Diaries of a Medical Student: How to Survive Your First Year

Coming from Gallup, New Mexico, I would say that know a thing or two about coats. I have a coat for when the summer fades into the fall, when the winter is slowly overtaken by the windy spring, and, of course, during the freezing winters. Their duty to fulfill is to keep me warm, and all of the coats mean a great deal to me.  

A couple of months ago, I received a new coat, which was a bit different from the others. It was THE white coat. It was the coat that puts me among a group of professionals that are trusted, respected, and given the heavy task of caring for human life. The coat that made the start of medical school feel truly real. So let me share to you what I have experienced while wearing this white coat.  

Three months have passed by since I first started, and I can already feel a world of difference. The sheer volume that is expected of us is incredible, but all so fascinating at the same time. From the beginning, we started with a foundation in genetics, neoplasia (cancer), and immunology. During this time, we learned about many different diseases, cancers, and treatments that set up a basis for what was going to come in our medical school career. I’m pretty sure I become more of a hypochondriac because I would sit in lecture and diagnose myself with a lot of the diseases that were being taught to us!  

Right from the get-go, they also had us start to interview patients as well. Now, these aren’t normal patients, but are standardized patients who are actors given a specific medically related scenario to act out to us during patient interviews. These guys are good! Like, seriously good. For me, it was really nerve racking because talking to these standardized patients is the first time you ever get to practice clinical skills. It sets up precedents for the real thing. Also, nobody really wants a first year medical students to interview real sick people, do they? It’s like saying you’re going to give a shot to a person for the first time in your life.  

Just a couple of days ago I had recently started anatomy which was quite a change. We went from sitting in lecture for four hours to actually working in a lab, but the biggest change of them all was having a cadaver right in front of me. A rush of emotions filled my veins as I started my first ever human dissection. This donor had given me an opportunity to learn from his body in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to do in any other way. That was an incredible feeling that I had never thought I would be able to experience.   

Within only a short time in, I had quickly realized that medical school has a distinctly different tone from undergrad. Unlike undergrad, cramming for tests and then purging the information from the night before will not suffice. Here, the information I am learning is no longer just for me and my own intellectual gains, but for the well-being of others. There is a responsibility to genuinely learn and better myself for when patients will need my help. For me, the white coat represents a new level of dedication to learning, not just during medical school, but for the rest of my career in medicine. 

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With that, I would like to suggest a couple tips for those who want to prepare for medical school: 

1) Make time for yourself 

The course of medical school may feel extremely overwhelming; some days I’m in classes and an occasional lab from 8 to 5 Then I go home, unwind a little and maybe watch an episode of TV before dinner, and then I study for around four hours. Weekends are for studying too. Even when I’m not studying, I feel like I should be studying. On top of studying I have to some times prepare for the next day, learn new clinical techniques, and occasionally volunteer at a clinic or two. But I will always take a Friday night off. If I didn’t, I would be constantly going and burn out.  

Take a night where you don’t do anything relating to school. It’ll make you much more relaxed, and give you some breathing room. Plus, it’s a great way to catch up with some friends and even maybe clean the house…the latter really doesn’t happen, though.  

2) Not much you do in undergrad will prepare you for medical school (but some will)  

Medical school is a whole other ballgame. The material you are learning comes at you at such a high rate, and the expectations are at another level. In undergrad you learn many about history, economics, organic chemistry, and some biology facts, but not every one of those classes will be useful. That genetics class we have to take as an undergrad? I was re-taught all of that material in eight, one-hour lectures, over a span of two days. Not much you take will correlate as much as you think it would.  

