Seriously, How Much Harder Can Med School Be?

[MedStudentWanna]

Nothing is hard? Memorizing 150 drugs two weeks isn't hard? Learning 150 new diseases isn't hard? Learning immunology and microbiology in 10 days isn't hard? Who are you kidding?

Medical students are some very bright, motivated, and hard working students. There reason that it's "not that hard" is due to the fact that you've spent 4 years getting ready for our load, and then had time to get used to the amount of material and the effort that is required.

Medical school is no joke. Is it astrophysics? No, but it's damn hard to keep up the effort that is required, day in and day out, for a semester at a time.

Please read and comprehend my post before you bash me. I said:

The material is easier, but the workload is a lot different. There's nothing in med school so far that I've found hard. But the hours I put in at least 10 times what I did in undergrad.

In other words, memorizing the drugs isn't hard. But memorizing 150 in two weeks is what makes it hard. Learning diseases isn't hard. Learning 150 of them in two weeks is what makes it hard. You basically agreed with me while telling me how wrong I am.

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[fahimaz7]

Please read and comprehend my post before you bash me. I said:



In other words, memorizing the drugs isn't hard. But memorizing 150 in two weeks is what makes it hard. Learning diseases isn't hard. Learning 150 of them in two weeks is what makes it hard. You basically agreed with me while telling me how wrong I am.

That's what is difficult about medical school. Plus, learning 150 diseases is difficult. Not only do you have to learn the diseases, but the pathology, the 30 new terms to describe it, it's ddx, it's treatment, it's prognosis, etc.

Keeping all of that **** in line is 100x harder than anything that I saw in undergrad.

Going by your definition of hard, I can genuinely say that our material here is as difficult as anything that I did in my BS in Cell Biology or my 3 years of graduate work (MS) in Cellular and Molecular/Cancer Immunology.

PS. Have you actually had to memorize anything like that? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you a first year? Path, Pharm, Micro, and Immuno are quite bit more challenging than anatomy and biochemistry.

 

[wannabeOBGYN]

I think it depends on the person, but in general, everyone seems to agree that it's not so much the difficulty of the material as it is the volume. I also think it depends on where you went to undergrad. The people in my class who went to big name universities like UC-Berkeley and the University of Michigan seemed to fare better than those who attended smaller schools or liberal arts colleges. Your personal strengths and weaknesses will play a part as well. Some people are great at conceptual stuff like physiology but can't memorize worth a damn. These people tend to have a lot more trouble than the opposite.

 

[Slane]

PS. Have you actually had to memorize anything like that? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you a first year? Path, Pharm, Micro, and Immuno are quite bit more challenging than anatomy and biochemistry.

I just finished my first semester at LECOM, and we finished anatomy, embryology, histology, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, and immunology in a single semester (in addition to the OPP and H&P stuff thrown in on the side.) We take pharmacology, genetics, and pathology the first few weeks of next semester to finish core, and then we dive into systems with musculoskeletal and neuro. If somebody has a first semester of just anatomy and biochemistry, I really envy the ease of their schedule...

As for my two cents on the discussion at hand, the material really isn't any harder than anything I encountered in undergraduate studies. The hardest part is learning a subject like immunology in a single week or thirty-four chapters of microbiology in two weeks. The volume is what makes it hard, especially if you weren't used to studying on a daily basis as an undergraduate. You have to quickly learn your perfect mode of studying and then make use of it to plow through the material as quickly and thoroughly as you can. The people that fall behind and struggle are the ones that can't figure out how best to study and waste a lot of their time being inefficient. Medical school is all about studying efficiency. If you master it, you're set. If you don't, you're screwed.

 

[EmersonAnne]

PS. Have you actually had to memorize anything like that? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you a first year? Path, Pharm, Micro, and Immuno are quite bit more challenging than anatomy and biochemistry.

Don't make assumptions. I'm in a systems-based curriculum and I did everything you mentioned and more as a first-year. No offense, but I think you're wound a little tight. No one said that med school wasn't hard. MSW said that it was the volume that was hard, more than the material. And I tend to agree. The material by itself really isn't difficult. It's just that there's so much of it.

 

[fahimaz7]

Don't make assumptions. I'm in a systems-based curriculum and I did everything you mentioned and more as a first-year. No offense, but I think you're wound a little tight. No one said that med school wasn't hard. MSW said that it was the volume that was hard, more than the material. And I tend to agree. The material by itself really isn't difficult. It's just that there's so much of it.

So, if you did all of that in the first year, what did you do for the other 12 months that you had between May and June of the next year? I haven't heard of a single medical school that covers all of pathology, pharm, and micro in the first year.

I'm in a fully integrated curriculum as well (systems), and while we certainly were exposed to a few agents first year (allopurinol, digoxin, etc), we didn't learn 150 drugs every two weeks. Most first year's study biochem, genetics, embryo, histo, anatomy, and physiology-- with sporadic pathology and pharm mixed in.

Just looked KCOM up. That's nuts that you guys spend 12 weeks in Cardiopulm during the first year. Did you have a hard time remembering such a key component to your boards, since it was 18 months before you took boards? Maybe this type of a thing is unique to DO schools. I think PCOM has something similar going on?

