How to study in Medical School?

[orange123]

Hello fellow posters!

 

So, I have a question about how best to study in med school. I am in my first year at U of T, and I am still learning how to study. I thought I'd have it down by now, but apparently not, hence this post.

 

In undergrad, I was a text-book learner. Yes, I'd rely on my notes, but I also relied on reading text books to complete my understanding. I am now finding that I have no time to study from textbooks!! Class makes up he bulk of my day, and after class there is a lot of other stuff to be done (osces, extracurrics, eating and sleeping...no joke I love my sleep).

 

We are in our brain and behaviour block, and I feel the need to whip open a neuroanatomy text book and read the relevant chapters. However, each chapter is quite dense and looking at the size of it, makes me feel overwhelmed, because I think not only do I have notes to read, but now I have chapters to read as well all before my exam! {It may be good to know that neuroanat is brand new to me!! hence my shaky understanding of the basics, that makes me want to read a textbook and solidify my understanding}.

 

So how do you guys study? So far I've been half-assing my text book reading, and have been half-assing my notes. Where I really begin studying is when I get sample exams and focus on those questions. So far so good, for that method has been working (focussing on exam questions), but I feel that this method may fail me soon.

 

Any advice?

 

Thanks everyone!

[NLengr]

I used mostly notes and Toronto notes in pre-clerkship. The profs should put the important stuff in the notes so it's prefiltered.

 

Clerkship and residency it's almost all books, journal articles and guidelines. There aren't really any "notes" per say.

[switcheroo]

i use class notes, and supplement with textbooks when the notes are unclear or don't go into the depth required. something that really helps at my school is that we're given "learning objectives" for each lecture, which serve as a good guide for what we should be getting from each lecture we have.

 

the exception to all this is anatomy. that just involves a lot of quality time with frankie-boy (netter's). for neuroanatomy i used our assigned text (blumenfeld) mainly just for the pictures of pathways, and i would read select paragraphs in the text if the pictures alone weren't clear.

[thebouque]

I'm not at UofT, but for my classes, I'd make sure that I'd know my class notes cold.

Our neuro course was half class notes, half self teaching from Blumenfeld and Harrison's neuro. If your course is only about neuroanatomy physiology and you'll see the diseases next year, then I'd learn the neuroanatomy part in Blumenfeld as well (surprisingly not that long, blumenfeld is maybe 60% clinical stuff).

 

So: class notes (priority), and the anatomy in blumenfeld.

[orange123]

Do you get much out of attending the classes? We had 9-5 lectures at UofM, with little time devoted to self-study. Didactic lecturing works for some, but everyone's learning style is different. About mid-way through first year, I realized that I could be much more efficient if I spent the time I was in class learning on my own, so I started heading to the library instead of the lecture hall.

 

I focused on the lecture notes that I downloaded, and supplemented that info with the textbooks. Most of our lectures had specific objectives, so I made sure they were fulfilled. It worked really well for me.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

Liszt, I was debating that actually. I was trying to decide if there is any value in my attending classes. I mostly just go out of habit, and also because I feel that I'm going to miss something vital which won't be recorded. But sometimes I wonder if I'll be more effective if I study at the library... what a quandary. lol.

 

Orange123

[peachy]

Where I really begin studying is when I get sample exams and focus on those questions. So far so good, for that method has been working (focussing on exam questions), but I feel that this method may fail me soon.

Imho, throughout med school at U of T, from first year right through to the end of clerkship, that's the most important part. They repeat a LOT of questions on the exams, and often it's odd, detailed stuff that you wouldn't think to study if you didn't have the old exams. Whatever else you do in your studying, make sure you leave enough time to go over the old exams!

[leviathan]

Question banks are great depending on your learning style. I find I learn lots by doing questions. Even if you get them right, there is often lots of good information in the answer explanation that you can learn from.

