Welcome!

Hi all,

I am on break after completing the second of three quarters comprising the first year of medical school, so I would like to provide an update for those who may be curious.

The first year of medical school has been quite busy. Based on my observations, it is a 60H full-time job of studying. To date, I have written a total of 41 exams since August 2020, which averages out to 1.5 exams per week.

Although it has been a lot of work, I do think it has been an interesting experience especially given the pandemic and how it has impacted the way students are engaging with the medical school.

The information is extremely interesting, and it is unfortunate that we do not get enough time to appreciate it due to how fast the information must be learned and processed to prepare for non-stop exams. I must include a disclaimer that my particular medical school has an unusually rigorous exam schedule and not every school operates this way.

The material has been a combination of the basic sciences and clinical skills – the latter of which includes learning the components of a physical exam as well as upwards of 60+ osteopathic manipulative medicine techniques.

I have signed up to do research during the next quarter and a few weeks of the summer. The project will involve screening different anti-fungal small molecule inhibitors for efficacy and subsequently producing a paper outlining the methods and findings. This is something additional that I am taking on in order to make a contribution in the realm of research and because I found this more interesting than the other research opportunities that were available to me on campus.

In these past two quarters I have learned how to excel in my coursework. It was a trial-and-error process to identify the most efficient methods for studying based specifically on how my brain processes and understands information. I am at the point now where I feel that I can safely cut back on the time I previously devoted to studying and repurpose that towards research during the quarter. I think this will be a challenge because I have a hard time balancing two obligations at once. It is easy to be a good student when all you have/need to do is study. Once you throw something else in the mix, you are suddenly required to prioritize, and that can be tricky (for me, at least).

Additionally, next quarter I have some interesting courses to look forward to such as: Medical Ethics, Humanity in Medicine, and Immunology. It will be a fresh change of pace to spend time with these courses in exchange for the more hardcore basic sciences that we have had the past two quarters.

Until then, I plan to relax. I will provide another update near the end of the school year as I enter the summer period!