 

[willen101383]

^^PCOMs first year curriculum is (major classes) Structural principles of osteo medicine (gross anatomy,histo) Cell and molecular basis of medicine (biochem,genetics,etc) and renal and pulmonary 3rd trimester. So yeah we start systems first year here.

 

[EmersonAnne]

So, if you did all of that in the first year, what did you do for the other 12 months that you had between May and June of the next year? I haven't heard of a single medical school that covers all of pathology, pharm, and micro in the first year.

Of course we don't learn ALL of it at once. While you learn ALL of the micro in one block, we learn it over the course of two years. We take a system, learn the anatomy, the genetics, the microbiology, the physiology, the immunology, the biochemistry, the pharmacology, the pathology, the embryology, the histology, etc. all at once, plus the clinical aspects of it too -- diseases associated with that system, presentations, treatments, surgical options, etc.

I'm in a fully integrated curriculum as well (systems), and while we certainly were exposed to a few agents first year (allopurinol, digoxin, etc), we didn't learn 150 drugs every two weeks. Most first year's study biochem, genetics, embryo, histo, anatomy, and physiology-- with sporadic pathology and pharm mixed in.

We learned 150 drugs in 4-5 weeks time, but we also had all the embryo, histo, anatomy, physiology, biochem, and genetics to go with it.

Just looked KCOM up. That's nuts that you guys spend 12 weeks in Cardiopulm during the first year. Did you have a hard time remembering such a key component to your boards, since it was 18 months before you took boards? Maybe this type of a thing is unique to DO schools. I think PCOM has something similar going on?

I go to KCUMB and we had 10 weeks of Cardiopulm during first year. I haven't taken boards yet (and only just began studying for them), but I learned it well last year so I'm hoping it'll come back.

 

[zac16125]

The work isn't harder its just much much more. However, you can have a life as a medical student, just don't expect to me 1st in your class if you want to have an active social life. I had classmates who literally studied all day everyday, from 7am, into the night.

 

[thepoopologist]

Let's just say I came into school with grand aspirations and now am looking at the shortest residencies with the least amount of work. My dream is to pay off my debt by working insane hours during residency and the first year out of residency and then work less than 30 hours/week while pulling in ~$100,000/year the rest of my life.

 

[DocArmy]

Id say in terms of difficulty comprehension wise it is about the same as college, its the fact thats theres just so much more of it that makes it alot harder than college.

I agree. The things you need to understand are not particularly complicated concepts, but the speed is much much greater. For example, a typical semester has been around 40 credit hours. The credit hours are the same that you do in undergrad. So, if you double the amount of material that you learned in a 20 hour semester, you're on the right track. That's just the way it is.

Functionally, is it possible? Of course. Many people do it very very well. The rest of us do all right too.

Can you do this and work part time, party all the time, be involved in a million extracurriculars, etc? No. If you're pumping adderall and struggling to make it in undergrad, you may have problems.

Good luck OP.

 

[Promethean]

Let's just say I came into school with grand aspirations and now am looking at the shortest residencies with the least amount of work. My dream is to pay off my debt by working insane hours during residency and the first year out of residency and then work less than 30 hours/week while pulling in ~$100,000/year the rest of my life.

You really can't work insane hours during residency. Residents aren't paid by the hour, but are salary. You can sometimes moonlight, if your program allows it, but the hours you spend moonlighting may cut into the hours you are allowed to work in your program. Can't go over 80 a week, IIRC. Now, if you work like a fiend your first years out of residency and keep living like a resident, you could pay that debt off quickly and then proceed with your plan.

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

You really can't work insane hours during residency. Residents aren't paid by the hour, but are salary. You can sometimes moonlight, if your program allows it, but the hours you spend moonlighting may cut into the hours you are allowed to work in your program. Can't go over 80 a week, IIRC. Now, if you work like a fiend your first years out of residency and keep living like a resident, you could pay that debt off quickly and then proceed with your plan.

I think Poop is well into residency by now...

 

[DermViser]

You really can't work insane hours during residency. Residents aren't paid by the hour, but are salary. You can sometimes moonlight, if your program allows it, but the hours you spend moonlighting may cut into the hours you are allowed to work in your program. Can't go over 80 a week, IIRC. Now, if you work like a fiend your first years out of residency and keep living like a resident, you could pay that debt off quickly and then proceed with your plan.

It's been 4 years. I'm pretty sure ThePoopologist has finished residency or if still in residency, has figured it out.

 

[Promethean]

I think Poop is well into residency by now...

Doh. How did I end up on such an ancient thread? Sorry to bump a zombie.

EDIT: I know what happened. I never drink, and I had two beers at a friends party. I was drunk SDN'ing at the late late hour of 10pm. WOO! Livin' La Vida Loca over here!

 

[DocVapor]

Doh. How did I end up on such an ancient thread? Sorry to bump a zombie.

EDIT: I know what happened. I never drink, and I had two beers at a friends party. I was drunk SDN'ing at the late late hour of 10pm. WOO! Livin' La Vida Loca over here!

Rofl. Cheers to being a cheap date!

