<p>What do you mean by easiest? Requires the fewest hours? Easiest to get into? And why do you ask?</p>
<p>is med school like sooooo time consuming, is it super super hard?....do u get to have a life?</p>
<p>No idea. BRM? :)</p>
<p>I was just asking the easiest/hardest specialty because I was wondering how people chose their specialties. I have no idea if this is true or not, but people who like adrenaline rushes (like me) might lean toward choosing an Emergency Medicine specialty or those who love learning about the human mind might choose psychiatry.</p>
<p>I am not even CLOSE to deciding what med school let alone specialty.</p>
<p>Thanks bluedevilmike for your list and help.</p>
<p>Okay this is probably going to be a couple of posts on the topic because I think I need to explain things and set up comparisons.</p>
<p>So Part one: Intro
Medical school is...different. If you are a high school student, it might be somewhat hard to understand the difference because your used to having class all day, maybe working a job and then only having a couple hours at night to take care of the things you want to do...and after 4 years of undergrad in which I always felt like I had a lot of free time (even when I was "super super" busy). However it is difficult for HSers to understand the jump in speed/difficulty. It like whoever posted those "efficiency units" break downs - totally made sense to me.</p>
<p>So I think the best way is to show you what my typical undergrad schedule might have looked like for any particular semester and then show you my med school schedule.</p>
<p>Undergrad, without study time included: If you are in undergrad, you probably won't be impressed, but again you understand this part of it.</p>
<p>Monday:
9:30 - 10:20 Class A (Chem or something)
10:30 - 11:20 Class B (Bio)
11:30 back at the fraternity house for lunch
2:30 - 3:20 Recitation for Class A
4:45 - approx 8pm Formal Dinner at the fraternity (suit and tie) followed by chapter meeting</p>
<p>Tuesday</p>
<p>9:30 - 10:45 Sociology (my major)
10:55 back to the fraternity house for Lunch (was actually ready at 10:30!)
4:30 - 5:30 fraternity house for dinner
6 - 8:50 Sociology Night class
<or if="" i="" had="" no="" night="" class="" that="" semester="">
Work at restaurant as a server from 4 - 9 or later</or></p>
<p>Wednesday:
9:30 - 10:20 Class A (Chem or something)
10:30 - 11:20 Class B (Bio)
11:30 back at the fraternity house for lunch
1:30 - 2:20 Reci for class B
Rest of Afternoon: prep for my meetings that night, see advisors or go chill out places on campus (I used to hang out in the office of Greek Affairs a lot, particularly my Senior year)
4:30 Dinner
5pm - 5:45 Arts and Sciences Student Advisory Board Meeting (every week either general board meeting or execs on the off weeks) Usually it actually lasted longer or I would spend a half hour talking with people I met on my way back to the house
6:20 - 7:00 at the Library checking up on pledges who were doing study hours at the library. This wasn't every week but usually once a month, just to help out. This got cut out when I was President of Greek Ambassadors.
7:30 - 8:30ish Greek Ambassadors meeting.
