Okay. I know I’m all over the place when it comes to reviewing textbooks. I also know that what I used to help aid me in studying is never consistent. I never figured out how I studied best before arriving to medical school. And I certainly haven’t had time to figure it out since! But if I had to look back and condense some things, then this is what I would have to say.
But, before we begin I want to say this: No matter how much advice you get, at the end of the day, you need to decide and figure out what works for you. What works for me doesn’t work for E, or for some of my friends. And just like that, it may not work for you. It’s great to find many different view points as a starting platform to help yourself find a direction to go in. But remember, just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will always work for you!
1. Class versus no class.
Well. At first I was very gung-ho about class. Why? Because I was in a great headspace, not overly stressed, didn’t need to cope by sleeping more, and was really gunning to be a great medical student. As time went on I realized that personally, being in class didn’t always help me. You can look back at all the blocks I wrote about this first year and see the ebb and flow I had when it came to going to class. And you really do get used to fast-forwarding lectures. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that you can’t fast-forward a conversation in real life only because you get used to that option when watching lectures!
But I will say this: You need to at least watch the lectures. Or most of the lectures. Some professors really do just read off their slides. Others put mostly pictures or vague text on their slides which means you know you have to attend or watch their lecture. I suggest at least attending each professors class once to get a feel for how they are before making your own judgements.
If getting up and going during lecture time works for you and you’ve trained yourself to pay attention during that time, then go. If you need to sleep, or prefer to watch lectures on anything other than 1x speed, then watch them. But you do need to build it into your day. It will be easier on you if you can watch the lectures the same day as when they were originally scheduled only so you have time to study them. But if you can’t, no worries. I still passed my first year with mostly B’s and wasn’t on top of my shit.
2. Textbook versus no textbooks.
I know people who never really cracked open a book and did fine. I know people who need all the textbooks even if they don’t use them frequently (cough *E* cough; looking at you). It really just depends on how you study. If you need to read the original paragraphs for the figures they use, you will want access to the textbook. If you are like me and your brain can’t cope with your professors removing a handful of words to make the concepts fit on the slides, you’ll need access to the textbook. If you do just fine with slide studying, then you don’t really need it.
Some professors use their required textbooks pretty heavily and others don’t. Again, it depends on what you are feeling from the slides that professor gives you.
How to go about textbooks? There will usually be *one* copy of the required textbook in the library at KCU. If it is checked out then oh well. You didn’t get there fast enough. They also tend to have a portion of the textbooks as e-books through KCU’s website, which you can easily access with your KCU login info. For a chunk of the textbooks, E would buy the hardcopy and give me the e-code because I don’t mind not having an actual textbook in front of me. If you have a tradeoff with someone like this you could do that as well. There are a couple of other ways to get textbooks, but I will not be discussing that here.
3. Review books/books I used throughout different courses.
Okay, there are a couple of books that I most definitely found helpful in a chunk of my courses. Some of them are required, some of them are recommended, some of them are neither.
– Moore’s * Only because it is an anatomy book and you will need it for every anatomy course. They will test you on blue boxes from this book. So if nothing else, try to make sure you can get your hands on the blue box material. If you were a COBer, you needed this book for Dr. Anderson’s class anyways.
-Gray’s Anatomy Review Questions. I used this book to test my anatomy knowledge for every single section that had anatomy in it. Some sections it greatly benefitted me to use this; others they tested less on the stuff I happened to focus on. It happens. These questions will be hard and there will be things in there that you are not required to know yet. You don’t need to do all those questions, but some will help you. Use this to help guide where you need to go over. Also, there are embryo questions there!
– BRS physiology. This is a REVIEW book. It will go over high yield topics and has some questions at the end of the chapters. The questions are not very hard, especially if you follow the review book. If you want the full textbook to explain the concepts more, you need to use the other Costanzo book (the big one lol). This is another great place to help you either baseline understand or review some high yield stuff and you can use the questions to help narrow down where you need to focus your studies on.
-*BRS anatomy. I did not personally have this textbook, but I know of some classmates who used it to help with anatomy as well.
