Free time??

[microbesarecool]

Hi everyone,

 

I was just wondering how much free time we will have during first year med. I'm involved in quite a bit of stuff on weekday evenings and I would be oh so sad if I had to give it all up to study....

[D-Rock]

Apparently no one wanted to answer this, and I'm bored. So here goes:

 

There are two things that dictate how much free time you will have: how much do you want, and how smart are you? You can take pretty much as much time off as you want, to do whatever aside from studying you want. Ultimately, you have to pass, though, so you will need to knuckle down at some point near exams. Different people study differently. Some work all day, every day (with various people in these groups ultimately knowing varying degrees of information, enter smartness level!), some don't do crap until 2 days before the exam and lock themselves in a hole (with various people in these groups ultimately knowing varying degrees of information, enter smartness level!!).

 

Yeah, there's a lot to know, and some people are not good at working in a PBL system, but they learn how. Everyone turns out fine. The truth is, the tests aren't that hard because you study hard for them. If you didn't study, then you'd fail. But because you will study, you will pass, and you will have good memories from the other stuff you did outside of PBL rooms on weekends.

 

Oops, the secret's out...you don't have to be any smarter than all those people who didn't get in to pass.

 

There are tonnes (ooh, metric system--that's more than tons) of extracurricular things you can do, either inside or outside of medical school. CaRMS is touted by people as the reason to do everything you do, and why you have to be a god of urology in 2nd year if you want to be a urologist. I say don't give up on your friends and previous outside activities, but know your limit. Personally, I don't think you need to be a member of the Otolaryngological Geophysicists Interest Group to become a space-travelling ENT surgeon, which has understandably few residency positions and is thus soooo competitive. Getting into your residency of choice probably relies more on being good at something and showing interest than what specific clubs you took part in. I'll bet that the same qualities you had to show to get into medical school are needed to get into residencies. But, I'm not a resident yet, so maybe I'll never get to be what I want to be. As soon as I figure out exactly what that is.