 

[shibby1111]

An undergraduate biology test was on chapters 3 and 4 from your little biology book with 20 pages of notes. Med school test is on chapters 3-10, 21-26, 20 different powerpoints, and 100 pages of notes. Obviously that's impossible to cover for one human being which is why no one gets a 100 on a test. You'll enter the test feeling like you don't know anything, and you'll exit the test feeling like a ******.

 

[Mehd School]

I'm hoping some people are exaggerating a little bit. It sounds like passing a test is next to impossible.

 

[DrEnderW]

I'm hoping some people are exaggerating a little bit. It sounds like passing a test is next to impossible.

Passing at my school is not that difficult, especially when considering you're a full-time professional med student. If you work 40-50hrs a week you can pass med school. You may not be competitive for many specialties and get the board score you dream of, but you'll pass.

Being at the top of your class, now that is an entirely different animal.

Tack some research, board review, or other activities to bolster a CV onto that and it's a completely different experience from those that are getting by and aiming to just pass boards. People have drastically different lifestyles in the first two years depending on their goals.

 

[SLC]

I'm hoping some people are exaggerating a little bit. It sounds like passing a test is next to impossible.

I have a small family that I like to spend time with, I didn't let school get in the way of quality time and recreation. I only failed one exam during the first two years, and even then it was only by 2%. Most of the time I was ~10% higher than the class average.

A lot will have to do with how interesting you can make the material. I found myself contemplating IM subspecialties surrounding each organ system during M1 and M2 and I think that helped.

Even the step1 boards (USMLE and COMLEX) were pretty easy to pass. A little added effort above what I was doing for class was all it took to get a good score on each.

Just don't let the stress get to you. It's a lot easier said than done, but if you can keep an even keel through the first two years you should be golden.

 

[shibby1111]

I'm hoping some people are exaggerating a little bit. It sounds like passing a test is next to impossible.

Just wait, bro. just wait.

 

[a runner]

I have a small family that I like to spend time with, I didn't let school get in the way of quality time and recreation. I only failed one exam during the first two years, and even then it was only by 2%. Most of the time I was ~10% higher than the class average.

A lot will have to do with how interesting you can make the material. I found myself contemplating IM subspecialties surrounding each organ system during M1 and M2 and I think that helped.

Even the step1 boards (USMLE and COMLEX) were pretty easy to pass. A little added effort above what I was doing for class was all it took to get a good score on each.

Just don't let the stress get to you. It's a lot easier said than done, but if you can keep an even keel through the first two years you should be golden.

I agree. I have a family and spending time with them was always more important than studying (except when an exam block was approaching). I averaged less than 10 hours a week of studying outside class. Most weeks I didn't study at all and crammed 20-30 hours once a month when blocks would come. Life was pretty good. It was like a part time job, but I controlled most of the schedule. Having worked real jobs for years, that was well appreciated. It served me well enough for both grades and boards as I did above average. Of course, I could have spent 3-5x more time studying like some of my classmates did for marginally diminishing returns on my time and decreasing efficiency. Not worth it to me. Maybe it's worth it if you want a very competitive specialty like urology, derm, plastics, ophthalmology, ENT, rad onc, or ortho.

Learn to study efficiently. I didn't do any reading. Instead, memorize information from powerpoint slides and high yield information. Learn how professors write exam questions and what material they tend to pull from. This is what will be tested on exams, tested on boards, and pimped on rotations. If you went to a rigorous undergrad school, medical school will not be any harder or require much more of a time commitment if you learn to triage your time well.

 

[DermViser]

Passing at my school is not that difficult, especially when considering you're a full-time professional med student. If you work 40-50hrs a week you can pass med school. You may not be competitive for many specialties and get the board score you dream of, but you'll pass.

Being at the top of your class, now that is an entirely different animal. Tack some research, board review, or other activities to bolster a CV onto that and it's a completely different experience from those that are getting by and aiming to just pass boards. People have drastically different lifestyles in the first two years depending on their goals.

Someone please sticky this post. Different people have different specialty goals in medical school.

 

[razor]

An undergraduate biology test was on chapters 3 and 4 from your little biology book with 20 pages of notes. Med school test is on chapters 3-10, 21-26, 20 different powerpoints, and 100 pages of notes. Obviously that's impossible to cover for one human being which is why no one gets a 100 on a test. You'll enter the test feeling like you don't know anything, and you'll exit the test feeling like a ******.

At the end of the day, it's the same "rate of learning" if you will. In undergrad bio nobody studies until 2 days before the test so you're essentially learning 2 chapters in two nights.
At my school where we have just one major class at a time it's easy if you just stay on top of things. Yea, your test might be over 12 chapters but you had 3 weeks of only this one class to learn it. That's about 4 chapters/week. Very doable for anyone especially if you treat it like a full-time job like somebody else already mentioned. Same rate of learning.

Edit: Also the material breakdown that was mentioned in the quote of 12 chapters, 20 ppts and 100 pages of notes. These are all redundant over the same topic. You CHOOSE which form you want to study. If you want to know everything you read the text. If you want to know what's going to be 90% of the test you stick to the slides.