Tag: medical school

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My Three Favorite Study Aids That Every Medical Student Should Have

Besides caffeine, there are three study aids that got me through medical school. These resources speed up the memorization process, enhance your learning for long-term retention, and help you understand the required mountain of material you learn during the first two years of med school. They were my favorite resources to use during the basic science courses and while I studied for step one. The more I found myself using them the more useful they became. As I’ve written about before, don’t half ass anything– and that includes your study aids. So try these out, see if they help you, and then commit to using them. Without further ado, here are my three favorite med school study tools…you know, besides note cards of course:

First Aid for the USMLE Step One

This is every medical student’s bible. If you ask a med student studying for step one, ‘if your house was on fire and you were only allowed to retrieve one item’, their First Aid book would be the answer. If you are about to start med school just go ahead and buy it. This book provides a backbone outline of your medical education and its up to you to fill in the details. You can almost always tell the first semester students apart from the fourth semesters based on how much white space is left on the pages of their First Aid book. Just remember, post-it notes are your friends, don’t use ink that will run, highlight in moderation, write small but legibly, and always double-check to see if the information you are about to scribble in your book isn’t already there.

Picmonic

Imagine that instead of forcing yourself to memorize every bug, drug, syndrome, system, and tumor that you could just watch cartoons and all the information would just magically diffuse into your consciousness. Picmonic is as close at it comes. Instead of just listing information and letting you figure out how to inject the information into your brain, Picmonic provides you with tons of notecard sized cartoon illustrations that tell unique and memorable stories. Each cartoon represents vital information about the subject at hand. With pathognomonic pictures and rhyming raps about almost everything that med students need to memorize and differentiate between, Picmonic makes memorizing the minutia of med school both easy and fun. I seriously would not have made it through med school without it.

*Use my link to get 30% off your Picmonic subscription!*

Pathoma

The only thing worse than not being able to pronounce the diseases you are studying is not being able to understand your professor teaching you. Whether your professor has a thick accent or is just a terrible teacher, Pathoma is the answer to your troubles. It’s the gold standard when it comes to studying pathology. The textbook has clear illustrations and descriptions of every disease process you learn about in the first two years of medical school and the accompanying videos explain the pathophysiology in a clear and concise manner. I honestly don’t know a single med friend of mine who doesn’t use it.

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Reflections After Finishing Second Year of Med School

As I walked home last night I glanced up at the evening sky of Dominica. Twinkling down at me was what seemed like a surprisingly bright star compared to all the rest. It couldn’t be a plane because planes very rarely fly over this Caribbean island. It seemed stationary so it couldn’t be a meteor. Confused, I pulled out my Sky Map on my iPhone and discovered it was not a star at all but instead turned out to be the planet named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty- Venus.

Earlier the same day I sat in my last lecture of my first two years of medical school and it felt strange. There was a buzz in the air. My entire class was about to be done learning new material. From then on out, we were to learn everything we already knew but in more depth and with greater stress on integrating each subject in preparation for the step. Except nothing seemed to change. I went to the same place for lunch that I normally do, went and got coffee like any other day, and procrastinated like a pro as always.

It took me until later that evening, looking up at the night sky, to register the significance of this transition. In that moment, staring up at the night sky alone with my thoughts, a smile snuck onto my face. It’s a smile that my close friends know quite well. It’s the same exuberant smile from the moment I first tried to place an IV port in my friend’s vein. It’s the same smile from the galvanizing moment when I successfully found my other friend’s uterus using an ultrasound. It became a smile from the moment that clarified how utterly happy I was to be on my journey in pursuit of medicine.

As corny and ironic as it sounds, I had to literally stare at the planet named for the Roman goddess of love and beauty to remember how much I love learning about the human body. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted to know how the silent orchestra of salient biochemical processes worked so well in perfect harmony. For me, its breathtaking to realize that I have learned most of the important processes that were once such a mystery to me and that I will one day be able to expand upon the zeitgeist of medicine.

It’s important to remind ourselves of our goals and our original reasons for why we wanted to pursue medicine- to remind ourselves that the sleep, sanity, and social life that we sacrifice are worth it. To remember why we spend our days in the library instead of on the beach.