That being said, I would recommend a couple classes that may help you become more familiar with material that will come ahead. These classes are: 

• Histology 
• Immunology 
• Pharmacology 
• Biochemistry (445/446) 
• Anatomy 

Taking these classes do not guarantee that you will do well in these subjects in medical school, but it will help you in the beginning because you’ve already seen the material. Histology was a great course because all you really do is look at abnormal slides of tissue, and having a background in what normal looks like helps out a lot. Biochemistry for majors would have to be my biggest benefactor. These classes were rigorous enough to take me great studying skills (see below), and they are concepts that are well emphasized during the first and second year of medical school.   

What can also help you in undergrad is setting up good study strategies. Cramming is something that you cannot do in medical school because, like I said, you’ll be using this material for most your medical school career. If you set good study strategies in undergrad and take the time to learn the material in a long run approach, it’ll just help you even more in medical school so you can hit the ground running.  

3) Take time to travel  

I know loads of people who went straight into medical school right after undergrad and feel like they should have done something else before it started.  Once you’re in, you are basically in a job for life. I would recommend going out and doing something before medical school starts. Whether you want to take a gap year or not, I would truly recommend going out into the world and travel. It’s a great way to experience different languages and cultures, and plus you’ll also get to meet loads of cool people that can teach you a lot of cool things.  

If you don’t want to travel, then my next best advice would be to really do nothing. Because I finished undergrad about 5 months ago, I knew that I wouldn’t get much of a summer to do much. Still, I traveled, but what I mostly did was, really, nothing. I would sit at home, watch TV, catch up with friends, lounge around, play some video games, ect. It was pretty great! It was a break from constantly doing school, so I really enjoyed it. I was able to unwind from the undergrad grind and relax.  

What ever you do, do not start studying for medical school once you graduate. I REPEAT, DO NOT STUDY FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL ONCE YOU GRADUATE. Lots of people like to get ahead and try to begin studying for certain subjects or even the USMLE Step 1 before school starts. That sounds absolutely disgusting to me. Use your time wisely and do something not related to school because, well let’s face it, you’re entire life will be dedicated to medical school.  Don’t worry too much about it till it starts.   

If you have any questions or would like to ask for advice, you can contact Sumit at sumit24@salud.unm.edu 

Study Abroad: The Italian Dream

Sabah Osmani is currently a sophomore in the 2014 cohort. She was kind enough to share about her adventures from when she studied abroad her freshman summer.

Pizza, gelato, gondolas, Ancient Rome, and the Pope! Well actually I didn’t get to see the Pope, but I hung out in his front yard, so that’s cool too.

I had always wanted to go to Italy, and this summer, I made my dream a reality. It was my first time leaving the country on my own, and the journey didn’t start out very smoothly. I had planned on flying from my hometown Roswell to Dallas, Dallas to Chicago, and then Chicago to Rome. I would have arrived early on a Saturday morning, and the school that I was going to be studying at was sending a shuttle to pick me and a few other students up. What ended up happening though was the flight from Roswell got cancelled, my mom drove me to Lubbock to catch a different flight, the flight in Lubbock got delayed which made me miss two different connections in Dallas, I finally got to Dallas, I missed my flight to Chicago, waited, got on another flight to Chicago, missed the flight to Rome, waited some more, got put on a flight to Germany, got to Germany, and arrived in the Rome airport almost 40 hours after I had left my house in Roswell. The other students were already in Perugia, the city about 100 miles north of Rome where I would be studying for the summer. Meanwhile, I was exhausted and alone in a hotel room in a foreign country. I could have gone to sleep early that night. A few hours later, though, another girl that would be studying in Perugia arrived in Rome from New York City. The university put us in a room together, and the shuttle was to pick both of us up in the morning. I could have gotten on the shuttle the school was sending for us early the next morning well rested and ready to go. I had been traveling for over almost 2 days, and I was exhausted, but my new friend was full of energy and ready to go. I could have gone to sleep early, but I was in Italy! And when in Rome…

And so began my Italian adventure.  Perugia is a small town filled with tight streets lined with shops, restaurants, and gelatarias. Over the next five weeks I experienced Perugia during the day and at

