The Unofficial Guide to First Year - University of Oklahoma Health ...

UNOFFICIAL GUIDE
CHAPTER
Help When You Need
9
It
Starting medical school is a lot of fun. After working hard for years
in prerequisite courses and surviving the medical school application
process, at some point you’ll be walking across campus and you’ll
think, “Wow! I’m actually in medical school!” At the end of
orientation days on Friday evening you’ll attend the White Coat Ceremony. You may feel
a little strange about all the congratulations you’ll receive when you haven’t yet attended a
single day of class, but relax and enjoy the evening. Medical school admission is extremely
competitive and you have earned a seat that many other people wanted, which is well
worth recognizing – for you and for your family and loved ones. Just remember to be
proud, not arrogant.
During orientation, you’ll be told frequently that starting medical school is something like
drinking water from a fire hose. Everyone will be so nice that it’s easy to conclude that the
difficulty is overstated. Come the first week of classes, however, you will indeed know what
I am talking about. Medical school is almost certain to be quite different from any
experience you’ve had in undergraduate or even graduate school. Everyone studies in
medical school. Opinions vary, but a safe generalization is that each 4-to-6 week “block” (3
blocks each semester) will cover an amount of material that you’re used to doing in an
entire 16-week semester. You’re likely to have to give over many, if not most, of your
afternoons, evenings, and weekends to studying. The change in lifestyle is huge. During
the first semester, you’ll study the Holmes and Rahe “life change” stress scale. A “life
change” score of 150 or above significantly increases your risk of physical illness from
stress. Most new medical students, however, can easily tally 300 points or more due to
stressful life changes. Here are some tips to help you to manage the inevitable stress of the
beginning of medical school:
Stay current. You’ll hear this advice repeatedly for a reason. If you’re moving to attend
school, it’s a good idea to arrive a few days early to settle into your new digs. You don’t
want the stress of living out of boxes when classes begin. Each day after class, you should
review the material covered in class that day and try to review the material to be covered
the next day (in some courses, like Gross Anatomy, you’ll be completely lost in lecture if
you haven’t reviewed the material before coming to class – and you’ll be useless in lab and
feel like a moron… trust me, this is not a fun experience!).
Stay organized. The stories of first-semester paperwork creating a stack several feet high
are true. The problem with a stack, however, is that you can’t find anything. For each
class you’ll have a syllabus, your own notes, possibly note group notes and Power Point
slides. It’s extremely stressful to begin test preparation when you can’t find the materials
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