-An anatomy atlas. Any one will do. Whether you use Dr. Olinger’s textbook (his has drawings AND cadaver pictures) or Netter’s or whatever you like. Either a book atlas or an online app. It will always come in handy.
-First Aid: I’m hit or miss on this one. It is great at helping with certain figures or mnemonics to help you remember things. It is NOT however going to give you in-depth detail on anything. I think this helped with some people in our neuroscience course. But a good general overview if you have it or need a place to start.
4. Paying for additional help services.
So, I have mixed feelings about this. I’ve mentioned sites such as Boards and Beyond, Osmosis, etc. Some of their content you can get for free, the rest of the access for it requires you to pay. In general, I would suggest trying some of the free things they have to offer first. If you like how they teach (specifically if they have videos that can help explain topics or flashcards/quizzes made already) and you are jiving with it; then sure. It’s *your money, you decide how you want to use it best. I do NOT recommend you spend your money on 12 different ones and then never really use them. Make sure you are getting some benefit out of them before paying for it. Oh, and don’t just hop on the bandwagon because one site works well for a friend. Make sure you to test it for yourself first or it is highly recommended by a professor for a specific course.
5. Youtube
Use this as an extra tool. I have listed some sites throughout my time in first year that can be helpful. But you will have to do some digging to find one you like or to find several different videos on the same topics. You do not need this tool for everything, but it can greatly help.
6. Flashcard sites
I have been off and on with flashcards. I used to write them out last year in COB, but I also had 5x more time than I did in medical school to do that. I also had time to write my own review questions in COB. That ship sailed hard in medical school. If you prefer to write flashcards out, then you need to set a time limit on how much time you are spending writing them out. If you are writing them out but never truly studying them, you are wasting your time. Writing them out will only start the process of you learning. It will not cement it into your brain to the extent you need to know for the exam.
Online flashcard services is what I have been sticking to this year. There are many. Use whichever one you like best. But really they all do the same thing. I decided to stick with one that I could also use on my phone via an app, so I can test myself while waiting in lines to get coffee, groceries, or while taking laps around campus. Same thing applies here though: don’t spend an ample amount of time making them and then not studying them. And honestly, don’t notecard everything. That won’t be helpful to you either.
If you happen to get pre-made notecards from a second year on one of the flashcard sites or a classmate shares their notecards with you, this is just time spent less on making them and more on learning them.
7. Notes
Hand writing them, making outlines, filling out objectives, making flow charts, drawing. I have tried almost all of these methods for getting concepts into my brain. During the beginning of the year I had more time (should’ve savored that while I had it), and could hand write out most of my notes. It took forever, but was really great at getting information into my brain. As I moved along I would try outlining my powerpoints. Personally I didn’t get much out of that.
I tended to stick to filling out learning objectives, making flow charts, and drawing. I know E could just look at most of the powerpoints and be fine. I could not. Just know that even if you are a note-taker by hand, it will take you a large chunk of your time. You will need to decide if that is how you should best be allotting your time in medical school.
8. I stand by my 3x rule.
I will continue to say you need to see the material multiple times to get it into your brain. In COB, you could literally learn most of the concepts by reviewing them the night before as long as you had either gone to class or looked at your notes at least once before the exam. And you could cram a lot into your brain at that time, and would have time to do nothing for a couple of weeks after exam week.
You don’t get that luxury in medical school. At least not at KCU. So, you need to make sure you can build in time to go over the material as many times as you can before exam day. You will remember tidbits better, and will be able to make more connections to other lectures/topics this way.
Unfortunately, you will not have time to do this for every lecture or for every block. Do what you can.
9. Do NOT start studying for boards your first year.
Don’t make me jump out of this computer and slap you.
Don’t do this.
Just don’t.
You will have plenty of time to worry about boards in your second year. And honestly, not a ton of shit from first year ends up on boards anyways (or so I’m told?). Learn the foundational material in first year and work on passing your courses. The better you learned it the first time around, the easier it will be to re-learn it by the time you visit it for board studying.
Don’t stress yourself out with this yet. You will be too stressed trying to adjust to passing medical school and learning to play the game your first year. Worry about this in your second year.