The view from my apartment in Perugia

night. I tried many different restaurants, ate dozens of flavors of gelato, and shopped at numerous Italian clothes boutiques. Twice a week, I attended a class from 3-6 called Italian Food and Culture. I, along with 10 other UNM students, read about the history of Italian culture and the origin of its food, while writing about our own personal experiences of it. We went to pastry shops, ate at restaurants, saw how cheese was made, and we even went horseback riding through a vineyard and did a wine tasting as one of our classes. I learned how to take these experiences and write them down with as much detail as I could. I described the flavors, sights, smells, sounds, and tastes. As my final project, I wrote a 12-
page paper about pizza. I wrote about where it came from, how it evolved, where it got its name, and how it ended up in America. It was the most fun exciting class I’ve ever taken. What made my experience this summer great, though, was not just my time in Perugia, but also all the weekend excursions.

I went somewhere each weekend. Since we only had class on Mondays and Wednesdays, there were four days each week for me to go wherever I wanted.

The first weekend, a friend and I went to Paris.  We stayed at her cousin’s apartment and met her cousin’s French boyfriend. He looked like your stereotypical French guy. He had black scruffy hair, wide eyes, and black thick-framed glasses. He said “zee” instead of “the” when he spoke English, and looked up and threw his head back when he laughed. He was so sophisticated; I thought for sure he and my friend’s cousin had met at the Louvre. They actually met on Tinder. 

I did end up going to the Louvre, though. I saw the Mona Lisa, went up the Eiffel Tower, visited the Palace of Versailles, and learned to hang on to my subway ticket to avoid being charged the equivalent of almost $50. Paris was enchanting.

The next week, I met up with my sister in Germany. I walked down alongside the Berlin Wall and went up the Television Tower overlooking the entire city. I then met up with my classmates from Perugia and we travelled to Southern Italy. I saw the ancient Ruins of Pompeii, ate at the first pizzeria in the world in Naples, and saw Bill Gate’s summer home at “the playground of the rich and famous”—Capri Island. I took a boat ride, tried Limoncello, and sat out in the sun for an entire day.

On the third weekend, I went to Geneva, Switzerland. I have an aunt and cousin who live there, so they took me out and showed me the green countryside of Gruyere, and the bustling streets of downtown Geneva. I had Swiss chocolate, cheese, and I got to see family that I haven’t seen in four years. I then got on a flight and flew from Geneva to Venice. My friend and I went on gondola rides, visited churches and museums, ate amazing food, and met some Italians! Venice was magical.

On the fourth weekend, my friend and I took a train up to the Cinque Terre in Northern Italy. We hiked along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and stopped at the quaint little towns along the way. We swam, sun bathed, and ate gelato.

Time flew by. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow between all the missed trains, stressful situations involving language barriers, and enjoying every minute of being that American tourist who takes a picture of everything she sees, I found myself in the final week of my Italian adventure. During the last week, my friend and I took a trip to Florence. We saw the David, climbed to the top of the Santa Maria Cathedral overlooking the entire city, and we walked along the river. That weekend, I packed my things, turned in my final paper, and said goodbye to Perugia. Hopefully not for the last time, though.

My last few days in Italy were spent in Rome. I visited the coliseum, the Roman Forum, and Vatican City. I went inside St. Peter’s Basilica, and saw where the Pope gives mass on Sundays.  I even stood in the same spot where Mark Antony gave his famous speech “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…”

           

I will always remember my time in Italy as one of the best times of my life. I learned so much about different cultures, foods, and people, but the most important thing I learned was to be independent. I learned how to communicate, how to navigate, and most importantly, not to panic when I missed flights and trains because stuff like that just happens sometimes.

If you ever get the chance, I hope you study abroad! And if you pick Italy, I promise you won’t regret it.  If anything do it for the gelato! I would go to Italy just for the gelato.

If you have any questions, you can contact Sabah at sosmani@unm.edu