I got lucky in that I’ve always wanted to learn about medicine and that I am happy to do so. I got even luckier in that I stumbled upon a strangely bright ‘star’ that reminded me of my passion which has given me willpower to complete my remaining exams with the utmost ferocity and determination. My passion and curiosity to understand the human body was a small part of my original reason for wanting to enter medicine but has become an integral engine that drives me to learn everyday. It is what will power me through the next few months leading up the step exam and beyond it as well.

Ultimately, I could try to answer the age-old interview question of ‘why did I choose medicine?’ except I don’t think it’s the most important question for current medical students anymore. Instead, ask yourself- ‘why do you still choose medicine?’.

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See One, Do One, Teach One

I have completed countless dissections in the anatomy lab and have observed even more through videos provided by Ross University. Like any diligent student I have studied anatomy by creating my own drawings, mnemonics, notecards, and through the ever popular rote memorization. This semester as an anatomy TA I have been given the opportunity to teach first semester students the anatomy of the human body from head to toe. As the phrase ‘see one, do one, teach one’ suggests, my medical learning experience will finally come full circle. I’ve made it this far- how hard can teaching really be?

An experience I had with three first semester students in the gross anatomy lab in the beginning of my second semester made me realize how rewarding teaching is. In no time, I ran through the anatomy of the upper limbs and superficial back with them and quickly quizzed them on the brachial plexus. Not only was I amazed at how much material I had retained but I recognized that I was still learning, compounding new and old information, and making even stronger connections this time around. I loved being able to integrate the 2nd semester anatomy of the pelvis with the 1st semester anatomy of the lower limb. Being able to take the material I memorize and integrate it with the material I actually understand.

My favorite part, however, was how innate my understanding of the arteries of the body felt. It was like driving through a familiar town I hadn’t visited in a while. For instance, last weekend I visited Binghamton. When I drove through the city I lived in during my undergrad years it felt as if I had never left. The map of the city is engrained in my head. Even after major road construction, I could still contemplate the deviations and possible detours I could take to shorten my journey. Likewise, the twisting and often times confusing pathways of arteries of the human body is now engrained in my head. My understanding has become second nature as to how the arteries of the head and upper limbs branch from the arch of the aorta before it becomes the abdominal aorta and continues down to give rise to major branches like the celiac trunk, superior mesenteric and inferior mesenteric arteries. How the splitting of the abdominal aorta gives rise to all the major arteries of the lower limb. These arteries are a roadmap to the human body and I don’t have to stop for directions.

Besides improving my own understanding of the body, it was rewarding to help others improve theirs. It always amazes me when I see the material a student in the semester above me is studying. The work always seems infinitely harder, more complex, and something that I’ll surely never be able to understand…at least until I start chipping away at it. I’ve come to find that the most challenging part of studying is similar to the most challenging part of running- the first step. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the vast quantity of material I need to cover or how far I plan to run. It’s what makes studying for a final exam that much more daunting. But by simply taking that first step, studying becomes a smoother and less stressful experience. And that’s what the best TAs did for me. They gave me a gentle push in the right direction. A spark to ignite my engines. Momentum to overcome inertia.

However, the best TAs weren’t always the smartest ones. Well, maybe they were. I never really stopped to survey them about their grades. The best TAs would always exhibit the same qualities that my favorite middle and high school teachers and undergraduate and medical school professors have exhibited over the years. They were able to take an innate understanding of a complex concept and simplify it so that someone with a rudimentary understanding could grasp the material at hand. Furthermore, they did so in an entertaining and engaging way utilizing clear and concise language that made the material relevant to me. Don’t just tell me that melanocytes are found in the stratum basale of the dermis. Tell me how the melanin of fair-skinned gingers like myself is both produced in smaller quantities and is also degraded more quickly than dark-skinned individuals.

