Congratulations to all the MS-0s who will become MS-1s in a month or so. I thought this would be a great entry to write since probably the only thing you'll hear from other people is "zomg first year is teh steamroll" and then just a bunch of commentary on the intensity. Hopefully I can paint a clearer picture for you guys.
So do you see patients your first year?
At my school we do, several times a month for the entire first year is built-in. We spend a lot of time in clinics with a preceptor (a few times per month) and then have some practice standardised patients. A whole year having spent time with real patients is light-years better than SPs. Why? Because you learn how to listen: and I don't mean just taking a history, but listening to people who are there for a certain condition, but also just lost a spouse and are going through bereavement. Listening to people who are so excited that their child said their first word, and so on. I loved all the patient contact I've had so far and thankfully haven't encountered any of the trouble a lot of people have: so many people say they are talked back at and treated poorly, but thankfully, and amazingly, people really open up to me and find it easy to talk to me. I'm glad being a sensitive type and a good listener helps so much in medical school. All the macho types, as good as students/docs they might be can alienate patients when they take a "Ok I saw your MRI. Let's blast that thing in your skull, yee-haw." approach.
What did you like the most about first-year?
1. Learning anatomy for sure; I just felt like since you're always in a time crunch, you don't really get to enjoy dissecting and exposing layer upon layer of the beautifully put-together human body. Our lab consisted of a weekly 2hr block built into the schedule, but we spent about 2 hours purely dissecting and barely learning anything. You can always come back to lab, but remember, you're taking other classes too! Head and neck anatomy was hands-down my favourite.
2. Patient contact was fun, even though we didn't get to do a whole lot more than take histories. It was great meeting people from all over. I would do everything I could to make sure a patient knew what doctor they were going to see and when, even when I was outside the loop and didn't know what doctor specialised in what at first, haha. I remember a patient in particular who was so thankful, even though I was just playing the role of appointment-confirmer, hah.
3. The new solid friendships I have. I seriously love the people I've bonded with, they're so friendly and amazing and hard working.
4. Little holidays/breaks between blocks did a whole lot to boost morale.
5. The faculty, it seems like so many of them care so much about us and I was kind of surprised. I thought medical school would be kind of run by people who just want to push you through it, but these professors really care. I bet if you had problems with the curriculum or anything else, they'd honestly sit down and listen to you.
What did you like the least about first year?
1. Cell biology, biochemistry in a non-clinical context. I know it's important to your education but I had a hard time bringing myself to be super excited about how many times a protein crosses the plasma membrane. I'm lucky that was really only about 6 weeks, because if I had 2 years of biochemistry and how cells transport things around, I'd probably be having nightmares about cytoskeletons. Anything non-clinical was not so fun to get through, since you spend so long learning the basics in undergrad; but I came to terms with it because it's the very foundation upon which medicine is built.
2. The stress for sure.
3. Lack of sleep and just being under so much pressure.
4. It was hard for me being around people who are 100% medical school and don't have activities outside of it besides drinking. There's so much of life to seize. I felt that being around people like that made me feel that I wasn't working as hard as I could, but it's cool, I have a ton of photography and creative work I'm excited to have produced and still do as well as they do.
So what advice do you have for incoming first-years?
1. Pick up First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 as you start, get BRS physiology and have them be your study companions/references. Med school is all about reinforcement and repetition, and reading the same information from different sources reinforces information better. It's like having different people you know all remind you about A-a gradients; it sticks better.
2. Keep in touch with your family and loved ones.
3. Eat healthy and exercise!
4. Even if you're shy, talk to people and build friendships. You don't want to be the person who sees everyone else have fun and have meaningful friendships, so get out there and make some great friends.
5. Join a bunch of groups that interest you! Even if you think you're only mildly interested, go ahead and go to the first meeting/sit in on one. You might meet some cool people and make some cool contacts.
6. Study every subject everyday. It might sound crazy, but it helped me when I had to study anatomy, endocrinology, histology, biochemistry, physiology, and had clinic days, electives, clinical skill days, and other meetings. To balance things, spend more time on the harder subjects, of course.
7. Do a weekly review or bi-weekly review at the latest. You'll be amazed by how much you learn as an MS-1 but also how quickly you forget! I told myself I'd do this a lot and still find it to be a challenge. But when you can do it, it helps a whole lot because you're not frantically cramming when your final exam is the next day haha.
Well, good luck, I'll be sure to write more!
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