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After the heady experience of orientation, it’s time to get to the business of medical school. The classes will start, syllabi will be handed out and lectures will be available for download. It’s time to “Go Live” and get off to a strong start. At this point, you should have your living arrangements settled (at least for the first semester) and you should have a pretty fair idea of how your class time will be utilized during the first semester. Now, you have to get into some kind of a routine.

As I have mentioned in other posts, you need to be thoroughly prepared for each class before you enter the classroom. The volume of material will not allow you to sit in lecture cold. This preparation means having your text/syllabus reading done before you hear the lecture. In addition, you need to have thoroughly mastered the previous lecture’s material before you move into the current lecture’s material. Gone are the days of sitting down on the weekend and learning the previous week’s work. Studying and learning are daily “friends” once you reach medical school.

You are going to hear differing opinions on class attendance. Some schools have mandatory attendance while others don’t care except for the occasional mandatory session. If you have signed up for a problem-based learning curriculum, you are going to be subject to mandatory attendance. In general, if class attendance is optional, attend class until you find that you are more adept at mastery of the material on your own or when you feel that your learning is being slowed by the lecture.

When students are sitting in lecture, they are listening to the lecture material being presented in an aural manner. Their isn’t much mental processing of the material unless you have a base to which your are mentally linking as the lecturer presents the material. Most of the “learning” of the lecture material will take place when you go home and review the lecture presentation.

Some students will sit in lecture and “personalize” the material as the lecturer presents. This is generally a distraction and leads to those “sometimes annoying” classroom debates between one student and the lecturer. When I was a freshman medical student, these debates would generally occur during out psychiatry lectures when the professor would present a controversial theory or treatment. There was always one or two students who felt the need to be the “moral pulse” of the class. The rest of us learned to tune out and tune back in once the lecturer got back on track. Most experienced lecturers are adept at redirecting but occasionally, these interludes could go on for several minutes leaving me time to pour a fresh cup of coffee (or water) or take a breather.

For many students, taking notes seems to be oppressive. Don’t fall into this category. There are very few notes that must be taken for the most part. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you need to take down every work that comes out of a lecturer’s mouth. When this happens, you become more clerical than engaged in information acquisition. You need only write a word here or there as most lecturers will have downloadable handouts/slides. Once you reach the point of figuring out how the lecturer approaches the subject matter, you can take a word here and there to direct your learning later on.

If you are a participant in a problem-based learning curriculum, you will have to become adept at linking medical concepts. I can tell you that by the time your first two years are done, you will become nauseated at the mention of the words “learning issues” and “learning goals”. While problem-based learning (PBL) is admirable, sometimes one or two group members - usually the loudest and less shy - can dominate conversations or delay progression. At this point, an excellent facilitator (another word that will bring on nausea) will intervene but sometimes the group dynamics can get in the way of obtaining the information that you just need to learn.

Other things to think about are time-management in general. Yes, there are only 24 hours in the day and you will need to sleep at some point. I did find that after a couple of weeks, I could actually study when I was tired and that more coffee was not necessarily going to keep me awake. Having and keeping a fairly detailed daily schedule that included timing for the necessities of life (sleeping, eating etc) was helpful but there are going to be some days when the schedule is going “out the window” and your time will be spent in less productive ways. (You want to try not to have too many of these types of days). When this happens, forgive yourself, forgive the person (s) who wasted your time and get back on track as soon as possible.

Getting enough sleep is going to become something of an experimental journey for you. Resist the urge to listen to people who say that they “go for days on 1 hour of sleep” or the people who say “if you are sleeping 8 hours a night, you are not studying enough”. Both of these are extremes and you will find that some the amount of sleep you “need” is just that, the amount that you “need”.

If you are drowsy most of the daylight hours, you are probably not getting enough quality sleep. If you are drowsy when the lecture hall is too warm and dark and the professor’s voice is monotone, you are normal. If your sleep quality is not good, be sure that you are getting enough “de-stressing” (physical exercise is good for this) or getting enough rest (being overtired can disrupt your study efficiency).