Using relevant examples and clear language in teaching is a simple enough concept but I recall as an undergraduate physics lab TA when it was far from second nature. I remember how unprepared I was. How I fumbled over my words. How difficult it became to describe velocity and sound equations to my peers who didn’t have the same understanding of the material as I did. I wasn’t the best physics TA to say the least but I learned a lot from that experience like the importance of communication in teaching. This brief but captivating 5 minute TED talk illustrates three key points to good communication between scientists and the public. Whether you are a TA or a tutor or just helping a friend with a concept they have trouble with, these three quick and easy communication tips can help anyone improve his or her teaching skills:

First, as Melissa Marshall from the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences at Penn State explains, “When you’re describing your science, beware of jargon. Jargon is a barrier to our understanding of your ideas. Sure, you can say “spatial and temporal”, but why not just say “space and time,” which is so much more accessible to us?” Likewise, the Latin or Greek name for structures often confuse students. Sure, you can use the term ‘profunda brachii’, but you could rather explain how it translates to ‘deep artery of the arm’, thereby making it more relatable [1].

Second, “tell us why your science is relevant to us. Don’t jus tell me that you study trabeculae, but tell me that you study trabeculae, which is the mesh-like structure of our bones because it’s important to understanding and treating osteoporosis. [1]”

Lastly, “a slide like this, shown below on the left, is not only boring, but it relies too much on the language area of our brain, and causes us to become overwhelmed. Instead, the slide on the right, an example by Genevieve Brown is much more effective. It’s showing that the special structure of trabeculae are so strong that they actually inspired the unique design of the Eiffel Tower. And the trick here is to use a single, readable sentence that…students…can key into if they get a bit lost, and then provide visuals which appeal to our other senses and create a deeper sense of understanding of what’s being described.[1]”

Trabeculae

Ultimately, communication skills are one of the many talents that an individual must master to become an effective teacher. Teaching is an art and quite possibly one of the most difficult arts to master because, as John Steinbeck wrote, “the medium is the human mind and spirit’.

Teaching is similar to other forms of the arts like painting, writing, or playing a musical instrument in that it can be learned. We rely too heavily on ‘the naturals’- people who have innate abilities to teach. Part of the problem is that we rarely teach individuals how to teach. For instance, I have a friend who understands our lecture material far better than anyone I know. He has stellar grades and can easily provide me an answer to almost all the questions I ask him, except he can’t convey his thought process to me. He might understand the material but I can’t understand him. In the end, teachers, tutors, and TAs must work to improve their own teaching skills with assistance from their universities to communicate material more clearly and improve their students’ understanding of lecture material.

1- Melissa Marshall: Talk Nerdy to Me. By Melissa Marshall. Perf. Melissa Marshal. TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., Oct. 2012. Web. 05 May 2013.

 

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My Work Ethic

“There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do” –Derek Jeter

I needed a break after taking my gastrointestinal & renal block exam. A weekend to relax would be amazing. An opportunity to let the thoughts that normally race through my head dissipate. A chance to take a breath after I almost drowned in my studies that left me physically and mentally exhausted. Heck, an afternoon to go grocery shopping, play some soccer, and read a chapter from my Kindle that’s been lying dormant on my desk would be nice. Except for the fact that we start the reproductive block tomorrow. Sucks to suck right? It would if I didn’t enjoy it so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish I had more time to just hang out and do nothing, play some Call of Duty, and stay in to watch a movie. But I recognize that I’m putting in my time now so that I can enjoy what I do for a living tomorrow. I didn’t realize how important it was when I was training to play soccer in high school. I thought I just had to show up to practice and play hard during games. I was a talented but lazy soccer player and it eventually caught up to me. I didn’t realize that running sprints today conditions me into a better athlete tomorrow.

It was one of the most important realizations I’ve had during my second semester of medical school. My classmates and I often joke about how hard we work. Compared to undergrads we study every single day as if we have a final exam tomorrow. You can imagine how insane we get when we actually study for our finals. If only I had this same work ethic four years ago I could have gone to ‘one of the Hopkins or Harvards’…or maybe just a stateside medical school. Except that I’m happy here at Ross University.

One of Ross’ principal explicit goals isn’t to push my peers and me into developing a superhuman work ethic per se, but I am yet to meet a peer of mine who has ever worked harder in their life. And I am thankful for it. Ross is the soccer trainer I never listened to.

