Things You Should Do When You Start Medical School

Hey readers.  Here's a quick-fire list of things I recommend you do in medical school that a lot of people start doing late in the game.


1. Join as many groups as you have time for.  I mainly mean specialty clubs like radiology, ophthalmology, etc, because you never know what you'll learn or how inspiring/awesome/interesting the subject matter/speakers are.  It's a great way to network too, usually the speaker will be like "go ahead and shoot me an email if you want to meet up and discuss career plans/research!"


2. Expanding on point 2, find a mentor in your field of interest.  You'll find out what makes a good mentor, and I can't really emphasize how important this is in your medical career.  The sooner the better, but I strongly discourage tunnel-vision.  Let's hit point 3.


3. Avoid tunnel vision!  From Day 1 you might want to be ortho or plastics, but have you ever scrubbed in?  Do you have a sense of what the field is like regarding malpractice, litigious atmosphere, work hours and commitments not just to your patients and the team but additional lectures and meetings?  


4.  Get to know some upperclassmen.  They're always willing to help and their advice is very useful because they're closer to your point of medical training.  There's so much that you won't be told in med school and it's the upperclassmen who are your insiders.


5.  If you want to do research, set up meetings with people early!  Sure, you might not be able to start working right then and there, but keep going to meetings and get your face seen and bring up projects so when you have the time to commit to projects, you're more likely to catch a spot on a project that is about to take off the runway.


I hope that helps, I'll be sure to drop some more tips!