<p>The following is the impression about the life in medical school I got from an MS1 during the Thanksgiving break:</p>
<ol>
<li>Social scene is more like high school.
2, Even though MS students live in the same dorm as other non-MD students do, they still mostly hang out with themselves, This is because they spend so much time together by taking the same classes.</li>
<li>As compared to premed's life, there is more studying. Just need to study more constantly/reglarly, but is not more stressed in general.</li>
<li>It is sad to hear that it is more likely for him to stay in the northeast region after MS. Is it due to the regional biases that people have been talking about?</li>
<li>He started to have some opportunity to shadow doctors. It is pretty late for a student on this track to do this. It is glad to know that he seems to like what he has been doing in this area.</li>
<li>Food is more expensive at the cafeteria on the first floor of the dorm. It costs like $12 per meal. Why is everything more expensive there? He could eat like a king with $12 if he live at where we live.</li>
<li>He was thinking of staying in the dorm again next year, because it is so convenient. The dorm is close to where the classes are held and the hospital is across the street. We hope he could make up his mind soon. This is because, if he is going to live at an apartment, he needs to start apartment hunting early next year.</li>
</ol>
<p>LOL! My MS1’s experiences have been mostly 180 degrees different:</p>
<p>1-2) Social life is more like post-grad life. Doesn’t “hang out” with most other MS student outside of the occasional bar trip for post-exam commiseration. At end of day, just wants to go home and do something non-intellectual for a while before settling down to study. Surprisingly few ‘study groups’. Also surprising, not all/most people don’t attend lecture every day, particularly if the lecturer is boring or just reads his own slides. Her roomie–a second year-- says that a certain prof’s classes have been repreatedly cancelled since NO ONE showed up. Both audio and Powerpoints of every lecture posted to class website daily.</p>
<p>3) Definitely more studying. Lots and lots more. An every day for hours kind of thing. But not more stress.</p>
<p>4) D loves the Southwest, but, depending on her residency could end up anywhere. Pretty open-minded about most places, but would like to return eventually to the West/Southwest/Northwest for the lifestyle. Would not want the NE for long term if it could be avoided.</p>
<p>5) Been shadowing docs since before med school, has been working in clinical settings since Week One of med school and now has 3 mentors (in surgery, EM, and rad oncology) who allow her to tag along on rounds/scrub in on surgery whenever she has time. Will start working routine clinic duty starting January 8. (Yikes!) Has already done pelvic and prostrate and other physical exams on multiple live patients. (Yikes!)</p>
<p>6) Food is subsidized at hospital. D1 discovered this while still an undergrad. Not only cheaper, but healthier and better tasting. Meal prep on her own–not so healthy, but she has 1 day per week set aside for real food–home-cooked and shared with friends. (And with LOTS of leftovers to reheat.)</p>
<p>7) Very few/no med students live in the dorms–mostly because it’s less expensive to rent near campus than dorm. Lots of apartment complexes and rental housing available. Even undergrads seldom stay in the dorms more than a couple of years. Also almost everyone has a car. Way of life in the West, plus students need cars to get to their assigned clinic sites.</p>
<p>On the day before Thanksgiving, several of his classmates were emailing to each other back and forth , working together on some project (something to do with a joint presentation after Thanksgiving break.) it can not be nerdier or more high school-ish than this!</p>
<p>Talking about high school, his high school friend came over and asked him to go to his house to have a jam session. We have known him and his family for many years. A funny thing is that, when my wife met him at our front door, one of her first few sentences was: If you happen to know some nice girl, could you introduce her to him? DS did not protest, luckily. We are fully aware that he will never let us interfere with this kind of stuff.</p>
<p>Yes, mcat2. His cafeteria is horribly expensive. And don’t eat the sushi. :eek:</p>
<p>Kid says MS2 is a bear at her school. A voracious bear at that. D still finds time for fun and the LD boy (long distance not learning disabled, although that is a possibility , too ;)). Scrubs in sometimes. Live with two other MS2’s and shares $2400 /mth rent in a highrise slum occupied primarily by med students. My goodness. </p>
<p>Will likely go for the “best” program for her, without much regard to location. She is thinking now about General Surgery and then a fellowship but really has no idea. She keeps talking to her mentors and keeps hearing stories of last minute “audibles” when they realize they have chosen “wrong”, plastic surgery rejects from HMS taking research years at crap pay, but says those decisions will have to wait. Her plate is full. Luckily she plans on a research year afer MS3 so…she’ll have a little breathing room. </p>
<p>She is fully recognizing the reality of Step 1 and its importance to her future choices. </p>
<p>She is remarkably happy with her med school, her profs, her opportunity to teach a little, her roomies, and her classmates. Feels like she made the right choice. Seems very happy.</p>
<p>mcat2–Lol! D2 is snowboarding in Taos this weekend, not working on presentations. </p>
<p>Her school has irregular length units. They finished up genetics & neoplasia the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and will squeeze in immunology between Thanksgiving and winter break. Then 5 days off in March and no more breaks until after PIE (Practical Immersion Experience–4-5 weeks of rural primary care clinical work). </p>
