Things A First Year Medical Student Must Know
1. Starting now, you will carry more books in your life than any other. You might want to start investing on ebooks and e-readers if you want to spare your back and arms.
2. Your new friends will be Gray, Robbins, Guyton, Schwartz, Nelson and Harper. You will refer to them as if they are your best friends. You don't know them personally but you will be spending your time more with them than even yourself.
3. Your class can be crowded considering the number of enrolled students for the first year. Don't worry, half of that will be gone by next year, if not next semester.
4. You will start meeting new friends but most likely will huddle with those whom you share a pre-med course with. Birds of the same BS degrees, well...you get the picture.
5. You will meet all kinds of professors, from the most benign to the most carnivorous. You can't choose your professors in the same way you can't choose your parents. Live with it.
6. Wearing that white uniform doesn't make you a doctor. Not even close. It can probably help you pick up some chic or dude in the mall. It can make you a head-turner. Still, you didn't go to med school to be a celebrity now, did you?
7. In addition to no. 6, hanging that stethoscope around your neck doesn't make you a doctor as well. Not even close. So when you go around the mall or somewhere, keep the stet out of your thoke or hanging out loose out of your ass.
8. You will be hearing as much Latin words as you might have had in your life. Understanding the concept is already hard enough, how much more remembering the language.
9. M.N.E.M.O.N.I.C.S. might help.
10. If you cram, you're damned.
11. Staying up late to study is not good enough. It's not in the quantity of hours that you spend studying. It's the quality of time spent for studying.
12. You will start smelling like formaldehyde especially every after Anatomy Lab. Get used to it.
13. You will get used to bad scores and low grades. Give it up Einstein. You can't win 'em all.
14. You will feel very overwhelmed especially with the stuff you'll be studying. It seems that there is always something to study right after you're done studying. It's okay. Like a good diver knows, don't forget to breathe before you dive in back again.
15. You may forget that you are not just a medical student. You are also a human being who eats, drinks, sleeps, watches TV and goes to late-night parties like an animal should.
16. Of course, every late-night party has a huge consequence the following morning.
17. Your professors and/or their lectures can be boring. That's not an excuse though for not getting a passing grade.
18. You will become a good artist. You will be making works of art like The Circle of Willis, the Kreb's Cycle or the Triangles of the Neck among many others. No coloring required, except if you're on to The Muscles Of The Upper Extremities.
19. You might freak out during your first test. Especially if the first test is an unannounced quiz.
20. Not all, but some professors do recycle their old tests and exams. Make friends with the more senior or upper class students. They can even give you a blow-by-blow account of all of your professors.
21. You will soon find out that after having talked to the upper class, they are actually exaggerating or "under-describing" some of these "blow-by-blow accounts" of your professors.
22. Study groups don't always work. So, don't be pressured if you don't have a study group. Don't join a study group just because most of you have study groups. Study at your own pace and at your own style comfortable for you.
23. You will sound like a doctor, look like a doctor, maybe even walk like a doctor but you are not yet a doctor. You are just a first year medical student struggling to pass one of at least 8 subjects for the year before you can proceed to second year.
24. It's a cliche but it's true: in the medical food chain, you are the plankton. Wait. You are what planktons eat.
25. You can choose to quit. If you think you are not up for this, don't torture your parents any longer. With the high cost of education, spare them the pain and suffering of a weeping wallet and leaking pockets by telling them that you don't want to be a doctor in the first place. But if you really want this, if you really really want this, then prepare yourself.
Good luck First year medical students
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