Just a glimpse...

If you're wondering how hard medical school is, I've decided to give you a little info on what it's like for me. First, I'll let you know that I almost never studied in college, and still managed to make it to medical school. That might explain why I'm in the caribbean...but I digress. Point is, I usually did pretty well without much studying. However, that does not fly at all here!! If you want to keep up, expect to do at least 4-5 hours of studying every night of the week, sometimes more.

We work on a block schedule, so we have all of our exams at once. Personally, I like it that way, but some people don't. Basically, it means that every third week, you study about the equivalent of what you would have studied for a final exam in college. It's fairly typical to get somewhere around 80 powerpoint slides per class per day. In one day, we cover a week or two of college material.

However, that doesn't mean you don't have any free time! If you start studying right after class, you can have a good bit of the night free. And, if you study every day after class, it's perfectly reasonably to take at least one day of the weekend off completely. Although, probably not the weekend before the block exams! People do go to the beach fairly often, go out at night, scuba dive, or whatever. I've been diving 3 times already, and could have gone more if I didn't go home two weekends.

My advice for anyone who is starting med school...do not get behind!! Not even a day! Like I said, one day of class is about 4-5 hours minimum of studying. If you get behind a day, it is hard to catch up. If you get behind a few days...it's nearly impossible. Life in med school is not bad, and there is time for fun, but it's different. I'm still getting used to the amount of studying I have to do (and honestly, I need to keep up a little better), but it's getting better.

Also, med school is an awful lot more interesting than undergrad. Even the classes that you wouldn't think would be interesting, are. I thought I'd hate biochem, but it's the class I'm doing the best in! It's a lot to learn, but it's all relevant. Particularly having been a paramedic, it's interesting to see how all of the diseases I knew of and treated actually occur. It's nice to finally know why I gave the drugs I gave!


Oh, and I finally met trixie the pixie tonight!! I'm not sure if she gives out her real name...so we'll just leave it at that. When I asked her how I new her (she looked familiar from the picture on her blog), someone thought I was trying to use a cheesy pickup line! :)