How To Study In Med School

[medici]

I am struggling with studying in medical school for MS1. I find that I get all the symptoms and the details of different diseases confused. It's quite difficult trying to memorize all of the details. The information also seems very disorganized. Currently I use flash cards, I reason things out in my head and I rewrite notes in a more condensed form. This is very different from how I did it in undergrad, where I would have a lot more time to say, make questions, draw stuff, etc. I also feel like undergrad was a lot more on understanding where as med is a lot of memorizing (is my thinking wrong?). Does anyone got any tips on how I can study better?

[Arztin]

Dude I have the same feeling. I think it's normal to feel like you're confused.

Information is indeed extremely disorganized. 

 

Something I found useful is to read from a textbook important stuff. That favours retention. e.g. for asbestosis, I read in Harrisons. That helped me better seize the material vs just memorizing a disorganized list.

 

I stopped doing condensed notes most of the time, cuz that takes too much time. I only do them when a lecture is really disorganized, or so bad I just better read a chapter from a textbook and make condensed notes from it. Most of the time, I just print them out and modify it (cross bad stuff out, and annotate it).

 

As for memorization, I try to cram as much as I can without tryint to memorize everything.

I think you have to recognise that your brain has limits and you have to skip a lot of stuff confidently. It's impossible to retain everything.

 

Then again, I think it's normal that we struggle somewhat at the beginning.

[Dermaholoic]

I read everything and I write it down as I read it. 

 

If you're having problems, it may be because:

1) you're stressed

2) not enough sleep

3) you go to UofT 

 

 

 

 

not srs on point 3. 

[medaholic]

This is normal. No one really learns things well the first, second, fifth or even the tenth time... There's so much to learn in medicine that you cram and forget, and relearn and restudy, and eventually it sticks.

 

You're in first year. You don't even know what you don't know yet, so take baby steps and just focus on what's in front of you. Things do get better in your clinical years, when you see real patients with real diseases. The knowledge gets placed in the proper context and sticks better. 

 

Then you have residency afterwards, where the 60+ hour work, and seeing the same presentation over and over will help you finally learn some real medicine. Then the textbooks change and new evidence comes out and you have to relearn what you thought was right. 

 

It's a lifelong process. Don't sweat it. Just aim for gradual improvements day by day.

[Renoir]

This is normal. No one really learns things well the first, second, fifth or even the tenth time... There's so much to learn in medicine that you cram and forget, and relearn and restudy, and eventually it sticks.

 

Yep, echoing that, some of our colleagues have described it as like painting a house - try to get an ok coat the first time around, but don't worry, you're going to have to put a few more coats on again (related lectures throughout pre-clinical, clinicals, OSCE, standardized pts, LMCC study, specialty-specific residency stuff) before you're in practice.