If your sleep pattern is disrupted, try some good sleep hygiene such as getting in bed at the same time every night. Don’t try to read or study in bed (keep the bedroom for sleeping and recreation). Don’t have a television in the bedroom (Ok, but un-plug it). Avoid coffee, tea and high caffeine “energy drinks” within four hours of bedtime. Avoid exercising before bedtime as it can disrupt your sleeping patterns as do naps of more than 45-minutes in the afternoon.
Be sure that your bedroom does not contain molds and too much dust. If you have allergies, these things will decrease your sleep efficiency and disrupt your sleeping patterns. Clean and dust your bedroom on a regular basis. If possible, wash your pillows monthly too.

Finally, forgive yourself if you find that your don’t have everything together perfectly for the first set of exams. Adjusting up or down is part of the adjustment phase of medical school. You are definitely going to find that some subjects will demand more of your time and some will demand less. In the beginning, keep up with everything but generally give the time where it is demanded most.

Don’t try to “explain” your schedule or study needs to anyone. Every medical student is different. If you can get through the semester, get the material mastered and get some stress relief on a regular basis, then you have gotten off to a strong start. Your family is not going to understand the pressure of your daily routine so don’t expect this understanding. Your classmates will understand and your professors (to a certain degree) will understand but searching for “understanding” is largely counterproductive outside of medical school.

Start strong and finish strong but in the first few weeks, just get the start under your belt. Largely the study skills that you have brought with you from undergraduate/graduate school will work in medical school. Do realize that you are human and will make mistakes. At the beginning, there are no fatal mistakes so use this time to “ratchet up” or “ratchet back” until your reach your optimum.

The best words of advice that I received as I started medical school were “you create your own success and you create your own luck”. Don’t overanalyze and above all, don’t be afraid of the task that is in front of you. You will adjust and you will have some successes. Overall, you just have to be willing to make adjustments daily and adapt.

You have received your acceptance letter and sent in your deposit. You now know where you will be attending medical school in the fall -or should I say late summer. The next step in your adventure will be Medical School Orientation Week. Why does it take a week? How about Orientation Day and then you can get to the business of getting started with first year of medical school.

Orientation Week usually starts out with some type of “check-in”. In my case, the Dean of Students called names from a roll. We had previously been warned that if we were not present for roll call, our “seat” would be given to the next person on the wait list. Needless to say, everyone was present and accounted-for that morning. Following roll call, there was the obligatory introduction of the Deans. This was followed by a speech given by a speaker that was chosen by the second-year students the year before.

By the time the introductions and speeches were over, the greater part of the morning had disappeared. There was a meeting of your second-year advisers (second-year medical students) who would share their advice on navigating the curriculum. This meet-and-greet was filled with horror stories about certain professors and warnings about behaviors to avoid. With some of the tales of woe, I wondered how anyone survived the first year and made it into second year.

My own second-year adviser was a lovely but quite young lady. She was the daughter of a registered nurse and was very enthusiastic about all of the adventures that she had experienced in first year. She and her tight-knit group of friends, gathered us together and spoke to us (their advisees) as a group. We were able to get the benefit of a collective experience rather than single reports. This turned out to be a blessing. My second-year adviser also led me to her car where she presented me with a cardboard box of old exam, used and filled-in course syllabi and her books from first year. “I started putting this together for year after my first exams last year”, she said almost apologetically. I was speechless but thanked her profusely. That box turned out to be one of the major keys to my success during my first year. I happily passed on her stuff and mine to my two advisees when I became a second-year student.

After our meetings with our second-year advisers, it was time to get our photographs done for the student directory. We lined up and had out photos taken by the medical photography service. Following the photo for the student directory, we were taken to the Student Services building for photo identification cards. Our physical examination papers were collected along with our immunization records as we moved from Student Services to student health. Once we had accepted admission to medical school, we were told to bring proof of immunization and undergo a physical examination by a physician. (My uncle took care of this for me, had his office staff copy my records and put together a nice package).

