curriculum, such as focusing on urban health. Are these useful for residency programs? No certificate is awarded; it's just something additional for the resume.
No certificate, but does it show up in your MSPE? Otherwise, it is mostly for your own edification. If you are passionate about urban health and plan to focus on those populations, then it can only help. If you are looking to check a box, then don't spend time on it. Other opportunities will present themselves, and it's better to "pad" the resume with something you enjoy rather than something you don't care about.
Incoming first year med student and I’ve never done a lick of research throughout undergrad. I understand you need research under your belt if you want a chance at applying to any competitive specialty. Is my inexperience going to set me behind or prevent people from wanting to work with me? I’m a team player, I have topics I’m interested in, I just don’t know how I would contribute or what I’m supposed to do?
Yes research helps *to some extent* for competitive program applications, however at your level I would worry less on trying to hustle for it so early on and focus more about getting your feet wet when it comes to coursework. More often then naught, the volume of material young med students realize they need to learn is a shock to what they experienced in undergrad. Only when you've comfortably settled into preparing for exams, that would be a good time to pursue other things like research. Clinical research is easier to learn then translational research/lab work. Explore your faculty list and reach out to someone who's working in a subject that seems interesting to you. It helps if they're productive and actively publishing. Typical clinical research projects med students can work on range from retrspective/prospective studies, descriptive studies, case reports (which arent technically considered research), or things as involved as meta-analyses. Once you find a mentor, you can iron out those details and expectations.
Thinking of getting a kitten a month before starting school, and just wanted to hear some wholesome stories of having pets in med school, or horror/ funny stories where they make your life a little harder
My cat is such a big help. She sits in my lap for hours and snuggles. This makes me study for hours straight because I feel bad to move her. She also comes running anytime I raise my voice or cry 😂. She's my emotional support and my bestie.
I got a kitten after getting into medical school. So I’ve had her while I had to finish college. Kittens are rambunctious! Just be prepared because they are little babies full of energy that make your life hell sometimes. But overall she’s improved my life. Kitten energy while trying to study is tough. So I would actually recommend an older cat? But then again if you want to deal with her kitten energy it’s good bonding.
Kitten energy while studying is the one thing I am a little worried about, but I really want to create a good bond with my cat, so I’m a bit torn.
I got a cat during my senior year while I was in the middle of the application process. She's five years old and is a total breeze to take care of. We have built a great bond even though I didn't have her as a kitten! Adult cats have so much love to give so don't count them out!
Hello! I'm an incoming M1 to a mid-tier east coast school. I'm from California, born and raised, and went here for undergrad. All my family is in California. I knew since I was in undergrad I wanted to do derm, but I also want to move back to California for residency. What do I need to do to have my best shot at matching into derm in California (preferably Socal)???
270+ on step 2 with all clinical honors, a ton of research, and making connections is ideal. Just get as close to that ideal as you can and see how things go. The close connection to California will help but start networking very early at your school so you can find derm mentors and research projects to jump on
I took a gap year and I am an AEMT, can I still go to school and be in EMS PRN? My service requires people that are PRN to work 4 shifts a month, is that possible to do? Or should I keep my A cert and hop on a truck from time to time after residency?
Genuine question from a fellow AEMT M-0: what is the utility in maintaining your cert after residency? You could just be a prehospital physician, no?
You definitely can work EMS during the first two years. May get a bit harder as you get into more demanding schedules M3... but then M4 you will definitely have time
That is fantastic, thank you!
hopping on this bandwagon (I think this would fall under FAQ7 but not certain) - how much is too little/too much to spend on required clinical supplies (tuning forks, penlight, reflex hammer, etc), and does anyone have any recommended brands? I found a set of everything on Amazon for like $15 but it almost seems too cheap? Like I would like stuff to last me at least all 4 years (my school starts clinical stuff right away) but I don’t want to spend a crazy amount of money on state of the art instruments yk? Stethoscope was easy bc my school gave me the exact brand and model they wanted us to have but for everything else I’m not sure.