[NLengr]

Qbanks can be key when you need to cover a huge amount of material and don't have the time. For example: NBME or LMCC medicine and surgery sections. It's just too much stuff, so you do questions and hope that you hit on the key points that repeatedly come up in questions. (ex. Management of STEMI)

[apache]

completely agree, doing questions help me realize when i think i know whats going on but actually have no idea... plus, like u said, the extra info

 

Question banks are great depending on your learning style. I find I learn lots by doing questions. Even if you get them right, there is often lots of good information in the answer explanation that you can learn from.

[breeze]

One trick I always use is that if you can explain a concept to someone else and make them understand, it means that you know it pretty well.

[hking03]

One trick I always use is that if you can explain a concept to someone else and make them understand, it means that you know it pretty well.

 

That one works for just about anything, not just med school- good call on that one!

 

I remember my health psych prof bringing that point up and saying that her best student a few years before was an adult with a teenage daughter... she used to go home and explain the entire class to her daughter while she was folding laundry or whatever and then would pull high 90's on the tests. I tried it out, but my family got tired of listening to me talk about school. Bunch of jerks.

[MedDream]

I tried it out, but my family got tired of listening to me talk about school. Bunch of jerks.

 

That made me laugh

[deeman101]

Wtf you guys get question banks? We dun haz dat stuff

[Jochi1543]

Wtf you guys get question banks? We dun haz dat stuff

 

Quiz.md is one.

[thebouque]

Wtf you guys get question banks? We dun haz dat stuff

 

Hmm. Qbank?

[deeman101]

Wait wth are you guys talking about? I thought you meant question banks / past tests for your particular med school. AFAIK mcgill doesn't have any of that.

 

To be clear I'm not into using them anyways. I'm not one of those "I go to reviews because the prof gives away questions!! YAYYY!!!" people. Kinda defeats the purpose of testing your knowledge on a pass/fail test.

[Leon]

Wait wth are you guys talking about? I thought you meant question banks / past tests for your particular med school. AFAIK mcgill doesn't have any of that.

 

To be clear I'm not into using them anyways. I'm not one of those "I go to reviews because the prof gives away questions!! YAYYY!!!" people. Kinda defeats the purpose of testing your knowledge on a pass/fail test.

 

So you actually....study..........and pass? :eek:

[deeman101]

So you actually....study..........and pass? :eek:

 

I prefer to call my method the cram&ram. I cram as much into my brain as possible a couple days before, then ram as much more info in the last few hours as I can get in and do about average. Which is good enough for me!

 

My friend has the MIMO philosophy. It consists of Minimum Input in term of hours (not as little as me though) for Maximum Output high 80s to low/mid 90s. His product/effort ratio is ridiculous.

[thebouque]

I prefer to call my method the cram&ram. I cram as much into my brain as possible a couple days before, then ram as much more info in the last few hours as I can get in and do about average. Which is good enough for me!

 

My friend has the MIMO philosophy. It consists of Minimum Input in term of hours (not as little as me though) for Maximum Output high 80s to low/mid 90s. His product/effort ratio is ridiculous.

 

You spend how many hours studying for 1 exam?

[Otter]

I found these audio links to be helpful for studying when you are doing other things- going for a run, doing dishes, grocery shopping, whatever. I focus on class notes and Toronto notes, but these a nice way to supplement them.

 

http://www.ApolloAudiobooks.com

[loka1282]

Use notes. Also, learn by doing - practical learning would help you remember better

[rogerroger]

Might be reiterating some stuff already said. If so then I hope it adds weight to the good advice given previously.

 

Pre-clerkship is all about the notes. Study the course notes and know them well and you are golden. UT repeats ton's of questions on exams, to a shocking degree actually. The same applies for clerkship too btw. So there is bonus tip for those 1T4/5/3s out there!

 

Things get more complicated in clerkship. Most people tend to use Toronto Notes as the main source. This works well for many rotations. I would be a crummy UT med student if I did not give it a nod . Toronto Notes is dense. There is a lot of stuff and if you know your rotation specific chapters down cold you are way ahead of the game.

 

Now personally, and I want to emphazize that this is my sole opinion, I don't think all chapters in Toronto Notes are created equally. They ALL contain the must know information and more. But some are lacking in terms of clarity and organization. On more dense rotations such as medicine and surgery time is precious and the spectrum of must know information insanely huge. I found good ol' Toronto Notes being somewhat inefficient as a primary study source in these circumstances. I would still suggest you own a copy of Toronto Notes. But I would relegate it to a supplementary study aid.