During the evening of our first day, we were bused and car-pooled to a local park where the second-year students had prepared a cookout for us. This was our first introduction to the wonderful world of “free-food” in medical school. Our first day of orientation ended around 8pm.

On the second day, we were introduced to our microscopes and course syllabi. Each of us was issued a microscope (if you didn’t have your own as I did ) and were issued thick syllabi for Biochemistry, Gross Anatomy, Introduction to the Practice of Medicine and Psychiatry. In addition, we were given a couple of hours to purchase books (already furnished by my second-year adviser). We also had lockers issued (I could actually stand in my huge locker) where we could store our necessities. On this day, the student health department singled out students whose records were not complete and gave them strategies for getting their immunizations and records done. This meant downtime for me. At the end of the day, free pizza courtesy of one of the student organizations.

On the third day, which turned out to be a Thursday, we were treated to a morning meeting with Financial Aid and Student Organizations. The Student Organizations had set up tables with sign-up sheets for us to join groups. I signed up for the American Medical Association and new organization called “Students with Families” (a non-traditional student organization). The afternoon was spent organizing our class and electing temporary class officers. We elected temporary officers because we actually didn’t know anyone and would elect permanent officers later in the year. I actually volunteered to become the Vice-President for Education in charge of note-service because I had some experience from graduate school with running a note service.

The Dean’s Reception was held on the evening of the third day. This is where I met my best friend from medical school. Over the four years, we would share triumphs and tragedies but it was at this reception that we met the various Deans up close and shared a line or two of conversation. In addition, there was more free food and an opportunity to wear something other than our jeans and T-Shir’s that had become our orientation outfit.

On our last full day of orientation, we had information sessions from the chairmen of various departments. This gave us an opportunity to mingle with the faculty. We were also introduced to the school’s computing system and issued laptop computers if we didn’t already own a suitable laptop. Again, that locker was getting full. For students who were not immune to Hepatitis B, there was the first in a series of three Hep B vaccination shots (thankfully, I could bypass this step too). On the evening of our last day of orientation, there was a White Coat Ceremony where we were cloaked in our white coats by graduates of our medical school and issued the Hippocratic Oath.

Orientation had taken the better part of a week. Many of us were not ready to just get down to the business of attending classes and adjusting to the course schedule. Our syllabi need to be filled in and mastered, our textbooks read and highlighted. On the next Monday, we would be “going live” in terms of our classwork.
Over the first week, I came to have a list of things that I could not do without. These things were carried in my backpack and spread on my table in front of me during lectures. These were:

• My laptop computer for downloading power-points and the professors writing on the “smart board”.
• My pens of four colors: black for notes, red for emphasis, green for projects and blue for notes from the text book.
• My Easy Reader book stand that held my looseleaf notebook that contained pages from my textbooks that were cut and 3-hole punched.
• My highlighters in four colors: bright yellow, pink, green and blue.
• A micro tape recorder (now replaced by a digital tape recorder) for making sure I didn’t miss anything if I fell asleep in class.
• A sweatshirt as the lecture room was always freezing even if the outside temperature was above 100F.
• My travel coffee mug and a thermos of fresh coffee (Starbucks was a short walk from the lecture hall).
• A liter-bottle of water (kept me awake in the afternoon).
• My Walkman (now replaced by an MP-3 player).

These were my daily companions during first and second year of medical school. Even today, I always read and study with my pens and highlighters handy. My Easy Reader book stand is also with me as is my Sony Viao laptop computer for making notes and reading the myriad of PDF documents that I have downloaded.

Other things that I would learn but not mentioned during Orientation Week, was not to worry so much about not doing well on my first set of exams. I more than passed every exam but I saw many of my classmates head into a “tail-spin” after receiving their first failing grades. On our first Gross Anatomy exam, 85% of the class failed the exam. For some students, this was their first failure ever and they had difficulty shaking it off and moving on. In my case, I remembered that my wonderful second-year adviser had said, “You are going to encounter something that will give you problems, ask for help and put your failures behind you fast.”. She also encouraged me to help my fellow students who as she said, would “become colleagues that I would refer patients to in the future”. She was right because the more I helped my fellow students, the higher my grades became.