<p>For her 4 weeks off after PIE, D1 just bought plane tickets to Seville where she’s planning to meet an old high school buddy (who’s at CERN) and do 4 weeks of wine tasting and rock climbing at Le Chorro/Malaga. With maybe a side trip to Morocco.</p>
<p>And a long convo with a family friend–and retired med school prof of surgery–at Thanksgiving dinner put the fear of Step One into her.</p>
<p>^ It appears she has a very busy (yet still balanced) life.</p>
<p>DS insisted on bringing his guitar on flight this am. We were very concerned he could not put it in the overhead storage bin due to his late boarding group. So we upgraded his seat on the spot. I do not know what will happen on the second leg of his flight because there is no chance to upgrade that leg (That leg of flight is fully packed.)</p>
<p>He actually studied quite a bit over the week-long break. It appears he not only studied out of the handouts, but also from the tome/textbooks. I thought most medical school students mostly rely on the handouts, unlike premeds. So this is strange to me. He went to WalMart to get some sticky pads and, to our surprise, Crayola. (Isn’t that for kindergarten?!) It appears he took note on computer in class now, so the reason for buying these colored pencils and sticky pads is likely for his tomes. Yes, he brought several of his tomes back home. Quite nerdy, right? His only “joyful sin” is likely that he likes to spend well too many hours on his instruments, as I heard, including on that piano in his dorm building. He has never had such an easy access to a Steinway! At one time, he said he is concerned he spent too much time there and others might not have their share of time there.</p>
<p>As for his “planned” specialty, it appears he is into IM as of this moment. This probably fits his personality well. At least he will have an easier time when the residency interview time comes if he chooses this specialty. I could not imagine he will be willing to interview like hell (e.g., 30-40 interviews?) come that time.</p>
<p>Just in case any people who aren’t current med students/parents of med students read this thread:</p>
<p>The differences between med school life and pre-med life are going to be determined so largely by what undergrad you went to and what med school you are in that to attempt to generalize is foolish.</p>
<p>That being said there are two things that I have heard from lots of people:</p>
<p>Much more work
More like high school - that doesn’t mean it’s exactly like high school, but for most college students, a significant fraction of their friends have zero academic overlap with them, and in fact may have completely opposite extracurricular activities/schedules. In med school, everyone takes the same courses and the range of extracurricular activities is much narrower. This is more similar to high school than it is to college. Post-grad life is MUCH more social/relaxed than med school since there is no studying. Sure, my banking friends may work just as many hours as I do, but when they go home, they are done, there are no mornings when they have to have memorized everything that was said to them during standard business hours over the course of the last month. These two things can drastically change your lifestyle.</p>
<p>I’d say the biggest difference is hours studying (med school >>> undergrad), followed by schedule (no longer have the luxury of choosing classes/schedule), followed by class size (lots of work in groups of 8 (same group for 8 weeks), lectures for my whole class still only have 100 kids in them). </p>
<p>My classmates are incredible and I am having a fantastic time building relationships with them! Social life is pretty much the same for me, perhaps slightly less frequent opportunities to “go out” because we’re always so busy with school. But it really seems like everyone is enjoying it!</p>
<p>And if we’re playing the “guess the future” game, I’d say I’m leaning toward peds specialty or OB/GYN.</p>
<p>Regarding #4: Any limitations on region for residency is solely dependent on the Medical Student. I say this as someone who over the course of 2 rounds of interviews for residency and fellowship has interviewed from Utah to Wake Forest (residency), Seattle to DC (Fellowship), Arizona to Ohio (residency) and Michigan to Atlanta (fellowship). And for individuals who are applying to the extremely competitive specialties, there has to be an expansion well beyond an isolated region (see NCG’s radiology applications to 50+ programs). Residency and fellowship are very unique opportunities to move without the employment risk/uncertainty. </p>
<p>Kristin - Deciding between OB/GYN and peds will be pretty easy. When you’re on OB or Family Med rotations, in a delivery, pay attention to where your interest is after the baby is born. If you’re more interested in what’s going on with mom - sewing up lacerations, controlling bleeding, massaging the uterus, etc. - then you’re a future OB. If you’re stuck looking over your shoulder trying to see what’s happening with the baby while being scolded by the L&D nurse for not massaging the uterus properly, then Peds is probably your general direction. I might be more than a touch biased, but trust me, OB is gross and Peds is way more fun. ;)</p>
<p>LOL! D1 shares your assessment of OB—gross. She assisted with a delivery as part of an EMT-I rotation. And came home to tell me she was never, ever, never going to have kids.</p>
<p>Might have been a few more never evers in the original statement…</p>
<p>Haha, thanks Bigredmed. I have 3 weeks off for winter break and am planning to shadow an OB/GYN family friend and my family’s pediatrician (guess we’ve been seeing him for…23 years, what with all my siblings)–should be interesting!</p>
<p>-D. does not live in dorm. She has her own studio, this is a big diff, since she has never been by herself without any kind of roomate. She likes it so far.
