it's been a long time since i was in medical school but i still have a very
clear recollection of what it was like
medical school can be a very challenging time a lot of content it's a lot of information
a lot of long hours not that much sleep appreciation it does take a lot out of you
i still look back at it with fondness though but residency is even worse so
there's that life of a medical student summed up in 10 seconds don't start with that worship dude
i just left the lab and i was jealous of the cadavers i'm starving
noodles i'm in debt 300 000 dude i haven't slept in two days you tell me how
my day how about my day this is better than yesterday
yeah as i already mentioned it medical school can be tough especially if you are not exactly used to
the amount of of work in your undergraduate or whatever you did prior to medical school
and that's not to say that other programs aren't hard but medical school is on another level when
it comes to the amount of content that you have to consume on a regular basis and you know be
up-to-date and with all that information of course this is um occurring at the same time as you are
amassing a an exorbitant amount of debt it takes a lot of money to pay for medical school and to
pay for the equipment the textbooks and everything else that it that is required you are not getting
paid during that time so um that can also be uh quite stressful in addition to all of the
the information that you have to learn so and every single day is like that so better than
yesterday you really can't get down on yourself the next day is just going to be the same and um
if you get behind then you're two days behind although medicine is a very rewarding career
you really have to think about it prior to entering into medicine to make sure that you
number one are able to cope with that amount of stress but number two that you're actually down
to have that amount of stress in your life because that's not for everybody some people
are much more laid back and then they want to have a relaxing life and certainly once you're
out it can be that depending on what sub specialty or specialty you choose
but certainly going through medical school yeah it's not that's not really relaxing
i don't um have fond recollections of studying for the mcat if i were to do it again it would
really be a disconcerting and uncomfortable situation the mcat exam itself uh was
a long and onerous exam so you see here they're looking at how long it should be and you know what
they think is a good length any exam that takes all day long is um that's a handful for sure and
when i took it i don't remember exactly how long it was i think it was six hours so two three hour
sessions with a lunch break in the middle a daunting experience to do that exam the most
important thing that's riding on it is whether you are going to be accepted to medical school so it's
long it's hard and i wouldn't want to do it again fortunately i did well enough at it the first time
that i didn't have to do that and i feel really bad for the people that have to take it over
yeah so you pretty much have to be bulletproof to um go through medical training um because
you are taking shots from so many different directions it's funny because when you get
into medical school they always tell you that you're the brightest of the bright
but now you've collected all the bright people together and most of the people who come to
medical school they're used to getting high marks already you might not necessarily be
the brightest of the bright anymore because you are amongst all of the brightest of the
bright and somebody's going to be the smartest and somebody you know there's someone's going to
be the smartest there have to be other people that are not you're not always the the one that's going
to be at the top of the class so it's it's hard to take that and to not necessarily um
have the same academic performance to which you were accustomed prior to getting into medicine
and then of course there's just all of the the material that you have to go through and and
learn and understand the financial implications of study which i've talked about and then you
go to residency um when you finally select the thing the field that you want to go into
and during residency you know it's an educational experience and you are getting paid but it's
kind of like um paid slavery because the amount that you're getting paid in the and the hours that
you work are not really commensurate with one another um so you are really underpaid for for
what you do in the time that you put in but that's just the name of the game that's the way it is and
and we've all gone through it you are taking shots from a lot of different directions and if you are
not bulletproof or you don't have your uh body armor on as you go through then uh yeah you you
might be left on the battlefield unfortunately so always wear your bulletproof vest always to crush
the mcat or any standardized test keep watching create a list of all possible study resources
i'm sure that that this system you know it sounds like it's it's very organized and it sounds like
it would work but holy man like this this dude is putting more effort into this than than
i would put into studying just on making this system to prepare for studying wow like
this this appears more complex than the material that i'm i'm planning to study so
i'm not sure about this it probably worked for him and maybe it would work but wow
that's a lot of work man that's a lot of work obviously this dude is an excel um you know
master excel wizard yeah that's not me so whoa boy nice work but yeah i'm just going to do it
the old school way you know venn diagrams and flash cards and read the material works for me
uh we're always playing these games uh with students um as you go through you know this was
the way it was when i went through that uh staff people are are quizzing you all the time and it's
funny because you know they're teaching us how to do medicine but a lot of these people don't
have any formal uh education training they teach you and they quiz you in the way that they think
works best look i'm a doctor not an escalator spot give me a hand for some that just means
peppering you with questions all the time to see if you've read the material that doesn't
necessarily mean that you comprehend or you understand the material even though you might have
memorized it and as soon as somebody asks you a question you're you're trying to figure out
in your head what exactly is this person asking because you might know the answer the textbook
answer to the question but they might not be asking that even though it sounds like that's
what they're asking they might not be asking that you're always kind of hesitant uh with your your
answers that you um you know give back to the staff person a lot of time you want to keep it
really simple you never really want to open a door that you cannot walk through to the other side the
preceptors will be happy or go through that door with you and let you hang yourself with the
mistake that you've made and when you're just with the staff person by yourself yeah that's not it's
really uncomfortable but when you are in a group when you're doing group rounds or when you're
there with your peers or with residence fellows or anybody else yeah it's really embarrassing
vision in our heads of what what it is that we get to do um when we go through uh medical school and
what what it's going to be like when we become physicians and how we're going to
interact with our patients and there there are moments when we are doing that type of thing
however when you're in the emergency department or on the ward and where you
actually have um people who are sick ill injured or they're under the influence of alcohol drugs
medication whatever yeah sometimes there is some craziness that goes on
you kind of have to learn to ignore that if you don't you're not going to be able to do the job
that you're supposed to be doing so if there's any other tick tocks that you want me to react to
you should let me know as always that's been a word from dr chris not your everyday ortho