What does your typical day of medical school look like?
As an M3 on my Internal Medicine clerkship, a typical day starts with me waking up at 0500, getting ready for the hospital, and doing some UWorld questions. I try to finish around 10-15 questions before leaving for the hospital. I live close to the hospital, so as long as the Houston weather permits, I bike to the hospital (which lets me park for free in the medical center, which is great!). At 0630, my day at the hospital starts with handoff from the night team followed by seeing my patients for the day. The rest of the day consists of going to morning and noon conferences with the residents as well as rounding with the attendings. I will work on my patient notes throughout the day and also try to get in some Anki cards or UWorld questions if I have free time. I'm usually out of the hospital by 3-4 pm and end up biking home. I try to finish up whatever remaining UWorld questions I have (I do 20 per day on M-F and 40 per day on Saturday). On some days, we have lectures that we go to in the evenings at around 5. Between medical school lectures, committee meetings, engineering lectures (for our dual degree program), and other random assignments, I typically have 2 evenings per week that involve a few hours of work/attendance. After I finish my daily responsibilities (almost always done by 6 except for clerkships with longer hours like OBGYN), I usually relax with some videogames, TV, hanging out with my fiancee, tutoring underclassmen, or working out.
How do your classes and lectures compare to those at your undergraduate institution? (Any insight you can give about class structure, instructors, content and how they are similar/different from undergrad)
Our medical school pre-clerkship used "flipped classroom", so we didn't have as many traditional lectures. We mostly had handouts or recordings to watch on our own time and then had faculty discussions which were usually Q&A based or team-based learning exercises. Our school now has a policy that caps the number of mandatory sessions for pre-clerkship at 15 hours per week (exception for lab-based classes like anatomy which gets 20 hours per week). As far as pacing and difficulty, medical school is leagues ahead of undergraduate. During undergrad, I was able to work multiple jobs, do research, volunteer, and waste much more time while still getting almost all A's. That is simply not possible with the amount of content we have to learn during medical school. This was a massive shock and a rough transition, but I finally got the hang of it after semester 1.
How has your approach to learning and/or studying changed since you were an undergrad?
I've become much more diligent and efficient when it comes to studying content for classes. Instead of using faculty resources primarily, I now use a lot of third-party, focused resources as well as Anki. I also find it much easier to study, as the content we learn now directly prepares me for a career in which I get to serve others, which helps make it all seem more relevant. My undergrad felt very abstract in a lot of the classes (why do I need to learn differential equations and linear algebra if the most math I'll use in my job is algebra 2?)
How would you describe the student culture at your school? Are there special events or activities that you consider very representative of the culture at your institution? What influence has this culture had on your experience in medical school thus far?
My medical school cohort is very small (34 students), which has a big impact on the culture. We also have dedicated "social chairs" which help organize and plan events to help students get involved and have fun. I also think our cohort has a very collaborative and supportive culture. We frequently pick each other up when students have car troubles, help drive each other to the airports, go on vacations together, etc. Although it sounds trite, it does feel like a family in many regards! There are some cons of it being small/family-like; there is more gossip and it is harder to keep as much privacy as in larger classes, so you definitely take the good with the bad in regards to class size.
Can you give us a brief description of the area surrounding your school and the things you do for fun? What are some things you like and dislike about the city/town you are located in as a student?
Houston is a fantastic city, tons of things going on! Night life is great, beautiful parks and museums, food is world class, baseball games are great here. Pretty much any hobby you have can be found in Houston. Down sides are the lack of elevation change (some good hiking around, but not really any mountains or even hills to climb) and the horrible traffic. The city as a whole isn't very walkable, but the area around the medical center is a lot better.
What would you consider strengths of your medical school?
I think the dual degree, Engineering-Medicine aspect of it is very unique and something that other schools don't offer, and I view that as the biggest strength. Our program is also incredibly responsive to student feedback. They involve students in curriculum committee meetings and actually make tangible changes based on our suggestions. For instance, our proposal had the school move towards a true pass-fail and unranked preclerkship, they cut down mandatory sessions, reworked the "practice-of-medicine" courses, and reworked the semester one classes to blend together. It is shocking how quickly and how much they respond to student feedback. I think the partnership with Houston Methodist is also a big strength, as it is the number one hospital in Texas and top 15 in the nation, so it is a great learning environment filled with fantastic physicians.
What resources have been most useful to you in self-learning medical school material or in expanding on material taught in class? Can you briefly describe how you have incorporated them into your learning routine?
Pathoma, B&B, and AnKing for preclerkship. Online-Med-Ed and UWorld for clerkship!
My use of Pathoma/B&B for preclerkship was very straightforward: I would watch the relevant videos that aligned with whatever organ block I was in, and then do the Anki cards mapped to those resources. I then rewatched pathoma for Step1 studying.
For clerkships, I used OME for all of the short blocks (FM, Psych, Peds, OBGYN) as I felt they gave a very strong foundation and covered a lot of content that wasn't addressed in preclerkship. I've also used the UWorld question bank for shelf prep for all my rotations so far. For Internal Medicine, I haven't been using OME as I've felt that UWorld is sufficient.
How much/well have you been able to develop clinical skills alongside your classroom work first and second year? What does your institution do to help you develop clinical skills before the clinical years?
I think our clinical education during pre-clerkship years is better than most. We have Practice of Medicine (PoM) which spans the pre-clerkship curriculum. PoM 1 focuses on doing a thorough head to toe physical examination as well as a basic history and refines those fundamental skills. PoM 2 (second semester) focuses on honing in the physical exam on specific organ systems and specific chief complaints, and also works on developing our differential diagnosis skills (i.e. we would get a chief complaint on back pain and a physician would walk us through all the clinical reasoning around working it up and walk us through what exams are the most relevant, then we would practice the exam on standardized patients). PoM3 (semester 3) involves us in preceptorships, having us spend one half-day per week in a clinical setting so we can get used to real patients and get used to the EMR that our hospital used. We also practice our oral presentations and further refine our focused histories during PoM 3.
What is one thing you would do differently if you could go back to your undergraduate years or the time between undergrad and medical school? (This is open ended...can be related to academics or anything non-academic)
I don't have any regrets, would not change anything. I loved the jobs I worked during undergrad (Research and Design Engineer and emergency room scribe) and the job I worked during my gap year (computer hardware engineer). I felt these were opportunities that made me more well-rounded as a person and are learning experiences that would be difficult to get later in my life, so I'm glad I did them already. I also loved having a gap year to spend time with family and loved ones, and having a salary enabled me to "treat myself" and develop my hobbies before medical school.
Given the number of obstacles we face en route to a career in medicine, everyone at some point feels doubtful of themselves. How has this affected you and what has helped you persevere through these sorts of feelings?
My faith has been instrumental in keeping focused on what's important and keeping me grounded. I also have a loving fiancee and close friends who have been supportive of me during medical school, and the support has helped me thrive throughout medical education so far.
How do you maintain your mental health while balancing school, work, family, and other social obligations?
As I mentioned above, my faith, family, and friends have helped me keep a balance. I also periodically have to remind myself that I'm not studying and working just to do well on my next exam or do well on Step1/Step2, I'm putting in the work right now so that I can help serve my patients and my community. By keeping my focus on what's really important, it helps me push the "non-essential" worries away and direct my attention to what matters the most to me.
Does your medical school provide access to lecture recordings/podcasts?
Yes
How are your pre-clinical and clinical course work graded? (Pass/Fail, Honors, etc.)
My year was graded (Pass/Fail/Honors plus rank) but based off our feedback the pre-clinical classes are now true pass/fail (without honors) and unranked.