We all survived that first semester but we lost a couple of students at the end of second semester. One of my classmates decided that he wasn’t going to spend another moment doing that much studying for anything. Another had illnesses and just wasn’t able to keep up with the material. In the end, we all experienced the molding that would mark us as physicians.

During orientation week at my medical school, the last night of the week is reserved for the White Coat Ceremony. This ceremony is where the incoming medical student has a physician place their white coat, shake their hand and where they are officially welcome into the practice of medicine. This ceremony marks their first taking of the Hippocratic Oath (with a re-take for the practicing physicians).

There is usually a nationally recognized speaker - for my year is was Benjamin Carson, M.D., chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins- who sets the tone of the entire program. I have heard White Coat Ceremony speeches by Former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders and other nationally known physicians. Every time I attend one of these White Coat Ceremonies, I am reminded of why I went into medicine in the first place and the “humanism” of my practice.

Even today, in 2007, the infant mortality in Mississippi is higher than in many third-world countries. In New Orleans, many patients with chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes face an uphill battle to find adequate primary medical care for simple maintenance of their conditions after Hurricane Katrina wiped out many clinics in the poorer neighborhoods. In Appalachia, the complications from untreated hypertension have left many without renal function who have to rely on hemodialysis three times each week.

We still have a health care system in this country that shuts out large populations who either do not have jobs that provide health insurance or jobs with health insurance benefits that are woefully inadequate. Many of these people avoid seeing a physician when early intervention could likely make the difference between remaining healthy or progressing to a chronic state of illness that will be life-changing.

Obesity is rampant in all segments of our population yet the morbidly obese face discrimination and ridicule by hospital staff, physicians and large segments of society who see them as lazy and responsible for their condition. In most cases, morbid obesity comes from lack of access to foods that are lower in fat and higher in nutrition because of cost or lack of knowledge. After gaining a large amount of weight, even walking around the block becomes more than many of these people are able to achieve.

When I think about attending the White Coat Ceremony at my medical school this year, my focus will be on how we can raise the quality of delivery of health care across all segments of our society. It is my belief that preventive medicine needs to be practiced more than interventional medicine. The poor, the morbidly obese, and those who lack knowledge are among the most difficult patients that any physician will ever treat.

The morbidly obese are a rapidly growing segment of our collective patient populations with problems such as non-healing venous stasis ulcers, lymphatic dysfunction, obstructive sleep apnea, early congestive heart failure, depression, Type II diabetes of the young and predisposition to thromboembolism. Even a relatively minor surgical procedure such as an appendectomy becomes a major undertaking in a person who weighs more than 300 pounds let alone 400 - 500 pounds. I have watched my colleagues deliberately avoid treating morbidly obese patients who have sought their care because they didn’t want to deal with the possible complications.

Morbid obesity is showing up in middle school, junior high and high school with some individuals weighing so much, they become unable to attend school. In the cases where these morbidly obese individuals are able to attend schools, many physical education classes are unable to accommodate these children who desperately need to learn how to exercise and eat properly in order to undo 200-300 pounds of weight. In most cases, these children do not need to be subjected to gastric bypass surgery but need simple education and good food choices along with making aerobic exercise a regular activity.

With every patient, we as physicians, need to look toward preventive medicine and patient education. To do otherwise, keeps us on a path where health care costs will continue to sky rocket and soon, too costly for most people to be able to afford. It is up to us, as physicians, to lead this country back to basic good health for every segment of our population.

Many people have asked me, “What was medical school actually like?” “What was you day-to-day schedule?”. I will attempt to describe my first day in medical school from the time I woke up to the time I fell asleep in this essay.

I woke up at my usual time of 4:30AM. I was raised on a farm and getting up early is as much a part of my life as brushing my teeth every morning and evening. I am fortunate that I actually have always had less of a sleep schedule than most of my buddies and thus, I generally awaken around 4:30AM without the need of an alarm clock. I also roll out of bed and hit the shower while my single cup of “Joe” is brewing.

