Life balance

[rural_guy]

Hi all,

I'd like to ask a couple questions about the study/life balance in medical school at Mac:

1) On a day-to-day basis, do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of work and effort you have to put in in order to be the best student you can be? Do you ever get a feeling that no studying is ever enough to keep up, or on the contrary is it that if you maintain a consistent study routine, everything tends to work out fine?

2) If once every so often you have to take a day or two off during the week to attend to personal things (leave town to visit a sick relative, attend a funeral, a wedding, etc. etc.), does that have adverse consequences in that you fall behind as a result?

Thanks for sharing your insights.

[Edict]

On 10/21/2017 at 6:01 PM, rural_guy said:

Hi all,

I'd like to ask a couple questions about the study/life balance in medical school at Mac:

1) On a day-to-day basis, do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of work and effort you have to put in in order to be the best student you can be? Do you ever get a feeling that no studying is ever enough to keep up, or on the contrary is it that if you maintain a consistent study routine, everything tends to work out fine?

2) If once every so often you have to take a day or two off during the week to attend to personal things (leave town to visit a sick relative, attend a funeral, a wedding, etc. etc.), does that have adverse consequences in that you fall behind as a result?

Thanks for sharing your insights.

Not so much in pre-clerkship, but it can definitely get a bit more overwhelming in clerkship depending on if you are going for a competitive and busy specialty or not. 

[rural_guy]

I see. Thanks.

If you have to take a day off during the week (M-F) once every so often, is that feasible or does it have a major negative impact?

[cookacola]

1 hour ago, rural_guy said:

I see. Thanks.

If you have to take a day off during the week (M-F) once every so often, is that feasible or does it have a major negative impact?

Although I've only just started at Mac, I'd say you're fine to be taking a day off during the week (I know I don't tend to do much work on Fridays for example haha).  However, you still need to attend mandatory courses.

[Edict]

On 10/26/2017 at 0:11 PM, rural_guy said:

I see. Thanks.

If you have to take a day off during the week (M-F) once every so often, is that feasible or does it have a major negative impact?

It definitely works in pre-clerkship but for obvious reasons this doesn't work as well during clerkship. In clerkship your schedule varies by rotation, in general Internal Medicine (1 in 4 call, very busy on call overnight, 9 hrs a day, somewhat busy during the day) and Gen Surg (1 in 5-7 call, somewhat busy on call, 10 hrs a day, busy during the day and early starts) are the busiest followed by OB (call and schedule vary based on location), Emerg is not that busy just completely ruins your sleep schedule (8 hrs 4x/week at random times), Psych, Family and Peds tend to be more chill (9-5 or even less). Your electives tend to be pretty busy mainly because you are trying to impress and are often flying around.