My brother just had his interview today at the IU med school. He should get in (3.9 GPA, 33 MCAT), however he doesn’t have much charity work to his name and that worries him, he’s afraid that they will not accept him because of it.
Anyway, he is very self disciplined. He studies, does homework, reads, etc about 25-30 hours a week outside of class. So i am not really worried that he will not be able to handle the workload.
But its my understanding that medical school life is structured like this.
m-f
8am-noon class
noon-1 lunch
1-5 class.
5-11pm study
saturday & sunday - screw around some and study another 10-15 hours on the weekend.
Is that a realistic schedule?
When you were in med school how much did you study? were you in class 35 hours a week? Do you have any study tactics you can give me so i can pass them onto him in case he doesn’t know them?
I’m not in med school, but my roommate is (Ellis555… maybe he’ll stumble in here), so let me give you my impressions of him and his class mates.
Yes, class generally seems to run about 8-5, Monday through Friday. That is broken up a bit, though, and depending on the classes and other things going on, it can run shorter. For example, last spring (and this fall), most Tuesdays and Thursdays we all play soccer for an hour or so at 3:30 in the afternoon. So, I can only assume that they don’t have actual class at that time.
I think how much studying needs to happen really depends on the person. I know some friends who seem to spend almost every waking non-class time studying, and others who are really good at managing their workload and their social and recreational schedules and manage a good mix. All types seem to be doing well in school.
Perhaps that’s not a definitive answer, but it doesn’t seem to be a question that has a definitive answer. I’m sure the school you go to has some affect on that as well.
It can take as much or as little time as you want (well, of course, at some point you fail); there are no homework assignments or quizzes… it’s just learning a whole lot of stuff and getting final exams on it. So, all the studying you do (aside from the fact that you need to know it) is in preperation for exams that are possibly months away, which is why the time management thing is really key; there’s so much information that getting behind can be a death sentence.
yeah. Plus i think some fields like cardiology require another year or 2 of med school. At least thats what i think a friend who is studying cardiology told me. Maybe i am remembering wrong.
Probably so… I do think, though, that everyone gets a degree after 4 years, though that degree doesn’t actually qualify you for anything (actually, that’s not quite true; a few friends are in an MD/PhD program in which they won’t get any degree for… 6,7,8 (can’t remember) years, but they will receive concurrent MDs and PhDs).
no one else is an MD or is studying in med school? wheres doctorJ? i know there have to be alot of doctors here.
If any do come i have more questions.
how many pages a week of material do you go over? i was reading an online diary of a med student who said something like ‘we went over an undergraduate class worth of histology material in 5 hours’. is that true, do you go over a semesters worth of undergrad material in a day?
do you know how many years are tacked onto med school and residency for specialties like cardiology, neurology, anaestheology, etc.
That schedule isn’t so far off. It ain’t quite a 9-5 (actually, it’s 8 AM start times, which was a rude awakening [intended] coming out of undergrad), but it’s awful close. As for the amount of studying/work required, it really depends on what sort of student you are. I believe that almost all med schools are pass/fail, generally with an honors thrown in there as well. This gives you a great deal of leeway, allowing you to focus more on what interests you and just put enough time for the P into the other classes. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
There’s not a great deal of specific advice that I have to give - he’ll be able to get all that from the 2nd years at IU - but I have a few broad tips I can pass along. First and foremost of these would be that he’s obviously got the chops to handle it, so he shouldn’t freak out about things. Parallel to that would be my advice not to change what ain’t broke. Whatever study habits got him through college obviously worked well, so he should stick with 'em until he fails something. A lot of my classmates are constantly tinkering with their studying style, which seems awfully foolish to me.
My other broad piece of advice is pretty simple: med school is not, and should not be, your life. Med School != Life. Tattoo it backwards on your forehead so you see it in the morning when you shave. Cut class. Meet people outside of school (Trust me, you’ll get awfully sick of spending all your waking hours with them). Do something that doesn’t involve school. Every day. For as long as possible. This will keep you healthy and sane.
It’s quite possible that I follow my own advice too far (Eonwe can be consulted for that), but I haven’t failed out yet. It’s my firm belief that, aside from a few genetic freaks, the average person will go insane spending 17 hours in the same lecture hall a week (And that was just one class, mind you. Out of four at the time). So make sure you do whatever it is you gotta do to get by school-wise, but if a classmate will take notes for you, or a certain prof just flat out sucks, get the hell outta dodge.
ellis
(who ain’t happy to have just finished a 8-6 day. I’m not even on rotation, dammit!)
Oh, for the record - I’m at the Univ. of Vermont. Apply - it rocks, especially if you have any desire to see actual patients in your first year.
Oh, look - lots of questions I overlooked. Lessee…
Semesters
They only sort of exist, though I’m not sure about other schools. Classes just sort of come and go - at this point, we’re all taking the same courses, so there’s no need to have them all start and finish at the same time. One course might last 2 months, another 6. As for exams, there tend to be a couple of “mid-term” type tests for each class, the longer courses having more. I’d say they average about every 2 months or so, which means that some courses do only have one final, and that’s it for your grade.
Summer
Ha. I think every school gives you a month and a half to two months off after your first year, but that’s it. sniff sniff
General layout
Four years of you paying them (med school). Followed by approximately 3-7 years (ranging from, say, pediatrics to neurosurgery, respectively) of them supposedly paying you enough to live off of (residency). You can also do an MD/PhD program, which is just what it sounds like, but takes seven years before you get to start your residency. Who doesn’t want to sign up for 14 years of additional schooling after undergrad?
Amount of material
Pretty damn copious, though not quite what that web page said. I’d say that most profs go over material at a more rapid pace than in the majority of my undergrad courses. But mostly it’s the shear amount of class time that makes things go faster. For me, as an undergrad, the courses worth the most units would meet for about 30 hours in a trimester. Here, as I mentioned before, I’ve had courses that cover that amount of material in two weeks. Things move right along, and it’s easy to get lost. But it’s doable.
I don’t think I’ve missed anything, but I’ll check back in later, and I assume a few more of the medical TM with stick their heads in.
There’s quite a bit of variability between different medical schools as to how they structure their curricula: in some schools, the first two years are spent entirely in the classroom, while in other schools students begin to have patient contact right away. That can effect how the coursework is scheduled ( had a few mandatory physical diagnosis sessions after 5 PM during my second year, but not many). The number of exams per course is also highly variable. After the first two years, students may have to occasionally work on the weekends, depending on what their clinical rotations require. Your brother needs to find out how things are done at the schools he’s applying to - and should take those factors into account when deciding on which school to attend should he get more than one acceptance offer, and choose the school he feels has the best structure to meet his needs.
There’s no summer vacation in medical school after the summer between first and second year. Depending on how his clinical rotations are scheduled, though, your brother may have a month or two off at other times during the year.
How much study time is required is entirely dependent on the student, and quite variable. Med school moves MUCH faster than most undergraduate courses, so it’s important not to fall behind. Letting things go until the last minute and then cramming is NOT recommended!
Residency length is variable, depending on the specialty, but no residency is shorter than 3 years. Some can be as long as 5 years. Many fields, such as cardiology, hematology/oncology, or plastic surgery, require additional years of fellowship training after residency is completed - again, the length of the fellowship training varies depending on the subspecialty, and can be anything from 1 to 3+ years in duration.