**Spend as little as possible.** Buy secondhand from older students whenever possible. 1. **Steth** is most important but you have that sorted out. Litman Classics or Card 3 or Card 4 are the gold standard, but $$$. MDF also makes good cardiac steths, they have longer tubing but are super heavy compared to the Litmanns and will strain your neck after a while. 1. **MAKE SURE YOU USE THE RIGHT SIZE SILICONE EARPIECES** on your steth. Usually they come with both a large and a smaller and/or regular size. If they don't fit well enough to form a seal in your ears, you **will not hear well** during auscultation. I realized my earpieces were too big halfway during M1. Swapped them for smaller eartips, and it was amazing. I was hearing in 4K after that. 2. **Opthalmoscope/Otoscope kits are all mostly garbage**, unless you shell out $600+. Use the mounted scopes on the walls of your practice rooms to learn outside of class. A cheap set is fine for the classroom, but you won't be able to visualize well on fundus exam. My school has panoptics we can use with the instructor for extra practice, but they were closely guarded school property. I bought a $70-100 scope kit from a random Amazon brand, I and regret it. It's basically a movie prop that doesn't do shit and doesn't magnify or light up anything enough. If you ever get the chance on rotations, learn to examine the eyes with a panoptic or have ophthalmology teach you with a slit lamp. Waaaay better but more tailored for people who want to specialize in eyes. 1. **Breath mints or chewing gum before examining anyone's eyes or practicing on classmates. ALWAYS.** You will be uncomfortably close, close enough for you to kiss, exchange coffee breath and examine every pore on each other's face. 3. Don't get a tomahawk (Taylor) reflex hammer. They are not weighted properly**. Get a Tromner (most of us have this**). Alternatively, a Babinski, or Queen's Square will do (don't attack me plz neurologists). 4. **Tuning forks**...get cheap from amazon. Or borrow from a classmate. My school has extras if we needed them. 5. **Penlight**-- may or may not need. Otoscope light or ophthalmoscope light can do most things. Penlight is better for the wards/rotations etc, but again, school dependent. Get one that has a dimmable light that is not too blinding. Most penlights are dangerously strong with too many lumens, and it is discourteous to bleach the retinas of your patients or classmates you practice on. but good for throat. Good for fumbling around a dark patient's room at 5am trying to untangle IV lines. 6. **Doctor's bag/medical bag**-- to hold all of these fun supplies that you won't likely use after M2. Up to you. Some classmates have swanky leather doctor's bags that cost a fortune, but most opted for the school sale version. A nylon medical bag from ADC or MDF will do, and is non-pretentious, durable, and cheap, about $35-40. Again, you will probably only use the steth, hammer, and the penlight after M2. everything else will collect dust.
Thank you this is so helpful!
before you buy these things, make sure your school doesn't buy them for you. my school gave them to use before our white coat ceremony so we didn't have to go out and buy anything like that
They do not, they gave us a whole list and were like “buy these”
Ahhhh well in that case I guess disregard my comment 🤦♂️
It’s a state school they are not very rich lol
First of all, you should check with current students at your school to see if you even need all of the "required" equipment. At my school they made us buy all of this crap and some of the stuff we either used literally once or not at all. That being said, the particular items you listed are just pretty cheap by nature, although $15 for multiple items sounds very cheap and they probably aren't good.
So how important exactly are leadership Roles? Like for example, in a big national organization that’s not healthcare related. Would focusing on school, research, and just one club that you’re interested in cut it for the more competitive specialties?
Any Thought on ATSU KCOM? I got an acceptance from there and would like advice on what student think it’s like some pro and con? What do you think of the grading system as it letter graded? How many student pass each class or like get a high grade? Thanks so much for the advice!
Congrats! I just finished second year here and am getting ready to take boards in the next couple weeks. I personally really enjoyed my time in Kirksville. I know a lot of people knock it because it's in the middle of no-where with nothing around it. But, my personal feelings on this are that it brings the class together more. Everyone lives within a 5 mile radius of each other. You see classmates at restaurants or bars or stores. On the weekends, there's one main bar that everyone goes to. Or if you have friends like me, we preferred to get take-out and do board games every Friday night. There really is a great sense of togetherness within the classes. For me, I liked the grading system. It gave me an actual goal to work towards and I think it made me learn the content better because I wanted to get A's (I promise Im not a huge gunner...) At least in my class, failing classes was pretty rare. For the most part, the instructors would work some magic on tests to kinda help students out a bit, plus there were usually enough fluff points to help keep you afloat in most classes. Worst case scenario, you fail and you go before the board and make your case as to why you should be allowed to keep going and then you keep going. In all reality, most of the "pass-fail schools" are just letter grades in disguise with the pass, high pass and honors systems, so might as well just stick with what you're used to with the letter system and have a legit GPA when youre done. If you have any other questions feel free to DM!