Studying here is like going to the gym- I don’t personally enjoy working out, but I like how I feel the next day. Likewise, I don’t always love sitting down and studying for hours on end but I love being able to apply medical science after I understand it. And as much as I would like to think I work hard now, I know that the fourth semester students have it twice as bad. They took an exam the same day that I took my GI & renal exam but they have to get right back to the grind to study for their final being held in one week. And then they have to study for their comprehensive exam being held in a month. And then they have to study for their Step exam. It never ends.

It’s not like when I graduate from medical school I’ll just stop studying or working as hard as I do now. If anything, that’s when the hard work that goes into the core sciences at Ross will finally pay off. It will be that much more gratifying when I get to actually treat patients and will motivate me to push myself even harder. That’s why the relaxing afternoons after my exams are one of the most important days of the semester.

I got to see a glimpse into my life as a fourth semester. I’ll have to study just as hard as I did for my last exam but will have to continue studying just as hard the following day for a final. And keep on going until I graduate. And then keep on going until I finish my residency. And then keep on going until I finish my fellowship. As I continue to progress through my medical education, I will rarely be able to mentally checkout for a weekend while I recuperate from the caffeine and cortisol driven weeks of study and work. My daily grind involved in sustaining my life as a med student will eventually evolve into a nonstop grind involved in being a practicing physician. This is why Ross has not only improved my work ethic, but has even forced me to consolidate how long it takes me to relax and then get back into the swing of things. I simply can’t afford anything less than being maximally efficient with my time. My mental health and academic performance depend upon it.

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How To Study In Med School

One of the toughest parts of starting medical school for me was figuring out how to study. Here are some of the best pieces of advice that I have discovered along the way.

 

 

Find your own study method.

Everyone does something different. Some students love the library while others are more productive at home. I like loud music while others need absolute silence. Find a method and routine that works for you and stick to it. And let me save you the time and trouble and let you know that study groups only work if everyone has studied on their own individually already.

 

 

Study for long-term retention

There is no way around it. You have to work hard every single day. However, studying in medical school is different than studying in undergrad. There is no more study and purge. You need to learn for long-term retention. This material is going to come back on the final. And the USMLE Step 1. And then again on Step 2 CK. Oh and also Step 3. It might even be important during residency when you treat actual patients. Just remember that if you understand it now then you won’t have to study it again later.

 

 

Work smarter, not harder

Medical school is like trying to drink water from a fire-hose. There is always more material to study and never enough time to study it. So you have to be succinct when it comes to taking notes and making study products. I liked to combine the two. Fold a piece of paper in half and write a question or topic on one side and the answer or explanation on the other. This way you can take notes while creating a study product at the same time. Then later on you can use your notes to quiz yourself. Cover one side and try to regurgitate as much as you can. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

 

Actively study

When you are studying your lecture material you must remember to actively study. By actively studying, you challenge yourself to summarize and regurgitate the material in your own words. Don’t just read the same sentences several times. Ask yourself questions about the topic at hand and different questions about the same subject. What artery supplies the muscle? What action does this muscle have? What nerve supplies this muscle? The nerve that supplies this muscle also supplies what other muscle? If you’re lucky, you might even accidentally guess an exam question.

 

 

Stay ahead of the game

Let’s compare your lectures to a pancake breakfast. Each day you have to eat ten pancakes. It’s manageable. However, if you slack off and don’t eat all of your pancakes, then the next day you will have to eat you ten from today and the remainder from the day before. That’s a lot of pancakes (and a lot of carbs…). This will continue until you’re looking at a mountain of flapjacks with no end in sight. Likewise, don’t fall behind in school- you can’t afford to. Stay ahead and always finish your day’s work. Find whatever works for you and stick to it.

 

 

See one, do one, teach one

The old phrase of ‘see one, do one, teach one’ carries weight in medical school and residency. After being taught something and studying it, test yourself by applying your knowledge. Practice questions are the simplest way to illuminate gaps in your knowledge and are an excellent way to apply what you’ve learned. This point is worth repeating- do practice questions! Eventually though, to test if you truly understand a topic try teaching it to a friend. You’d be surprised how much you think you know until you try to teach it to someone else.

 

 

In the end, only you stand in the way of your success.

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How To Pass Your First Semester At Ross University

A fourth semester student made me realize that I will be giving the same advice to first semester students again next semester. And again after that. Instead of repeating myself, I’ll simply share how to pass your first semester of medical school at Ross University as well as study skill advice.