9pm - 10ish Omicron Delta Kappa leadership honorary (every other week)</p>
<p>Thursday:
9:30 - 10:45 Sociology (my major)
10:55 back to the fraternity house for Lunch
Afternoon - may have a lab
5:00 dinner
6:00 nap
7:00 The OC (yes I did schedule this in)
8:00 shower
9:00 - 1am @ the bars</p>
<p>Friday
7:15am - On campus for HS senior visit day
9:30 - 10:20 Class A (Chem or something)
10:30 - 11:20 Class B (Bio)
11:30 Powerpoint presentation on Greek Life for HS senior visit day
12:45 back for HS senior day panel discussion
2:00 - give campus tour or make sure that greek students were present at the correct chapter house for tours
2:30 - 3:30 give tours of fraternity house and answer questions about the greek system
5:00 dinner out with friends OR @ work until 11:30 or later
Party or bars from 9pm on if not working.</p>
<p>Weekend was pretty much party saturday night or football in the fall, maybe working Sunday afternoon, or a time to get caught up on things.</p>
<p>The things to notice about this is that I was maybe in class a total of 16 or 17 hours a week. You'll notice that there was a lot of free time just laying around, so I could go work out, I could run errands, I could study. I wouldn't say that I studyied that much, b/c I know a lot of people who studied a lot harder than I did. I usually wouldn't start studying for a test until a week ahead. Otherwise I might look over something between classes, but I dicked around a lot in undergrad; that and I was out almost EVERY thursday night to get blackout drunk most of my freshman year, and all of my junior and senior years. Most friday and saturday nights too...</p>
<p>Plus you'll notice that I had several meetings during the week. Again this was just a general semester, but I had one semester where I was doing all those things, was a TA for a class, was also serving on the A&S College Curriculum Committee 2x a month, and volunteering for 2.5 hours a week. Most people would have called me very involved in undergrad (I won my fraternities "Campus Involvement" award my senior year). And while my Fridays weren't always as busy as I've shown, I was usually doing three out four - always giving tours and the Greek Life presentation, then swinging back and forth between the other two. And also those weren't every week, but probably 4 times a semester.</p>
<p>So how does medical school compare?</p>
<p>Well the first thing, something that the undergrads will understand is that the jump from college to medical school in terms of difficulty is probably about 1.5 to 2x that of the jump from HS to college. It might be more if you had some really tough college prep and didn't think that college wasn't that different. It's really not that the material is that much harder, it's just the jump in speed, and the amount more than anything, combined with a slight increase in the level of understanding expected. (Our medical school profs are very interested in "higher" understanding questions, so if you are looking at a histology slide, they aren't going to ask you what type of endocrine cell is labled, but what the physiologic effect is on the body when it is stimulated. That question requires you first to identify it, then know what it secretes, and then what that hormone's end function is.)</p>
<p>Before I put my schedule down, I have to point out that my school runs its curriculum on a "core" system. So I have essentially only one science class at a time. </p>
<p>So here is how most of my weeks break down.</p>
<p>Medical school:</p>
<p>Monday
8am-8:50 - Lecture (science)
9:00-9:50 - Lecture (science)
10:00-10:50 - Lecture (science or small group problem based learning session)
11 - 11:50 lecture (science or continuation of the PBL session)
Noon - 12:45 - Lunch, usually eating at the Hospital cafeteria
1pm - 2:15 Integrative Clinical Experience "core" basically the "how to be a doctor" class. Covers History and Physical skills and things like ethics, legal requirements, alternative medicine and insurance amongst other things)
2:15 - 4pm ICE small group either discussion or particularly early on, group interviews of standardized patients to develop interviewing skills.</p>
<p>Tuesday:
8am-8:50 - Lecture (science)
9:00-9:50 - Lecture (science)
10:00 - 11:50 - 1/2 the class has Lab</p>
<p>Wednesday
8am-8:50 - Lecture (science)
9:00-9:50 - Lecture (science)
10:00 - 11:50 - Other 1/2 the class has Lab
Noon - 12:45 Lunch - again staying on campus
1:00 - 2:15 ICE lecture - this was usually physical exam how to's, but not always.