Over coffee, I usually catch up with the newspaper (online) and then I headed out the door for my walk to the subway station. This walk generally took about 20-minutes and was a built-in source of exercise for me for the first couple of weeks of medical school. My coursework on the first day consisted of Introduction to the Practice of Medicine Class at 8:AM- 10AM, Psychiatry at 10AM to noon. Lunch was from 12 noon to 1PM. Afternoon was Gross Anatomy Lecture from 1PM-3PM and Gross Anatomy Lab from 3PM to 5pm.

All of our lectures were in 50-minute blocks with 10 minutes of break in between each lecture. This allowed us to get a drink, walk around and prepare for the incoming lecturer. It also allowed the media person to set up in between the lectures as our lectures were available for download and all PowerPoints were down-loadable from out seats. Most of us took notes on the Powerpoint slide sheets or just listened in class.

Our syllabi had been handed out during orientation so that we knew the objectives and content with each lecturer. We also knew which textbook readings were to be covered. My Introduction to the Practice of Medicine course had a syllabus that contained an outline of the lecture. There was no text reading for this opening lecture that included the duties of a physician, how to fill out a death certificate and how to gather and interpret vital statistics for a locale such as birth rates, death rates and rates of disease.

With all of my syllabi and text books, I would remove the covers, take the books to Kinko’s and have the bindings removed. I would then have three-holes punched and I would place these sheets in large 3-ring binders. I had a binder for each course. In the evening before each course, I would remove the syllabus sheets for that course, remove any textbook pages that I thought I might need and place them in a small 3-ring notebook along with sheets of lined notebook paper (for taking notes). This was the notebook that I brought with me to school. I would have the subject matter divided by separators so that I had all of my information with me for the day.

I would download my PowerPoint slides and place copies of these in my subject notebook when I got back home for the day. My lecture notes (or copies of note service) would also go into each subject note book. My textbook pages would go back into that textbook three-ring binder.

On my first day, I took notes and placed them in my Introduction to the Practice of Medicine binder when I arrived home at the end of the day. For psychiatry, again, the lecturer had no slides but discussed Erickson’s stages of development and Piaget. I took notes but knew that detailed explanations of these subjects were in my textbook.

For Gross Anatomy, I had the text pages with me and made notes in the margins of the material presented by the lecturer. I also made a few notes on photocopies of my Netter plates for use in our lab. During Gross Anatomy lab, I had my list of structures that I had made from scanning the dissector. I had also reviewed the relevant plates in my Netter atlas and had made photocopies of these plates. My photocopies were stapled to my list of structures.

In our first Gross anatomy lab, we studied the bones of the vertebral system and skeletal structures. We were also given instruction in how to work with the diener to keep our cadavers in good condition for the entire semester. We were also introduced to our cadavers and our tank groups (each was six people).

After lab was over, I took the subway back home (45-minutes) and walked from the subway station to my house. I then took an hour, made dinner, ate and begin to study and review the material from the first day’s lecturers. As I studied, I made notes an questions in the margins of my books, syllabi and note sheets. Since most of my notes were typed, I printed these out and placed them in my subject binders. I also studied and memorized the relevant bone structures using my bone box that was issued to me during the first day of Gross Anatomy laboratory.

My next task was to preview the notes for the next day’s subjects and do any readings/problems that had been assigned. After my previewing, my textbook pages, relevant notes and syllabi pages were placed in my daily notebook which went into my backpack. My next days courses were Biochemistry, Microbiology and Microbiology lab.

My day ended about 11 PM and I hit the bed because I knew that my next day would be starting at 4:30 AM. Since Tuesdays and Thursdays were shorter days (class started at 8AM but ended at 4PM) I actually had an extra hour on these days. We also had a Microbiology Discussion session on Tuesdays and a Biochemistry Case Discussion session on Thursdays where we would discuss clinical cases from the standpoint of these subjects. Our instructors would bring a case, present it and then we would discuss these cases in detail from the standpoint of the basic science involved.

