Alas, Winterbreak is over and with it ends my cherished days of lounging around watching endless hours of prank YouTube videos, movies, and redditing. Allow me to take stock of what I accomplished this Winterbreak: made a few bucks working at an ophtho clinic, obsessed over my plan for the first year of medical school and got my hands on as many resources as possible to figure out a gameplan (including but not limited to spending hours on studentdoctornetwork looking for advice, reading MedSchool Confidential, Iserson's Guide to Getting A Residency, and watching my favorite YouTube medical professional DocOssareh), and finally got to read Catch-22! I hope I spent it well because I guess this is my last true college Winterbreak that I'll ever have in my life. Man, that's depressing!
So dear reader, for the question you're dying to hear the answer to, which is what I gleaned from my "extensive" research into doing well in medical school, I shall pass on the pearls of wisdom I learned. Take everything I have to say with a grain of salt as I'm not a medical student nor do I have any first-hand experience with any of this advice. First and foremost, the biggest question I had was "How will I have to adjust my study habits in medical school?" The answer to this question I found was fairly simple and it was that I should test out a few strategies when school starts and find my own equilibrium. The waters will be rough for the first few weeks but after a month or so I should be able to tread at a steady pace. There is no one size fits all approach but one's study methods is highly individualistic. Also, annotating board review books such as First Aid (apparently a godsend as stated by hordes of medical students and physicians) while studying in M1 is a great way to review material for Step 1 while saving yourself a huge burden come Step 1 study time. As for other tips, exercise and a healthy diet is a must if for nothing else but to prevent muscle atrophy. Finding a mentor from the faculty is also critical to doing well in the future and in the first year of medical school because you'll have somebody you can go to for guidance on key decisions in your life and be steered in the right direction from a seasoned professional. However, the mentor, according to Iserson's, should be: a clinician hopefully in a field similar (not necessary but recommended) to what you desire, available, well-connected, and invested in your future. With regards to your classmates, the biggest suggestion I found was to become good friends with them (as best you can) and not to antagonize anybody. You never know when you need a favor so you should be as helpful to everybody as you can. And after all, these people will be your future colleagues who you'll refer patients to so it's in your best interest to be nice! Luckily, thankfully, my institution is Pass/Fail. For competitive specialties, research is especially important so if you were gunning for Neurosurgery or Dermatology, obtaining a first-author publication or equivalent is a huge plus for marketing yourself during residency application. With all that said, I still don't feel nearly ready enough for the transition but I suppose many soon-to-be medical students feel that way. I'm not going to let it frighten me but I'm learning to embrace it and of course I'm excited to begin this journey that I've looked forward to my whole life!
Looking ahead to the near future, my final semester classes are all hardcore science classes which should be good for maintaining my study habits into the first year of medical school and making sure my brain doesn't turn into a gelatinous mass of goop. I'm going to suck every bit of freedom that I can out of these last few months and try to even squeeze in a vacation possibly in Pah-ree (Paris for those of you uncouth folk). Oh and did I forget to mention I have my Accepted Students Reception this Friday?! Super stoked and can't wait to meet all of my future classmates! Until next time, see you soon!
