How can I prepare for med. school? Need advice.

[FingersCrossedPls]

I did not prep over the summer. I just finished my first year, and doing first year entirely online was okay at first but by the last month or so I was absolutely completely burnt out, and I could not look at a zoom screen or study for another exam any longer. If I had prepped over the summer, I can say with certainty that the burn out would have occurred even earlier and likely hurt my learning and exam scores. I would seriously advise against this. Pre-pandemic, maybe you could get away with studying a bit over the summer and weaving in some fun things, but once school starts again, you likely won’t have any other outlets to do anything until we return to some sense of normalcy, and school will become your entire life as it did for most of my classmates. Give yourself the time now to relax and explore other hobbies and self reflect and figure out how you handle stress and conflict—come up with a game plan. Also as a side note, study all you want, you can memorize all of the side effects to methotrexate, but once it shows up in a clinical based exam Q it’s not gonna make any sense until you revisit what you’ve learned in lecture!!

[premed72]

Studying before med school starts is a huge waste of time 

[a1b1]

prepare by not preparing.
Enjoy the summer.
Life starts getting complicated each year, responsibilities keep adding up, your work load gets more and more with each passing year from med school through residency and once you eventually become a staff.

Take things one step at a time.

[Persephone]

  

On 6/3/2021 at 11:46 AM, who_knows said:

I am not ignoring. It's just not what I wanted to hear and it makes me a bit resistant. I just can't imaging that it's actually a good idea to do nothing during the summer before med school. I guess, I'll do mild studying with Anki and that's it.

This is what all your peers will be doing and what I and all my peers did. So it's not a bad idea, because all those people in my class are now MDs! If you have to study, study anatomy, like others said. As a brand new resident, I would say enjoy what time off you have while you have it, because med school and residency are relentless (and even that break between residency and med school is not long enough, I am feeling spent and exhausted after moving provinces and I am starting residency this week with little time to relax beforehand). When you look back you will likely wish you had done fun summer things before med school! Best of luck this summer and with your future schooling!

[Stars2020]

19 minutes ago, Persephone said:

  

This is what all your peers will be doing and what I and all my peers did. So it's not a bad idea, because all those people in my class are now MDs! If you have to study, study anatomy, like others said. As a brand new resident, I would say enjoy what time off you have while you have it, because med school and residency are relentless (and even that break between residency and med school is not long enough, I am feeling spent and exhausted after moving provinces and I am starting residency this week with little time to relax beforehand). When you look back you will likely wish you had done fun summer things before med school! Best of luck this summer and with your future schooling!

Thanks for the comment. Do you have any suggestions on best study strategy when tackling Anatomy? Thank you for your assistance.

[Persephone]

2 hours ago, Stars2020 said:

Thanks for the comment. Do you have any suggestions on best study strategy when tackling Anatomy? Thank you for your assistance.

I am probably the wrong person to ask about this because I learned all my anatomy pre-med school in an excellent undergrad course and then didn't really study it again in a dedicated way after that (I was at Mac for med school). If there are picture flash card sets you can find for free or for purchase I think that would be helpful.

During med school I really liked the teachmeanatomy website: https://teachmeanatomy.info/ and they have various resources from free stuff that covers all the anatomy, to question banks to quiz yourself on anatomy that you pay to access (I only used the free stuff so cannot comment on the quality of this).

Strategy wise, start with a layer of the human body and work your way in or out (so start with bones then move on to blood vessels, then nerves, then brain, then muscles, the order here isn't perfect but it's an organizing system of sorts). Briefly learn what different terms for tissue and cells are called if you're brand new to anatomy (e.g.  epithelial tissue, endothelial tissue, adipose tissue/cells, cancellous bone etc) as these will come up in preclerkship at times. Then you can do quizzes or flashcards after you've reviewed the material once.

If you're going to a school with a decent anatomy program, then this isn't really necessary and sort of a waste of your summer. If you're at Mac (which I would not praise for their anatomy program) then you have lots of spare time during preclerkship to study this on your own anyway, and you can focus on the relevant systems as you go along in tutorial topics. Above all, find ways to enjoy the time off school you have now, because it's not really going to happen again for 6-9 years.

[bukkakenator]

I honestly don't know the point of this thread OP. You ask for advice regarding studying before med school. It's almost unanimous that you should just enjoy summer. Then you say it 'isn't what you want to hear' and you say you're going to prep. Ironically, then you ask people to chill and act like you're a victim being put on blast. 

Don't be that guy from highschool OP. You may think you're being cool or hardworking or whatever and want to show off, but to other people, you're just a dick. 

So you know what? Study your ass off before med school. You should read and memorize Toronto Notes and Calgary Blackbook RIGHT NOW. You're gonna need it.