Rest of the afternoon various groups have H&P sessions with M4 TA's so we get to practice the stuff we just learned about. Some people had to stay until 4:30 - 5:20 every week.</p>
<p>Thursday:
8am-8:50 - Lecture (science)
9:00-9:50 - Lecture (science)
10:00 - 10:50 Lecture (science)
11:00 - 11:50 lecture (science)
Lunch until 12:45
1pm-4:15ish Preceptor visit (more hands on shadowing of a doc - my preceptor usually has me go in first, conduct an interview, do a physical exam if needed then come back and present the patient, then we go in together)</p>
<p>Friday
8am-8:50 - Lecture (science)
9:00-9:50 - Lecture (science)
10:00 - 10:50 Lecture (science or PBL small group)
11:00 - 11:50 lecture (science or PBL small group)</p>
<p>So that's what MY schedule is like. It may not look that bad, and you may be thinking "hey, there's a lot more free time - I'd love to be done at noon most days, or even 10am once a week" But count up how many hours I'm actually in class - 23 hours by my count, not counting my preceptor, which is pretty much the one thing that keeps me sane and actually wanting to be a doctor. Again, you may be thinking, "well hey I bet you spent more time than that in undergrad when you total up all your involvement" and you are probably right. But the key is I wasn't tested on that.</p>
<p>Plus the other thing is that I would say that most of our lecture are the equivalent of 1.25 undergrad lectures. And we don't have review days. We actually have tests on saturdays (most med schools don't), and our fridays remain the same, b/c for the most part, there is a demand for inclusion of more lectures, but they dont' have the room in the schedule, so we've had tests where we have 4 lectures on friday before a saturday test. We also have tests every 3 weeks on average in our basic science cores, so you basically only get two weeks of actually being in tune with the world for every three weeks of real time. I seriously have "lost" about 3 months (12 weeks) just from those weeks where I get to the med center at 8am and don't leave until 10pm. And I even make it a point to try not to spend all my time focused just on school. I fight tooth and nail to make sure that I spend my weeks after a test not studying, and I'm probably more lax than most on that second week (which probably explains my grades...oh well). </p>
<p>The other thing is that I don't go out like I used to. I usually make it out on a 1 or 2 wednesdays every month, but that's for like 2 beers, no more. Even my weekends are focused on how much I should have gotten done on those two days (have only had one weekend where that happened). It was a lot easier when the weather sucked to go in on a Saturday afternoon, but now that the weather is nice it's practically impossible to get anything done on the weekends b/c I want to go golf or whatever.</p>
<p>The only other thng I have going on is working for Kaplan, which I was averaging one class a week from 6-9pm, and I am currently on the executive board of our student run clinic, so I have to administrate at two clinic nights a semester (we have 10 clinic nights a month, so there's a lot to look after - particularly b/c I'm the pharm recruiter, so I have to hunt down drug reps for samples). </p>
<p>Finally for one example of the difference in speed from undergrad to medical school. We had biochem the last 6 weeks (week of thanksgiving was #7) of 1st semester. In the three and a half weeks beginning the monday before thanksgiving to our test on the Friday morning before Christmas, we had 46 hour long lectures...if you're normal 3 credit hour course in undergrad meets for 50 minutes 3x a week like mine did for 15 weeks, then we completed a semester in that time frame!!!</p>
<p>So that's the way that medical school breaks down.</p>
<p>Now, like I said, we're on a core system and other schools aren't. Some schools will go to class from 8-5 everyday, and only have midterms and finals for five courses, so they have even less free time, but they aren't required to compress so much into so little. They are more like studying for finals all the time in which you must set down one subject after it's 2 hours are up so you move to the next thing. I'm not sure how it all plays out, except for that at KU, after their first round of exams (2 thursday, 2 friday, 1 saturday) the M2 students roll 2 kegs into the foyer of the lecture hall so when they're done, the M1s don't have to go any further for a drink...</p>
<p>So do I get to have a life?</p>
<p>Well I make time. Like I said, I try to go out sometimes during the week, and I do have a job (albeit one that is extremely flexible, and pays just awesome...and I do make it down to Lincoln every now and again to have a crazy night.) We do have med school parties, but they tend to coincide with days after a test. If they don't, then they are pretty low key - like our Ugly Xmas sweater party which had all the girls bring dessert and all the guys bring bottles of wine...not quite the 5 or 6 keg ragers I had when I was freshman...</p>
<p>med skool and college is so diff then hs...thanks for da really helpul posts</p>
<p>What is a Recitation?</p>
<p>wow, and residency will only get worse :eek:</p>