If your medical school is like mine, not a lot of information is given about what is needed for classes. Luckily, for me, the bookstore manager was really helpful after having many incoming first years come in over the years. The first item I purchased was a stethoscope. I actually got this as a surprise Christmas present, so technically I did not purchase it myself and that also meant I did not get to pick it out. My grandparents got me a simple one on Amazon, the Littmann Class III Monitoring Stethoscope. Honestly, nothing fancy and expensive is needed for medical school, so I would recommend a cheap option (unless your school suggests otherwise). Click here for the link to the one I have! The next items I purchased were scrubs and gloves for anatomy lab. My medical school starts anatomy lab almost immediately after classes start, so I got my scrubs several months in advance to make sure the bookstore did not run out of my size. I purchased my scrubs through our bookstore because a specific color was required and I decided while the bookstore scrubs may be a little more expensive, it would be more convenient and I would match my classmates. Side note: I would highly recommend trying on the scrubs before going home with them because scrub sizing is unlike any other clothing. I decided to get three pairs of scrubs to help with washing them throughout the week. I would definitely consider getting multiple pairs because there are going to be weeks where doing laundry is the last thing you want to do, but you do not want to go around smelling like anatomy lab, so it will end up being nice to have extra pairs. Gloves are not provided for anatomy lab at my school, so I went ahead and got a huge box of them since we were going to be in the lab all year. A few of my classmates decided to get their own scalpel and scalpel blades, but these were both provided by the anatomy lab staff at, so I chose to just use what was provided. If you do need to purchase a scalpel and blades, the bookstore should sell them and you can also find them on Amazon. There were a few other items recommended by the bookstore manager that I got before classes began, but they ended up not being needed until later in the semester or until the Spring semester. These items included an adult blood pressure cuff, a tuning fork, a reflex hammer, a Snellen vision chart, a pen light, and a few other random items. These items were for our standardized patient exams where we practice physical exams. If your school does not have standardized patients or if they provide this equipment, then you can pass on buying any of those items! In my previous post about studying (click here to check it out), you probably noticed I mainly use a laptop for school work. My school includes a new laptop with our tuition, so they handled picking us out one. My school chose a MacBook Air and I love it! I used to have a MacBook Pro in college, but the Air is so so so light, which makes carrying it around everywhere much easier than the Pro. I’d look into seeing if your school distributes laptops before purchasing a new one because they usually include programs you need for classes already on the laptop. These are all of the main items I purchased before classes started! Depending on if you are needing new pens, backpack, lunchbox, etc. you may have more items on your list, but I already had most of the basic school supplies leftover from college. I should point out that very medical school is different, so I would check with upperclassmen or staff members before purchasing anything.
I grew up as one of those people who always knew they wanted to become a doctor. If you would have asked me in high school what I was going to study in college, I would have said pre-med. I’m not sure if this is true for every university, but the universities I was looking at attending didn’t have a “pre-med” major, which I didn’t know until I actually started applying for schools. My college offered a pre-med track, but you majored in what you wanted (usually biology or biochemistry for my school). I chose Biology and then discovered I loved Neuroscience, so I decided to get a double major in both. I was told early on if I wanted to go to medical school, I would have to maintain a high GPA, get involved around campus, and start working on my volunteer hours. I went to a very small college (there was about 500 students total), so one-on-one meetings with professors and my pre-med advisor were frequent from the beginning of my time in college. Another benefit of going to a small college is that it allowed me to form very close relationships with my classmates and professors. This later allowed me to receive recommendation letters from professors who actually knew me and could write more than “Halen was a good student.”
One year for Christmas I asked for my own “doctor coat” and doctor equipment so I could start practicing on my family.
My first two years of college were focused on the advice I was given early on: maintain a high GPA, get involved on campus, and start working on volunteer hours. The two big organizations I chose to get involved in on campus were Student Government Association and the Summer Orientation program for incoming first years. I loved both of these organizations and got really involved with them, which later allowed me to gain leadership roles that helped shape me into the person I am today. Later I got involved in a few more organizations such as Alpha Epsilon Delta (a pre-health honor society) and Maroon Jackets (a honor society for seniors). I do not think it’s necessary to get involved with every organization your campus has to offer as a way to impress medical schools, but I do think it’s important to try to really involve yourself in at least a couple organizations to show medical schools you were more than just a member of those organizations. I was told by my advisors that the medical school admissions would rather see you in a leadership role for an organization than just a member of 50 organizations. I did a lot of random volunteering throughout college, but I’ve seen many of my peers find one volunteer organization they are very passionate about and stick to getting all of their hours from that organization.
