This video is sponsored by the all-new Med School Insiders website.
Visit MedSchoolInsiders.com to learn more.
To become a fully trained and practicing doctor in the United States, one must go through
four years of college, then four years of medical school and then three to seven years
of residency.
Let's go over college and medical school and see how they compare.
What's going on guys,
Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
Check out our new vlog channel for a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a doctor.
Link in the description below.
Let's first begin with the material you will be learning and studying.
In College, you have control over what you want to study in terms of your major.
However, you must complete a set of prerequisites in order to apply to medical school.
These include one year of biology, physics, English, general chemistry and organic chemistry.
Overall however, the difficulty and amount of material you need to learn is highly dependent
on your major.
I personally majored in neuroscience which was fun for me because it provided to be conceptually
challenging, relying less on rote memorization and more on critical thinking.
There was also a good amount of overlap between the prerequisites of my major and for medical
school.
You could however major in anything you want such as English or biochem or Political science
as long as you complete the medical school prerequisites.
In medical school, you mostly learn about one thing: Medicine, what a surprise.
That means no more physics, at least in the traditional sense and no more organic chemistry.
The difficulty of the material in college will mostly depend on your major.
But in medical school, everyone is learning the same thing.
The surprising truth is that the material at medical school isn't actually that difficult.
The challenging part of medical school is the amount of information and the pace at
which you need to learn it.
As they say, learning in medical school is like drinking water from a fire hydrant.
Next, let's talk about grading.
College is highly competitive, where your GPA and MCAT score will be heavily weighted
in your overall medical school application.
Check out my other videos and the Med School Insiders website to learn how you can maximize
your score.
As a result of this competitive nature, pre-med culture in university is usually cutthroat,
stressful and less collaborative.
Many medical schools on the other hand are transitioning to a Pass/fail grading system
during the first two years.
This means no A's, B's and C's, just pass or fail.
Medical students are already stressed as is and this is a welcome change to ease the tension.
Reducing the pressure to outperform your fellow classmates definitely helps ease the tension.
Overall, this pass/fail grading helps cultivate a more collaborative atmosphere between students.
Third, let's talk about your schedule and time.
As you progress from college to medical school, you will have less flexibility with your time
and increased demands on your time.
In college, you do have some control over your course schedule.
Whether you're a night owl or an early bird, you can customize your course schedule to
your liking.
In the first two years of college, you should complete most of your medical school Prerequisites.
And in the last two, you'll work on your upper division courses that are specific to your
major.
In medical school, your courses are fixed for the first two years.
You don't choose your own schedule, every one has lectures together, usually starting
around 8 a.m.
And you're in the same classes for the most part.
Everyone has anatomy, everyone has histology, pathology and small group sessions usually
all at the same time.
During the second two years of medical school, you begin your Clerkships, where your daily
schedule is highly variable and dependent on the service that you're on.
Congratulations you're now mostly out of the classroom and in the hospital treating patients.
This is what you came to medical school for, to work in the hospital as part of the medical
team whether that's in surgery, medicine, psychiatry OBGYN, emergency medicine, neurology,
or pediatrics.
These rotations are your general core rotations that you complete in your third year.
During your fourth year, you have more flexibility over what rotations you take.
Generally you will be completing sub internships in your future specialty of choice.
I personally did multiple sub internships in plastic surgery, which is what I ultimately
matched into.
Fourth, let's talk about exams.
College tests are straightforward with this quarter and semester system.
There's a period of midterms and then finals week.
It's not uncommon to have multiple exams over a couple of days or sometimes multiple exams
even on the same day.
Medical schools usually do not follow this pattern.
Many medical schools teach material in blocks, which are shorter than traditional quarters
or semesters.
Blocks may or may not have exams in the middle, but they do always have a final exam.
For example, a school may have a cardiology block or a biostatistics block and then you
move on to the next.
Medical School's also have these threads, which are longitudinal classes on subjects
such as professionalism or the practice of medicine, and these run longer than quarters
or semesters.
They tend to have tests sprinkled throughout the year.
Overall, this translates to fewer tests in medical school.
Exams are also not stacked up within a short period of time like it is in college.
However, this does mean that each test covers more content than a typical College exam.
Fifth, let's talk about standardized tests.
If you thought the MCAT was the biggest and baddest test you'd ever, take think again.
The MCAT consists of 230 questions over six hours and 15 minutes.
Medical students have to take the USMLE, which stands for a United States medical licensing
exam.
There are a total of three Steps; the first two are taken during medical school.
Step 1 consists of 280 questions over seven hours and Step 2 consists of 318 questions
over eight hours.
Lastly, let's talk about finances.
The financial aspects of college and medical school are fairly similar.
In both, you must pay tuition and cover your living expenses.
According to the College Board, a moderate college budget for an in-state public school
is approximately $25,000 per year and for private college It's approximately 51,000
dollars per year.
According to the AAMC, each year of medical school including tuition, fees and health
insurance comes out to approximately Sixty thousand dollars per year with private schools
slightly more expensive than public schools on average.
For most, covering these expenses comes down to student loans.
Generally speaking, federal and school offered loans are superior to private loans.
The former usually have lower interest rates, longer periods of deferment and overall more
Favorable terms.
If your parents are able and willing to help you front the cost of college or medical school,
be very grateful.
That's very generous of them and it makes your life so much easier.
For most of us, myself included, that may not be a possibility.
I fronted the cost of both college and medical school entirely on my own.
However, I was fortunate in that I received sizeable scholarships and grants which helped
reduce my overall loan burden.
I'll be going over how to finance college and medical school Including how to secure
such scholarships and grants in more detail in a future video.
This video is brought to you by the all new Med School Insiders website.
Whether you're a pre-med seeking admission to medical school or a medical student preparing
for residency, we have the resources and tools to help you maximize your chance of success.
If you like our videos, you'll love the exclusive blog post written by top medical students
and doctors from across the country.
Subscribe to the Insider newsletter for exclusive insights, updates, coupons and more.
Our team is made entirely of top doctors.
We've been successful in our journey and we'll show you how to do the same.
Our team now offers a range of services tailored to you from personal statement editing to
application review, interview preparation, research advising, tutoring and much more.
Here's our secret sauce; to Provide the best quality results, we pick the best quality
advisors.
Our highly competitive application and screening process combined with our proprietary systematic
approach ensures that you get the best personalized service, period.
For a limited time, use the coupon early bird to get $25 off your purchase of $100 or more.
Offer expires April 30th.
Visit MedSchoolInsiders.com to learn more.
Thank you all so much for watching.
If you liked the video, make sure you press that like button.
Hit subscribe if you have not already and I will see you guys in that next one.