A week in the life of a med student....

[Guest kylerh]

I've heard med students have very busy schedules.(working in the hospitals for long hours, studying, etc.) WHat is an average week for a med student. Please include lectures, tutorials etc

[Guest scrubbed]

Here is U of T's schedule from Brain and Behaviour, a first year course. Note that the PBL sessions are only 2 hours long and not 4 as the schedule describes.

 

If you'd like a more comprehensive look, you can check out

White Coat : Becoming A Doctor At Harvard Medical School by Ellen L. Rothman

 

Becoming a Doctor : A Journey of Initiation in Medical School by Melvin Konner

 

Singular Intimacies : Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue by Danielle Ofri

 

Happy reading.

[Guest satsumargirl]

Hey,

 

Med school isn`t that bad! But you do have to break it up into preclinical and clinical years. So preclinical is the first 2 years and clinical is the last 2 years aka clerkship.

 

I can tell you a typical week at U of Ottawa. Every program will be a bit different depending on the teaching style and how the program is set up. Ottawa does their stuff in blocks that last around 5-6 weeks (eg. cardiology block, renal block).

 

Every Monday morning we have PBL 8:30-10:30. Then we have classes usually to about 4 (the odd time 3 which makes us happy...or 5 which makes us less happy). There aren`t usually any breaks between classes. If there are typically a half hour or so. Tues is all classes and we start at 8:30 and go to 1 or 2 usually (they try and keep our Tues afternoons open so you can do electives...I do my elective at the barn where I ride ). Wed 8:30 to 1-ish for classes and then in the francophone program every other Wed we have simulated clinics with an actor patient and a doc (you get a scenario and then get feedback from both when you are done) by the time you wait to start, do it and get feedback it could be maybe 45-60 minutes. Thurs start at 8:30 classes and go usually until noon-ish. Then in the afternoon we have physician development skills - for the francophone program this means spending the afternoon with a family doc doing interviews and practicing physical exams skills etc. Fri morning is PBL 8:30-11:30. Usually we have no classes after PBL, but sometimes we do but not usually past 1 or 2.

 

So that is a week in the life of an Ottawa med student.

This past week all the first years went on a week in the country - so a week with rural family docs. I am not in clerkship so I cannot comment on a typical week. But this past week I had to be in the hospital for 7:00 twice, which sounds like a pain....but I really didn`t mind 'cause I got to see, do and learn about cool stuff (e.g. I helped with a caesaren, and helped with a delivery etc...). So getting up early wan`t that bad! I imagine clerkship will be similar in that the irregular hours will be a pain but still exciting because you are doing some pretty cool stuff.

 

Most schools have pass/fail or something along those lines. Ottawa has Honours/pass/fail. So, you can work your butt off and study all the time (there is always stuff to read about and learn about and I never really get through it all) or you can have a more balanced life, study just enough to get you the honours or even be happy with a pass not and then. It really depends on your personality, how much you value marks and how much you need to study to understand the material. But from what I hear marks don`t matter so much in CARMS and my personal opinion is that marks get you to med school, but they aren`t what make you a good physician.

 

Hope that helps

Best of luck!

Sats

[Guest 0T6]

Sats it sounds like the kids at Ottawa are pretty cool :hat

 

To the OP, there are dozens of med student blogs out there, mostly American but also Canadian that make for good reads, check some of em out here:

 

forums.studentdoctor.net/...p?t=253121

[Guest drews97]

I go to Queen's. First 2 years aren't too hard. Some class but lots of time to enjoy yourself (I learned to windsurf, skiied about 30 days a year and hung out a lot). Clerkship is different. Depending on the rotation it can be nuts or fairly easy. My family rotation was a piece of cake. Work at 8:30-9 AM most days and done between 4-5, depending on what was going on. Right now I'm on ortho, however. I start at 5:50AM and today I wasn't home until after 7PM. 1 in 4 call too where you don't get to go home. So, to quote, med school is "the best of times and the worst of times". Your schedule will probably vary quite a bit, especially in clerkship. Note, that even though clerkship is, on the whole, much more work, it's much much more interesting and I think you learn a lot more. Enjoy.>:

[Guest Talon01]

I've found I have waaayyyyy more free time than I did in undergrad or MPT. I'm a first year at UO.

[Guest uteng]

OK, maybe I'm just slow then...

 

To give another perspective, I'm at UofT first year as well, and I find I don't have much free time at all. I also don't have a premed or science background either. I join in a few extracurriculars like houseleague team sports, and attend talks and conferences, and meet up with friends and family to keep sane.

 

True, the number of class hours are not as crazy, but there's a lot of work to do outside of class.

 

Manageable, but very busy is all I want to get across. I'm also just barely passing. I don't know how the rest of the people at other schools, and here at UofT find so much time to do stuff, but all the power to them.

[Guest 0T6]

I hear you guys have more chilled in 2nd year. In Ottawa it's apparently the other way around. *bites nails*

[Guest ploughboy]

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Hey there,

 

UWO's pre-clinical schedules can be found here(1). We are scheduled for a *lot* of lecture hours. In 1st year we're generally scheduled for 3 days of lectures (Mon, Tues, Thurs), half a day of something pseudo-clinical (Friday mornings) and 2 hours of PCL on Wednesdays (and we have the rest of Wednesday off).

 

That's the official schedule. It's safe to say that not everybody goes to every lecture. As an extreme example, despite being scheduled for three hours of histology and three hours of physiology, here's what my day will actually look like tomorrow:

 

* spend the morning and early afternoon talking to small-town high-school students about why they should think about becoming physicians

 

* watch a movie on euthanasia (The Sea Inside) with classmates

 

* watch and discuss another of Harvard's "Human Health and Global Environmental Change" lectures(2) with UWO's Global/Environmental Health Interest Group

 

* write and submit my platform for class council elections

 

* write my speech for class elections

 

* two hours of weekly training with St John Ambulance Brigade

 

Needless to say, I'm likely going to miss some or all of my lectures tomorrow. When I get to third year I will be without a doubt the most clueless clinical clerk in living memory to walk the halls of University Hospital, but at least I will have had fun during my preclinical years...

 

Cheers,

 

pb

 

 

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(1) UWO Preclinical Schedule

 

(2) Human Health and Environmental Change Website

[Guest Talon01]

Don't tell me that!

[Guest TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

You mean to tell me that 'The Sea Inside' is about euthanasia and not about the ocean?!? Knowing that, I can think of at least two things wrong with that title! Thanks for saving me two hours and endless disappointment! :lol

 

Best of luck!

Timmy