Need advice from fellow medics, please....

Hi,

I am a 2nd year medical student studying for my resits at the moment. I have no idea how I passed the previous year. My worst enemy is myself (i.e. procrastination and thinking that others are better than me etc resulting in low self esteem). Another issue is that (I think...) that I am a perfectionist....think that I need to know everything for each exam. My fellow medic friends revise bits and pieces from EMQ/MCQ books, go to the exams and pass. I need some serious advice on how to deal with

1) procrastination.
2) how to manage the depression and anxiety when you are faced with several 300-400 pages medical books to revise. I am getting scared on a daily basis how I will be able to sit for the medical school finals, simply for the fact that I believe that I cannot fit all the information inside my head.
3) how to get rid of this negativity, low self exteem from my mind.

I want to be a good doctor, but this massive amount of information and random questions in exams just making my life a hell.

I will not give up as my intention of becoming a good doctor is still within my heart, but...... I am so scared.....

[I have no medically diagnosed depression ]

Many Thanks in advance.
x

Hi,

I am a 2nd year medical student studying for my resits at the moment. I have no idea how I passed the previous year. My worst enemy is myself (i.e. procrastination and thinking that others are better than me etc resulting in low self esteem). Another issue is that (I think...) that I am a perfectionist....think that I need to know everything for each exam. My fellow medic friends revise bits and pieces from EMQ/MCQ books, go to the exams and pass. I need some serious advice on how to deal with

x

I think a big thing for keeping me feeling happy during the semester was making time for my hobbies. That way medicine never felt dominating and stopped me feeling utterly isolated and miserable, that nearly every day I had time to go out and do something I actually considered fun.

It'd help if you stopped looking at it as "having to revise several 300 page textbooks" as well. That just makes it seem so daunting, imagine if someone told you you had to learn Kumar and Clark!? Instead, break all your learning down into discrete topics, which makes it feel more manageable. The bigger something seems to us, the more we tend to put it off!

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Do the uni provide lecture notes? At Southampton if it's in the lecture it's in the exam. No books (unless you need a different understanding etc) just notes and lectures.

Don't let it get on top of you, and remind yourself that you HAVE passed before and that you can do it again.

Good luck

Agreeing with what other people say -- it is vital to take it one step at a time or else procrastination will hit hard. One step that a friend told me about was saying to yourself that you only need to look through 5 lectures today. You will then begin to feel motivated and carry on well past the 5 lectures as you are engaged.

Another thing -- Depending on how your course is run - if most of the questions are derived from things of lecture slides then use lecture slides as your main source. Look for things in bold or 'take home messages' as those are usually assessed (at least on my course they are).

Finally -- The pass mark is 50% - that means that the medical school has to prove to the GMC that those getting 50% are competent and therefore know the key knowledge. This means that a lot of the content needed to pass will be testing the absolutely essential information (things like what class of antibiotic amoxicillin is or what the qrs complex on a ECG represents.. what ever you were taught this year) and the really specific details are only for those looking >70%. Start with stuff that is key and add in details (which are still important) rather than treating the base sequence of a telomere as really important knowledge.

Wow, you sound like me - procrastination leading to giving up because I think there's no way I'll make it! Anyway, I do the same thing, count the pages (or amount of lectures) and feel like it's impossible, but one of my tutors whom I spoke to once gave me a really helpful insight; think of what you've done/can do. E.g. Set yourself a goal to do say 30 pages in the day, then by the end of the day you'll have done 10% of the book. Then if you do that for the next day it's 20%. Don't look at what's left, look at what's happening and what you can do, set short term goals.

I found these really useful this year:

For procrastination, if your mind isn't taking the information in go for a walk or do something else for 20 minutes and sit back down again, if you are tired stop revising you will only frustrate yourself more. In my first degree id pull all nighters and be tired/crabby and now I just can't do that so 4 hours of good revision is better than 12 really bad hours of it, so don't force yourself to work all day, find when you work best and use those hours! Go and see friends and what not as well its really important!

I found writing questions for myself really useful and ask doing as many MCQ style questions I could find (I don't know which school your at as some apps target specific med schools) as you will retain more information that way, the 500 pre clinical medicine app is really good for MCQ's so is the Mcgraw hill website.

Break down each topic and what I did was learn 50% of the topics really well that i would be confident walking into an exam and then the other 50% were a bit meh on the detail, but still even if you only have the big picture on some topics you can sometimes guess the really specific MCQ questions. Remember you don't need to know everything, and you don't need 100% to be a good doctor.

I always say if I've managed to do 2 years of medical school in 1 with no previous science background/knowledge post GCSE (which was years ago) you can defiantly pass your 2nd year just tell yourself you can and you will!

I have the procrastination issue. Just picture how upset you would be if you failed. Then get on with it. Sorry to say but it's survival of the fittest. NOW SURVIVE!

I am not a medical student, more of a wannabe if I'm honest . But if i could give some advice it would be to bear in mind that your not studying or revising to get an "ordinary job", your going to be going into a profession where you have the lives of so many in your hands, you have a lot of responsibility so try and let that keep you motivated.

Can i just ask also, Why did you want to become a doctor? Im curious...

That is an amazing reason to want to study medicine! With that attitude and desire to make a difference in another persons life, failure is not even an option for you, your going to succeed all the way! We need more doctors like you who have your qualities so don't give up because your an asset to society. Your right, climb that mountain!

Hope i helped! And i hope I'm not coming across as creepy either...

Past papers any good? Our exams were essentially un-passable without memorising answers from past paper Qs.

Breaking things down is an excellent approach. Making sticker charts was something I also found very useful. A bit juvenile but you can track your progress piece by piece until the whole chart is completed, it's quite motivating and it allows you to have lots of small achievements whilst still keeping an overview of the bigger picture... metaphorically. Maybe it was just me, but they kept me focussed and from feeling overwhelmed.

Paperchase do some great stickers.

If procrastination is an issue in your life generally - tackle it in all areas, not just study. It can be paralysing if ignored. Start small. Literally stand up and do something - anything - just start like those nice Nike folk tell us to. Pick a small inconsequential chore that you've been meaning to do for ages and complete it. Remember almost everything is a process not an event, but you need to start the process. And once you've started, get a study buddy.