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feeling very overwhelmed in medical school

Hiya,

I am a third year medical student, in my first clinical year and I will be sitting my first clinical year exam at the end of June.

I'm really worried that I am not doing right, I found that this year has been really difficult, between managing going to hospital and revising, i don't think i am doing enough in my revision for these exams. I tried reading through the handouts the med school gave us, but these are really barely anything tbh and I often find myself scoring around 40-60% in the passmed questions( where some of my peers are scoring in the 90s)

I know it's really useless to moan and I am trying my best to learn everything, but I am really worried that I'll end up failing this year...

Please do you have any tips? especially on how to improve.
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A
Juggling revision and clinical placements can be overwhelming, and it might mean you've not been able to study in the same way as you did in your pre-clinical years. I know this is easier said than done but try not to be too down on yourself, you've still got time before your exams - your passmed score is getting there just now and is likely to come up a lot between now and the end of June! Also, comparing yourself to your peers is a sure-fire way to end up feeling like you're failing when you're not!
I would advise you to talk to your personal tutor about how you feel things are going - they can help put things in context for you in terms of what level you're at now and where you need to be for your exams. They might also have some pointers on different revision techniques, or put you in touch with your university academic skills team (or equivalent, different universities will have different job titles!) who can talk about how to balance your revision and put together a plan for your exams.
What other resources are you using aside from passmed and your uni handouts?
In terms of Passmed itself, take the time to read the explanation and the comments (the comments section is not only good banter but also often has useful explanations or helpful mnemonics). If there's anything in the answer that seems particularly important to remember then you can copy it into an excel sheet or anki (or anything else you find useful) for revision later. You might be doing this already though!
Also, have a look at your learning objectives. That's what your exam is going to be assessing you on, so make sure that you know what is and isn't in your objectives (although they'll probably be kept deliberately broad!). Keep in mind that passmed might be asking you things that you aren't going to be examined on yet! Look at what the big topics are in terms of the learning objectives (if in doubt, they tend to be either things that are very common or things that are very life threatening).
Finally, keep an eye out for any revision sessions in the run up to your exams - if your own uni societies don't have anything organised, you might find some advertised on facebook from other universities. They wont teach you everything, but they will normally cover high yield topics.
Original post by xtragravity
Juggling revision and clinical placements can be overwhelming, and it might mean you've not been able to study in the same way as you did in your pre-clinical years. I know this is easier said than done but try not to be too down on yourself, you've still got time before your exams - your passmed score is getting there just now and is likely to come up a lot between now and the end of June! Also, comparing yourself to your peers is a sure-fire way to end up feeling like you're failing when you're not!
I would advise you to talk to your personal tutor about how you feel things are going - they can help put things in context for you in terms of what level you're at now and where you need to be for your exams. They might also have some pointers on different revision techniques, or put you in touch with your university academic skills team (or equivalent, different universities will have different job titles!) who can talk about how to balance your revision and put together a plan for your exams.
What other resources are you using aside from passmed and your uni handouts?
In terms of Passmed itself, take the time to read the explanation and the comments (the comments section is not only good banter but also often has useful explanations or helpful mnemonics). If there's anything in the answer that seems particularly important to remember then you can copy it into an excel sheet or anki (or anything else you find useful) for revision later. You might be doing this already though!
Also, have a look at your learning objectives. That's what your exam is going to be assessing you on, so make sure that you know what is and isn't in your objectives (although they'll probably be kept deliberately broad!). Keep in mind that passmed might be asking you things that you aren't going to be examined on yet! Look at what the big topics are in terms of the learning objectives (if in doubt, they tend to be either things that are very common or things that are very life threatening).
Finally, keep an eye out for any revision sessions in the run up to your exams - if your own uni societies don't have anything organised, you might find some advertised on facebook from other universities. They wont teach you everything, but they will normally cover high yield topics.


Thank you for your kind words and reply,

I've had to change my studying style quite a bit since the start of clinical year. Because we're basically on a self taught basis, I am looking and reviewing things from our learning objective, and then reading around the topic( via passmed, zero to finals, youtube and handouts). I didn't really start passmed properly until maybe 2 months ago( I thought that it wasn't for our year because it had lots of guideline specific questions), but now thinking about it I probably should have started earlier haha. I am using anki, and it's quite good, but I haven't thought about talking to school about my worries.

I think my main worry is that there is such volume of content( more than preclinical) and practical use of knowledge, most days I'd end up very overwhelmed. I also worry if this means I won't be a physician in the future, or pass the year.

thank you for your reassurance, It was nice hearing from someone.
It sounds like you are doing well in terms of working through your learning objectives! I also would recommend going over key guidelines as well (as I said before, think about really common things and things which are life threatening). If you fancy a break from NICE's colour scheme, medscape have a guidelines section now which is supposed to give a summary of the guidelines - I haven't used it much yet but you might find it helpful! The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine can also be useful.
Keep in mind that Passmed finals is aimed at finals, and you're still a while away from them and so you're right to think it's not really aimed at your year because there will be lots of stuff in there that's over and above your objectives. For example, you might be expected to focus on presentation, pathophysiology and investigations rather than management for conditions, and so getting asked lots of questions about management isn't particularly helpful!
I'm sure you'll do absolutely fine in your exams, you're already putting a lot of work in and you've still got a couple of months for things to get even better. I would recommend talking to your uni about how you're feeling though. You can end up in a real downward spiral if you feel like you're not doing as well as your peers and getting some more support could be really useful for you (whether that be just some reassurance that you're doing ok academically, or maybe giving more practical support in terms of exam technique or revision strategies).

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