10. Do not schedule yourself down to the last minute.
I’m so guilty of this. Like slap a giant red guilty stamp on my forehead guilty of this. I’m a planner. I feel less overwhelmed when I plan or list out things that need to be done. With that being said, I also tend to write too much on my list of things to accomplish in a day or over-schedule myself.
It doesn’t really matter how you schedule yourself. Joplin’s Student Services have giant blank weekly calendars that you can block off when you have class, lab, etc. You can go in and fill in the rest if this works for you. They even have many different colored markers to make it pretty!
If you’d prefer to do it electronically then go for it. I tried many different types of app planners. I didn’t like any of them. Which is why I use Minimal List (still not a plug). Mostly because if I write it down on a piece of paper I usually lose that paper… But really, doesn’t matter how you make a plan, just make sure you have a plan on what you need to tackle so you can try to fit everything in before exam time. But please, for the love of whoever you believe in, don’t overdo your scheduling or list. If you have too many things to accomplish on your list, you will feel like shit for not getting to them. Same thing if you over schedule and don’t have time for everything. You may need 4 hours to digest and slightly understand that physiology lecture instead of the 2 you originally planned for.
And if you are one of those people that just wants to make a GIGANTIC list for several days or for the whole block and then slowly chip at it, you can do that too. I personally find that more stressful though.
Extra Tidbits; Not study related:
11. Be Professional.
It feels like I shouldn’t have to say this but you’d be surprised at the amount of people that aren’t. This is a professional school. This means that in all aspects you need to act professional and respectful. Yes, you can thoroughly vent to your close friends when life sucks because medical school is hard. That is not what I’m saying.
- I’m saying don’t be arguing with professors. Especially in class. If you do need to argue a point, do it one-on-one in their office or over email. And make sure you are arguing respectfully. Not accusatory. Not like you know everything under the universe and they don’t. Because at the end of the day, they give you a grade. If you have an honest argument there and do it respectfully, chances are you will get that point back.
- Don’t be making super sarcastic comments during class to your lecturers. Although most students will likely get the sarcastic reference, that doesn’t mean your professors will appreciate it or find it appropriate behavior.
- You should also be dressing fairly modestly. No super short shorts. No super low cut shirts or dresses. No crazy slogans or logos or sayings that are controversial on your clothes. Why? You are there to learn, not make a statement. You don’t need to be dressed professionally everyday. That would be awful; we aren’t LECOM over here. You can wear scrubs or sweats. But also remember that this isn’t Cochella up in here. Cover your butthighs. Please. I don’t want to see that either.
- Lastly, this is a personal pet peeve of mine. Don’t ask irrelevant questions. If it is not pertinent to clarifying something the professor said or is related to what you are learning/the professor is teaching, don’t ask it during class. Please go out on your own time to ask it. Why? Because you are literally wasting the time of ALL of your fellow classmates by doing this. No, you don’t look smarter for asking that question. If it isn’t related, please don’t ask it. And if there are too many questions like that, your professor won’t have time to finish the lecture and either not lecture the material OR rush through it. No one is happy when that happens.
12. Get a book stand if you want to use actual paper books.
I know. Weird. Actual paper books? Gasp!
But really, you will be either looking at a screen via laptop or iPad or a book for pretty much 10 some hours a day or more. Your neck will be happier if your book is not lying flat on a table. The stand will help keep your head/neck in a position that is more neutral and cause less ouchies later. I promise.
Here is the one I got off amazon: Reodoeer BamBoo Reading Rest
It held my larger books well, is super lightweight and fits in my backpack, folds easily, and has page holders. Edwin got a similar one but much smaller and I have to say, I definitely like mine because its a tad bigger.
Some people also got laptop stands or got iPad cases that helped with this as well. Again, so their neck wasn’t at a weird angle. you find what works for you but I definitely recommend getting a book stand at some point if you are going to be carrying around textbooks and actually using them.
And honestly, I think that covers majority of the major study tidbits I wanted to cover. Hopefully this helps all you incoming 1st years a bit, since most of what ya’ll ask second years is how to study for a course. You will figure it out, especially what works for you. Remember, you can try something and if your first quiz/exam score doesn’t come back well, that is when it is time to change how you study. But most of the time, you will have an idea before you get there.
Good luck!