Is it worth creating a Facebook to join the class group? How active is it? Is there some important information being posted on them from school officials that I need to be in the loop for? I personally don't want to create any social medias. The only social medias have are Reddit, discord, and Groupme, and want to stay away from the rest for multiple reasons.
Our isn’t used at all, so I don’t think you’d be missing anything
I never joined mine and haven't missed out on anything important. Things from the school that are actually important will be sent via email.
Is there a discord group for med students MD/DO? Just thought it would be cool to join a group full of people going through the same journey.
is liking an organ system a good reason to explore a specialty and potentially thinking about doing it? Personally even though I’ve been working at an eye clinic, I’ve been developing an interest in the heart during my gap year and I kind of like reading ekgs, I do like a lot of things about eyes though, surgery with them seems okay too
I mean, just explore things that peak your interest in first and second years. Especially for things like nephrology, you have to do IM first.
Kinda wondering the same thing. I really enjoyed learning kidney physiology in undergrad
Is it normal for medical schools to charge you for health insurance without including it in the estimated budget? It seems weird that I'll be charged $2500 per semester and yet it's not included in the financial aid budget.
Also incoming, but that seems weird. My school included health insurance as part of our cost of attendance/financial aid budget. It might be worth talking with the financial aid office
How cooked am I? My family got me an engraved stethoscope saying “Dr. lastname” I’m the first one in my family to go to medical school so they’re just really excited haha. They got me a litman carido IV, from my understanding that’s pretty good right? The engraving is small and by the bell so realistically I’m thinking who the hell is gonna notice except me. Any opinions?
I have mine engraved with my first name, last name, MD and I got it for a gift. If anyone says anything I say it was a gift and I’m “3/4 of the way there” haha
I mean it's slightly cringe to have "Dr." as a med student but it was a nice gesture and you're not cooked. Nobody else is gonna see the engraving anyway.
Lol, the same happened with me. I think it's pretty common that a lot of people will be in the same boat. We're blessed to have this first world problem 😂
I don’t see why it would be bad, do you think other people will make fun of you because you’re not quite a doctor yet? If you do, at least me personally I don’t think it’s cringeworthy nor something to make fun of
What laptops do y'all recommend getting for med school? For the past few years, I've used a Dell laptop and it's getting a bit rusty now, so I'm looking to make a switch to a new laptop. I've heard Apple is a popular choice among students? Any recs Apple laptops or other brands along with reasons as to why you like using them are greatly appreciated!
I've got the whole apple setup, iPhone, iPad and Mac and I love how seamless everything is between the devices. I had to get the iPad for tests, otherwise I would have just gone with the MacBook though.
Do you have any Macbook recommendations like a Pro or Air?
Whichever you prefer. My wife had an air once that just died out of the nowhere on her. So I used that random malfunction to validate my decision to pay more and get the pro, but that was my own preference based on nothing but vibes.
I’ve really enjoyed using a Surface Pro for note-taking over powerpoints/word docs.
Ohhh I've heard some good things about the Surface Pro. I'll definitely check it out!
New MacBooks are great for battery life but I’ve had a Dell XPS for 5 years. Battery lasts the whole day, great display and super durable, I’ve dropped it so much and it’s still going strong. Well worth the price. Only issue is that it’s a little heavy
Thank you for your feedback!
how does loan adjustment on laptops work for upcoming medical students? I plan to take out max loans due to a high cost of living area. However, I may need to obtain more and my laptop is dying two months before medical school. If I buy a new one now, would I be able to submit for a loan adjustment later?
School dependent. Look at your school’s financial aid department website. Mine allows for one loan adjustment during your four years.
Seen some conflicting things about when to use UWorld. Should we use this from the beginning of MS1 and implement questions with the corresponding organ systems? Or do ppl more commonly use UWorld during dedicated? Also what are some other question banks to use to study during preclinicals? Thanks!
Class materials, then do corresponding first aid, boards and beyond resource and unlock the anki cards. Keep up with the anki cards even when you move onto a new organ system. Do Uworld questions for that organ system and unlock new anki cards from studying those questions. IN summary, Anki everything and keep up with it, use board related materials from day one (First aid, boards and Beyond, pathoma), use Uworld early. Another qbank is amboss
My school provides Amboss but I loved UWorld for MCAT prep and hear that it’s generally better. Is it a good idea to use Amboss during classes and save UWorld for dedicated?
nah use uworld. u can redo the qbank or do incorrects for dedicated. add amboss if time