-She hangs out with MS1 in her apartment bldg (only grad. level, residents, few faculty) and other MS1’s. They have assigned study groups also.<br>
-D. likes to visit during her breaks and some weekends. She loves to visit her UG, forever in her heart, was perfect place for her.<br>
-She study tons, not comparable to UG at all, although UG was very very challenging also.
-She had clinical exposure (shadowing) as part of her program and contacted to shadow on her own in area of her interests.
-thinking about going abroad. If so, she will be primarily utilized as Spanish translator. She is taking Medical Spanish outside of her Med. School program, placed into intermediate level. She has couple other foreign languages. I do not care for her to go, but will support her decision.<br>
-Looking forward for Opera production, going there in couple of weeks, it has been D’s fun. She also will play piano at some other ocasion. These is all easy fun peices, she does not need to practice, she does not have a keyboard with her.
-She did great on her first big exam, was pleasantly surprized. They grade them altough they are p/f
-D. has ruled some specialties long time ago. OB/GYN, peds, surgery are some. the first two were rejected after volunteering at the hospital taking care of infants. She loved it, was one of her best experiences, especially taking care of abondoned baby, but watching docs dealing with parents completely turned her off. She said, no way. Coming from a person who actually loves to deal with people in distress, knows how to calm them down, to bring them to a better place so to speak, has done it extensively.<br>
-She keeps in very close contact with her HS friends also.<br>
-She really appreciates talking to anybody outside of medicine.</p>
<p>I have purchased over 40 bottles of whiskey since starting medical school. #medschoollife</p>
<p>In seriousness, if you go into medicine for the right reasons and are lucky enough to end up at a school that you fit with, med school is awesome.</p>
<p>I agree with the above poster who stated the difference depends greatly on your undergrad/program and then med school.</p>
<p>Son has significant more free time than he ever did as an undergrad. As that he recieved several degrees from different institutions this held true for all his undergrad. Some semesters he had between 20-28 units, 7-8-9 classes with labs. Some semesters research and all semesters he was a D1 athlete with twice-a-days and travel for away games.</p>
<p>Now he spends 6-8 hours with lecture/lab anatomy, and 2 other classes that meet once a week and some clinical. When that unit is over (Dec) new unit (Jan) micro/immunolgy starts…one of his degrees was in micro/immun. First unit was biochem…another undergrad degree for him.</p>
<p>So now instead of playing ball he gets to watch his med school’s undergrad teams play. Between football/bball/baseball/soccer good teams he is having a blast. He is also an alumni rep for his first undergrad so that is also keeping him busy. </p>
<p>He is having a ton of fun and in between goes to med school! Understand he loves, loves his anatomy unit, bone saw is his tool of choice but he did the chest removal and will be doing the brain as well. He has the steadiest hands in the group and keeps it from being messy…some other groups have more difficulty with this. </p>
<p>He has a large class, also varied ages and experiences. Makes for interesting discussions and has found his group to do things with outside of class. He like Miami’s daughter misses his undergrad terribly and visits often as do his friends from there. He was up there during fall break and will be returning after this unit. Most all live/work in the city so he always has some place to stay and things to do.</p>
<p>Studying-wise he has said that he worked much harder/longer/intensive as a freshman in his first undergrad. And I again would attribute this to where he attended and where he attends now.</p>
<p>I cannot assess frre time comparison as I did not discuss it with my D. She never had 28 hrs in UG, she was not D1 athlete either. she could not keep up even with club sport and dropped it after UG freshman year. According to her pre-med advisor comment though, she had “insane” number of EC’s in UG. She had to study very hard in UG, but she has to study much harder in Med. School as there is no “conceptual” easy classes that she would add into mix every semester in UG, like Gen. Chem., Stats, Music … All Med. School material is very hard and it is a lot of it, but she is happy with results of her first big exam.
She visits a lot on a weekends, breaks… though. She has visited her UG several times, home and some UG and High School friends. Works out occasionally, some parties, getting to know more people with various backgrounds which is the most valuable for her and the most fun.</p>