 

For a clerkship alternative I recommend First aid for the USMLE step 2 CK. Yes, it contains junk on the USMLE. Ignore that part. Yes, it contains some American values, but it was never to the point where it became a hindrance to convert - the Canadian numbers are easily available online and in Toronto Notes etc. The overall user friendliness of this book far out weighed the conversion inconvenience in my opinion.

 

If I was to do my core rotations again this book would be my primary study aid from day one of clerkship. I don't know how good it is for the USMLE, I know nothing about the USMLE. But for clerkship this book is organized better with a consistently systematic approach: epidimiology, presentation, diagnosis and treatment for every disease. There are also good X-rays within the book and some good high yield quiz questions for each chapter, a nice bonus. All in all, it is more concise than Toronto Notes and 95% of the main core rotation content is present. If something is missing, just skim TO notes.

 

For clerkship OSCE's I suggest the little book Fundamental Clinical Situations. This was also written by some UT med students, 0T2's I think, since updated of course... This book contains all the common OSCE cases with the most reasonable post station questions attached. Team up with a med student friend and try some stations. Doing this helped a ton on my OSCEs over the past year. An alternative is the Edmonton Manual produced by the med students over at UofA. I have not used it but it looked good when I flipped through it.

 

Hope this helps to provide a clerkship prospective to this question!

[medaholic]

Studying in medical school is a bit different from undergrad. There's on aspect that will be quite similar, especially in your preclinical years. You'll be evaluated by MCQ exams, and the information you will be required to know will be from your class notes.

 

On the ward it's quite different. It's more about applicable knowledge. But building a good foundation of knowledge in the first two years will make it that much easier to adapt.

 

If I had to re-do medical school, I would have still studied from my notes in 1st and 2nd year. I would have paid a bit more attention to pathophysiology, anatomy, physiology, mechanisms, and familiarizing myself with terminology. Toronto notes is pretty good for the first 2 years + additional textbooks

 

3rd and 4th year is all about clinical knowledge. Apart from knowing your "core" knowledge, you'll have to start applying that knowledge. Quick handbooks are useful like pockey medicine, or peds handbooks. Know your drugs well. I would also use more primary sources, review articles, published guidelines, journals, as that is more evidence based and realistic. Resources like uptodate and emedicine is super useful.

 

There's no shortcut, there's gonna be lots of reading. You never stop learning, and important topics you'll learn dozens of times before you graduate. Just try to keep organized, be motivated, try different ways of learning and stick with what works for you best. Pick one text and stick to it, don't jump around too much. Repetition from the same source helps, even if it's your lecture notes.

[estairella]

There are no shortcuts.

 

Totally untrue. Shortcut: past exams - can't speak to every school, but I know UofT, UBC and Calgary all have their own pools floating around. Most people study a lot but don't have the rigour to go through more than maybe 0.5-1 past exam. I do the opposite - blaze my way through as many past exams as I can.

 

Even if you don't know ANYTHING, pure repetition will clue you in to enough right answers to pass. This doesn't mean you will understand what's going on - then again, 90% of what I learned in preclerkship meant nothing in clerkship sooo...

 

As for clerkship, all that really matters is ward evaluations, so learn the common stuff that gets asked about (e.g. which cytochrome is upregulated by which drug under which conditions is a classic scumbag exam question, but a poor "ward clinical teaching point"). If you are half-paying attention, the clerkship exams will be straightforward, UNLESS the exams are out of left field - in which case, hopefully someone in an upper year will have warned you beforehand so you can study appropriately.

 

Like, amount of ENT anatomy I learned in ENT -> there is an outer ear, middle ear and inner ear, plus a lot of sinuses all over. Amount of ENT anatomy on ENT exam -> specific to which section of which turbinate should be surgically fixed for X condition. Result = "wtf?!" on the exam if you weren't warned beforehand.

[thebouque]

I think the Toronto notes are great for reviewing in clerkship!