 

Beware of who you take advice from (except me of course)

I distinctively remember being told by an upper semester ‘not to bother focusing on lymphatic drainage’. Low and behold, at least three questions on lymphatic drainage popped up on my first exam. Similarly, last semester was the exordium of Ross teaching first semester students immunology. It just goes to show you that each semester is unique. Be aware that Ross is continually adapting to improve our educational experience and professors and material change- no two semesters are identical thus far. So, listen to your upper semester peers. They are smart and have gone through everything you are about to experience. Just take everything with a grain of salt.

 

Surround yourself with positivity.

You are going to have enough on your plate this semester without having negative-Nancy bothering you. It might seem discourteous, but avoid negative people who bring you down at all costs. Find a good group of friends who exude positivity and stick with them. I don’t know how I would have been able to make it through my first semester without the support of my friends down here in Dominica.

 

Work hard, play hard.

Find ways to reward yourself for all of the hard work you put in. It can be going for a swim in the Caribbean, playing basketball or soccer in the evening, or simply enjoying a good novel. Whatever it is that helps you unwind and relax- do it. You can’t study non-stop every single day or else you will simply burn out. Med school is a marathon, not a race (and no, you don’t sprint marathons).

 

Remind yourself why you are here.

Every once in a while I found myself down and out. It was a long and hectic week with not nearly enough sleep. I needed to find motivation to keep going. I went home, showered, relaxed, and reminded myself of all the years of hard work and dedication I invested in myself in order to simply gain acceptance into medical school. I thought about how proud both my parents and I will be when I graduate. I thought about how much I look forward to treating my first patient. Just like that, my smile returned to my face and motivation to my mind. Keep your long-term goals in the back of your mind and don’t forget why you are here.

 

Don’t compare yourself to the valedictorian.

There are going to be other students with master’s degrees in biochemistry and other students who have previously been anatomy TA’s. Don’t stress about what other people know. Focus on what is in your control instead of lamenting over the fact that someone else might know a certain subject in more detail that you do. There is a fine line between recognizing that you might want to look over the anatomy of the arm once more after your friend displayed such an amazing mastery of the limb and freaking out because you feel like you don’t know anything.

 

Although it should go without saying, don’t forget to study.

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Pre-meds: Do what it takes to get into medical school

I sit at my home in New Jersey as I anxiously await my 6am flight two days from now that will take me to the Caribbean island of Dominica where I will begin to take my first steps in the journey of becoming a doctor at Ross University School of Medicine.

 

Many people attempted to discourage me from continuing on the path I started on. Doctors I shadowed would warn me of the daunting hours, how much medicine has changed over the years, and how you can make more money in other fields for the amount of time you put in. Even my undergraduate pre-med guidance counselor at Binghamton University told me, on several separate occasions, that I simply did not have the grades to get into medical school. And these people were right…sort of.

 

It is true that medicine is changing. And you can more than likely make more money in business or in banking. And at the time, I did not in fact have the grades to be accepted into medical school. I am here to tell you that can get into medical school, even a stateside school, if you want it badly enough. This isn’t to say that your past mistakes will vanish into thin air- that ‘C’ in organic chemistry isn’t going anywhere. What you can do is affect your future. Show that you remember your mistakes and learn from them.

 

Likewise, I try to forget the people who attempted to dissuade me from medicine, but remember the people who accepted my decisions and encouraged me along my path. The one doctor I spoke with at a high school graduation party of a mutual family friend who highlighted that, “It doesn’t matter how many rejections you get, because in the end you only need one acceptance”. Or my parents who pushed me to apply to that reach school after explaining, “I’m not doing myself any favors by rejecting myself before even applying”.

 

I am here to give you a pat on the back and a kick in the ass. I had to take the MCAT twice and had to apply to twenty-eight medical schools, but all it took was one acceptance to make it all worthwhile. If you have explored medicine and have decided that it is the path for you, don’t let anyone discourage you from it. Own it and do whatever it takes to succeed. It is what I intend to do starting September 3rd on my first day of class down in Dominica.

As seen on @KevinMD