I saw getting into medical school like a big puzzle I was having to put together. I was given some puzzle pieces that were easy to figure out where they go, such as maintaining a high GPA and forming close relationships with my professors. Imagine these pieces as the corner pieces of the puzzle. Other pieces I had to do some thinking and planning on, such as joining organizations and figuring out which major(s) would be best for me. I also needed to ensure the major I picked would provide me with the best background to prepare me for the MCAT and medical school. Then during my third year of college, I had to figure out what to do with this super important piece of the puzzle… the MCAT. All pieces of a puzzle are important because the puzzle would not be complete without them all, but you would not be able to move forward and finish the puzzle without the MCAT piece. If you aren’t familiar with the MCAT (aka the Medical College Admissions Test), it is a standardized exam for prospective medical students that is required by all U.S. medical schools. The MCAT is roughly 8 hours long with four sections: Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems; Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills; Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems; and Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior. I took the MCAT at the end of my junior year, but my first MCAT score was not what I was looking for. I decided to take an online Summer Princeton Review class to help guide my studying. This class was unlike anything I had done before and really made me work for my second MCAT score. I was very satisfied with my second score, so I was happy to add that piece to my puzzle and move on to the next big step: actually applying for medical school.
Here’s a glance into my class schedule for the Princeton Review class.
I knew what medical school I wanted to go to, so I took a chance and did the early decision application. Doing early decision meant I could only apply to one school, but it allowed me to show that school they were my top choice. After submitting my application, which took foreverrrr (definitely start the application as soon as it opens), all that was left to do was wait to see if I was going to get an interview. I obsessively checked my email after the application deadline, anxiously waiting to see if I was going to get an interview. Once I got the invitation for an interview and secured my interview date, there were two pieces of the puzzle left: rock this interview and get an acceptance letter into medical school.
Another benefit of going to a small college was getting the opportunity to have one-on-one meetings with my pre-med advisor in preparation for my interview. We would go over practice questions, my strengths and weaknesses as an applicant, and do practice interviews. This helped boost my confidence and allowed me to figure out my interviewing weaknesses. Outside of these practice interviews, I would answer standard medical school interview questions. I did this to give myself an idea of what the interview was going to be like so I didn’t panic in the actual interviews. There is no way to know all of the questions they’re going to ask you, but having an idea of how I wanted to answer standard questions really helped calm me down during my interview day.
Then the big interview day finally came.
We started the day with an ice breaker, went over the outline of the day, and then pretty much went straight into business. I had three interviews that day: two interviews were with random faculty members of the medical school and my third interview was with the Dean of Admissions. Many of the interview questions I practiced with were asked, but they still threw in a few new ones that kept me on my toes. After the interviews, I went home and took a long nap, which is one of my favorite ways to de-stress. No one really knows when acceptance letters are going to be sent out, so after this second to last piece of my puzzle was added, there was nothing left to do but wait.
The mail at my school could be a bit slow compared to the mail at my grandparents’ house, so I gave the medical school their address. My grandparents called me one Saturday morning and said they had something on Amazon they wanted me to order that they were about to send a picture of. This was something they ask me to do pretty often, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I was studying for an upcoming Biochemistry exam when I received a picture from them, but instead of an Amazon order, they sent me my acceptance letter!! I honestly cannot put into words what was going through my mind, but I immediately called them and asked if they were serious. Many years of hard work had gone into this moment and I didn’t believe it was actually happening. This is a day I hope to remember vividly for a very long time because I never want to forget the initial thrill and excitement I experienced.
My puzzle was finally complete and I was beyond happy to have finished putting together all of the pieces. I should point out that not everyone has the same journey getting into medical school. Many of my classmates have taken time off, obtained other degrees, etc., but regardless of how we got here, we are all here now going through the same experience together. There is no perfect order, no set organizations to join, no right number of volunteer hours, etc., so do not worry if your journey is different from mine or your peers. This is just my journey and my opinions that I wanted to share with you 🙂
One of the first pieces of advice I received when starting medical school was to ditch my studying habits from college because usually how you studied in college would not work for the amount of material in medical school. This caused me so much stress on top of all of the normal stress that comes with starting medical school. I had my studying system locked down perfectly in college, how was I going to find anything else that worked for me?? I asked many, many upperclassman how they studied and tried to do everything they did, but at the end of the day, everyone learns in a different way and I had to figure out on my own what worked best for me.
So, how did I study in college?
Before class I would print handouts of the slides (my school offered free printing for students, so I was spoiled with printing privileges). I loved the 3 slides per page option because it came with lines next to the slides for me to make notes during class. However, I also loved the 4 slides per page option because it allowed me to print less pages and it still worked for note-taking because I write pretty small. I’ve shown examples of both below in case you have no idea what I’m talking about.
