How do I learn medicine in a more fun way?

[coconutlover]

I do anki and third party. But third party is honestly really boring. Outside of pathoma, the principles based understanding isn't there. Its just information and more information. Maybe thats the nature of medical school, but any tips on how I can make the material more entertaining for me to learn?

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[LucidSplash]

Rote memorization is not fun. But it is what is required in the first couple of years.

Medicine gets more interesting (substituting for “fun” which I think is not a great adjective here) in 3rd year. Clinical medicine is interesting, the classroom years are not IMHO. But it is offset in that you have more control over your time and more free time in the first 2 years. Do your studying and then enjoy your free time, you’ll miss this flexibility later on.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

 

[Goro]

I do anki and third party. But third party is honestly really boring. Outside of pathoma, the principles based understanding isn't there. Its just information and more information. Maybe thats the nature of medical school, but any tips on how I can make the material more entertaining for me to learn?

Imagine what you're learning is something you will need to explain to a patient.

 

[annoyedpsychiatrist]

even the best job in the world is still a job lol

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Set everything to Taylor Swift songs. Seems to work in grade school (if you see the short videos).

 

[DarkBluMage]

I do anki and third party. But third party is honestly really boring. Outside of pathoma, the principles based understanding isn't there. Its just information and more information. Maybe thats the nature of medical school, but any tips on how I can make the material more entertaining for me to learn?

Embrace the suck

 

[operaman]

So medicine is at its core an art and an apprenticed craft. It’s learned in much the same way as every other art/craft in the history of humanity.

In fact, I credit my performing career as a big help in my medical training because having already learned and somewhat mastered one art, I knew the process of learning another. I knew the feeling of hours playing scales or singing simple songs before the fun of playing a rachmaninoff concerto or singing a Verdi opera with orchestra. The scales definitely aren’t fun in the beginning and nobody wants to hear you play or sing yet, but it does get better.

Just like in other arts, you need good teachers. In medicine these seem to take the form of clinical faculty who truly love to teach. They’re the ones whose voices hover over my shoulder in every case. It takes someone who sees the matrix to help you start seeing it too. Be on the lookout for these people - time with them probably won’t help your shelf grade or your step 2 score, but it will make you a better doctor and make medicine start to seem fun. I’d like to fancy myself one of these one day - I definitely love teaching and I have a number of students who come hang with me in clinic/OR even when they’re off service or on break, so I guess I’m doing something right!

 

[coconutlover]

Rote memorization is not fun. But it is what is required in the first couple of years.

Medicine gets more interesting (substituting for “fun” which I think is not a great adjective here) in 3rd year. Clinical medicine is interesting, the classroom years are not IMHO. But it is offset in that you have more control over your time and more free time in the first 2 years. Do your studying and then enjoy your free time, you’ll miss this flexibility later on.

Understood, embrace the suck I guess?

 

[LucidSplash]

Understood, embrace the suck I guess?

Welcome to medicine.

 

[DontCryOverSpiltTea]

I completely decoupled my studying from a desk. I did B&B/pathona + Anki + qbank. I would walk on average 8 miles a day while studying. I had some routes optimized for trails and sidewalks with minimal street crossing, or if just walk circles around campus or the track… sounds lame, but it kept me fit and my vitamin d levels up! I would also frequently drive 5hrs to a ski resort listening to lectures both ways, do qbank each morning before hitting the chair lift, and Anki while in the lift line and on the chair. A snowboard trip meant 10hrs of lecture, 500 Anki cards/day, and 25-30 qbank questions daily… they’d be my most productive weekends tbh! I snowboarded like 32 days during first year.

On a more philosophical note - gamify medicine! Every patient, every vignette is a puzzle to be solved. Doing a qbank from day 1 of med school can really help to see how it all comes together… ie., if you don’t memorize that thickened dark skin in the axila and nape of the neck can be a sign of gastric cancer, you will miss diagnosing a patient with cancer… or rather, a seemingly obscure Anki card could be the key to making a wild ass diagnosis that changes a life! The sooner you realize that the cliche “the eyes can’t see what the mind doesn’t know” is deadass true, the more motivated you’ll be to learn what feels like minutia. Gamify medicine and it’ll always be fun and interesting! Also, competency is just fun.

Ok, one more freebie. Embrace failure, lean into discomfort! Literally reprogram your mind to do a little happy dance when you get **** wrong, be that a pimp question or qbank. If your goal is to learn all the things, you should be thrilled that you found a gap in your knowledge. You could think of it like a question that you would have gotten wrong on an the USMLE, or a diagnosis you would have missed had you not found and fixed your weakness… it’s like a game where you’ve gotta discover the map - finding a spot that is still shrouded is always exciting because you’re discovering the map - it’s a good thing! Learn to associate discomfort and failure with growth and learning… if you’re not uncomfortable while studying you’re probable wasting your time on **** you already know or you’re studying too passively.


Pardon typos and any nonsense, I’m laying in bed after a long call shift and keep dropping my phone on my face as I type through half shut eyes 😆