When we started to actually dissect the cadavers, my Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays included 2-3 hours of dissection in the evening after class was done. I would get some dinner at school and then get into the dissection laboratory to study and complete dissections. The extra dissection/study moved my bedtime back to after midnight on these nights.

I also studied in the dissection laboratory and with my study group on Saturdays. We would have an early breakfast (at one of the nearby churches to help them raise funds) and then study and quiz each other until noon. We would then study and quiz each other in the Gross Anatomy lab after lunch and generally until 3 or 4pm. After that, we would do another group session in Biochemistry and Micro and then head home around 8pm.

Sunday’s were generally my day of rest. I would spend a couple hours in the evening putting together my materials for my Monday classes but most of my studies would be completed in the time that I had put in Monday through Saturday.

If this amount of study time seems extreme, it was extreme in some ways. I would not stop until I felt I had mastered the material. I also made the crucial mistake of neglecting my physical conditioning in favor of my studies when I should have incorporated my studies into my physical conditioning routine. I ended up gaining a considerable amount of weight but my grades were excellent. At this point in my life, I know that I have to strike a balance and now I am in excellent physical condition with no neglect to my academics/reading.

Medical school was all about balancing my studies with my life. I learned to multi-task and I learned how to focus on getting things mastered and completed. I also learned the value of discipline. My schedule didn’t allow much “downtime” but the “downtime” that I had was utilized to an ultimate degree.

It becomes easy to procrastinate in medical school because the days are long and the material seems voluminous. I fought procrastination by asking myself, “Why are you avoiding getting on with this task?”. Since I never had a good answer for this question, I just broke the task into smaller tasks and checked them off until they were done.

As I have said in other posts on this blog, the telly went by the wayside. I would spend a bit of time on Sunday scanning the log for shows that might be of interest. I would program my recorder for the shows of interest and watch them the next Sunday if I felt like a bit of relaxation. In most cases, my relaxation became hanging out with my classmates and the telly wasn’t much entertainment. I still tape shows that I love or documentaries that might be of interest to my students as I am teaching more these days.

Other things that tended to waste my time in medical school were phone conversations. I seldom use my telephone more than 5 minutes per week and tend to use e-mail communication more. I also pick and choose the meetings that I attend. Many times, academic committee meetings can be a total waste of time and energy and thus, I pick and choose whenever possible. If something is mandatory, the organizers generally will time the meetings around the schedules of those folks who are attending.

One of my medicine professors encouraged us to read the case reports in the New England Journal of Medicine every week from the first day of medical school. He said that we might not understand all of the aspects of each case but that this habit would prove invaluable as we moved through the curriculum. He was totally “on the money” with this one. I can’t tell you how studying and reading these cases helped me on all steps of USMLE and in residency too.

Medicine requires that you read and keep up with the journals of your discipline. I strive to read selected articles in New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association weekly. I also read American Surgeon and Archives of Surgery regularly along with Nature Medicine (excellent articles to be found in this journal). I keep a computer log of the articles that I have read and their sources. This keeps me current with the literature as much as possible.

Today is my Birthday!!

First of all, today’s my birthday and I have the day completely off. I have been basking in the warm sunshine (by the pool) and thinking about this post.

 Study Skills

Learning Style
One of the most useful things that I did was figure out my learning style. I am a very visual learner. I love to color-code information and I never go anywhere without my different colored highlighters and multi-colored pens. When I am studying, I use my highlighters to circle information, rather than highlighting words. Each color has a particular significance such as blue represents the main headings, pink represents the words that must be defined and all important concepts are circled in yellow. Green is my check-off color as I check off things as I study. This lets me know what I have accomplished. Visual learners like to sit in the front of the classroom for less distractions. During my first and second year of medical school, I sat on the end of the third row so that I could see. I was not a front-row person (too easy to get covered in saliva) and I would only sit in the back if I was doing something else (like reviewing another subject because I wasn’t particularly interested in this lecture).