During class I would take notes on these handouts, which was my favorite part about class because note-taking allowed me to pull out all my colorful pens that I loved dearly. Sometimes I would use the colors to draw attention to important details, other times I would just have fun with the pens!
During my first couple of years of college, I waited until closer to an exam to start making notecards to study with, but I eventually learned that it helped to do them on an almost daily basis so I wasn’t spending all of my time right before an exam making notecards when I should have been studying them. I wish I had a picture of an exam’s worth of notecards, or some estimate of how many notecards I went through in college, but it’ll be more fun to let your imagination run on how many notecards I went through in my four years of college…
I usually did not start reviewing and learning the notecards until closer to an exam, but I would normally go through the notecards many times before an exam to make sure I knew every card forwards and backwards. Then after an exam, if the class did not have a cumulative final, I would throw those notecards away and start a new pile for the next exam.
An additional fun fact about my notecard system is that I stored all my notecards in little notecard storage boxes from Walmart and had a box for each course I was taking. This allowed me to organize my notecards and to easily carry the notecards needed for an upcoming exam around with me to study.
So, what changed for medical school?
After the first week of classes, I did what I was told and ditched everything about my system from college. I wanted to take notes during class like I did in college, but I quickly realized that was not going to work since I no longer had free printing available. I switched to taking notes in the notes section of the provided PowerPoints on my laptop. I type faster than I write, so this change ended up working in my favor for how fast some professors go through material. This is how I continued to take notes during class throughout the entire first year of medical school and is most likely how I will take notes during my remaining years. For the rest of my studying, that was something that continued to evolve and change throughout my entire first year.
I tried everything from just reading over the PowerPoints and my notes to making hand written summary sheets of each lecture. For a little bit, the summary sheets seemed to be working for me. I would make the summary sheets everyday after class, which I considered to be my “first studying pass” of the material. Then I would review and learn each summary sheet leading up to an exam. Here’s some examples of a couple of my summary sheets to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Initially, I loved making these summary sheets because it allowed me to bring out my fun, colored pens and highlighters again. I made these summary sheets for the second half of material for our first exam and all of the material for our second exam, which I ended up not doing my best on. I realized I was getting caught up in making these summary sheets and not actually studying the material. For our third exam, I switched to using documents from our note-taking service. Basically, we have a note-taking service that pays people to convert our PowerPoints into a Word document. Originally, I was printing these documents off and then adding my personal notes to them (yes, another studying method allowing me to use my colorful pens!). I didn’t keep this method for long due to the many, many pages of notes I was having to print, so the picture below is one of the only examples I have for this method.
As you can see from the picture above, I was playing around with the idea about switching to taking notes on an iPad. I borrowed my boyfriend’s iPad for a few days to see if this studying method would work for me and after some practicing with the Apple Pencil, I discovered I loved taking notes on the iPad! It was the perfect mix of getting to use fun colors while saving money on ink and paper. I continued using the note-taking service documents and transferred them into the Notability app to add my personal notes to. Everyday after class I would transfer my notes to these documents. Transferring my notes was considered my “first studying pass” of the material and then I would continue to review and learn these documents leading up to an exam. Below is an example of one of my notes pages on the iPad.
I used this method for the rest of my first semester and for the first two blocks of my second semester. During the last block, which was Med Neuro, I decided to change my studying method again. This final studying method I tried was typing summary sheets of each lecture. Everyday after class (and sometimes during class if the professor was slower) I would make summaries of the lectures we had that day. I kept all of my summaries together on one document and found reading over this document many times before an exam was enough to allow me to learn the material. Below is an example of one page from my last Neuro exam.
While my studying system changed a LOT from college and is still continuing to evolve and adapt, I’m very happy with the exam results from the last two methods. I never found the perfect study method and I’m okay with that. I learned to be okay with changing my habits based on the system we’re learning and how much time outside the classroom I actually have to study. The hand written summary sheets definitely were the most time consuming, but I’ve seen this system work for many of my peers. The iPad notes were my favorite and is probably a system I will go back to for certain systems we cover in second year, but I learned in Med Neuro that it doesn’t work for every system. The typed summaries were the best use of my time and it was nice having all of my final notes in one document, but I found myself not enjoying the studying the same way I did with the iPad. Medical school involves so so so much studying, so I believe it is important to find a method that not only works for you and gives you results you’re looking for, but is also a method that you enjoy.
I hope this was helpful and gave you some study ideas! It may take some time, but you’ll eventually find the studying method for you. I know I was initially stressed about changing my habits, but learn from past me and embrace the changes to find what works for you!
Halen Plans 