Things I wish I knew when I started Med School

My name is uh Justin Ling. I'm part of the content team at osmosis and I work primarily as a video video illustrator and occasionally take on additional tasks.

So things like writing and reviewing content and videos um before you release them on osmosis or on youtube. Um I'm based in Southern California.

Um not too far away from Los Angeles, maybe about an hour drive away. And um I completed my undergrad education at UC Irvine in Biological Sciences.

I got my master's in biotechnology and bioinformatics at CSU Channel Islands. And then I got my MD from the Medical University of Lublin in Poland, which is uh Europe.

So um I'll just go ahead with the next slide, which is the overview on some of the things I'll be talking about today and I'll be starting with um just some of the common changes that med schools are making because of COVID-19.

Then I'll be going over a few things that Essen that I essentially wished I either learned more about in med school or things that I could have used a reminder of more um often while I was in med school.

So I think it's very easy to kind of get tunnel vision during med school and to only be focused on a thing that seems most urgent at the time, whether it's exams, board exams, leaving a good impression with the attending doctor or even um just having a, a good letter of recommendation from one of them and losing sight of the bigger picture can sometimes happen where you, you forget why we're doing what we're doing.

Um So there's a decent chance that you've heard some of the things that I'm gonna be talking about. And um I'm hoping that this might just be a good reminder or something for all of you to give some additional thought to you while you're still in med school.

So the, the first thing I wanted to talk about was just being open to new study strategies and then I'll go over some positive impacts of networking as well as just making connections in med school.

And then finally, I'll, I'll stop with um the importance of self care. So starting med school during a pandemic, um this is something that's new for everybody.

So not only med students, but it's also new for professors, the med school itself as well as hospitals. And I think everyone is trying to do their best uh to do what they can to adjust during this time.

But um you may need to have a little bit of patience and a little bit of trust that your school is still trying to do the best that they can with the situation.

And I would encourage you to also just voice any suggestions or ideas you might have for your school that um you think that they may not have considered yet.

Um And since this is the case because um there's really no tried and true method for how to handle a situation like this.

Um And some of the changes I think, um may actually need a little bit more time to evolve over a longer period of time. But I think uh overall, this will really help push uh med schools to implement and be more innovative with uh new technologies and uh new ways of teaching that will actually help improve uh medical education as a whole.

Um But as a first year medical student, um I think a lot of the more common changes will be things that a lot of you mentioned and a lot of things that uh have already you've already probably seen during your undergrad years um with uh remote or online learning resources, whether it's uh streamed videos or prerecorded videos of lectures from your school or outside resources like osmosis.

Um And also being able to take more of your exams and assignments uh online. Um But the things that are a little bit more specific to, to med school may be the use of a lot more simulations.

So the first thing I have here is the Mannequin based simulations where it's literally a mannequin um that can be responsive in different ways.

Uh whether they might have an actual heartbeat or heart rate and arms that where you can practice um placing ivs in or um ones that are intended to uh simulate an actual patient interaction.

So the, the mannequin that II got to have a little time with when I was in med school was um one where the, the mouth of the mannequin had a speaker and the the professor or the doctor was in another room with the microphone.

So he was talking to us as if he was a patient. Um and we had to interview the patient and talk to the mannequin, I guess, which was a little bit odd at first.

But um you could quickly get used to it. And the next item I have is uh 3D programs that may replace some of the time that you would have normally or previously spent um with a cadaver for dissections.

And I think that it will be a bef beneficial tool um with things like in the image I have here of basically, it's a large tablet with a touchscreen.

So you can move around the body, see different layers of the body and separate muscles and tissues to kind of get a better understanding of the anatomy.

And the next thing I have here is uh surgery simulators that combine physical controls and computer-generated visuals. I think that this is actually something that kind of reminds me of video games just because it's, it's essentially like a video game, but the controllers are meant to like, mimic or, or um copy what a medical device would look and feel like.

So this one in particular is a laparoscopic surgery simulator, which is one I got to try when I was in med school. And, um, I think it was really nice uh teaching tool.

And actually when I hear surgery simulator, actually, I think of a video game called Surgeon Simulator. Um, I don't know if any of you have actually, um, tried it, but it's actually more of a, a joke of a video game just because it's not meant to be realistic, just like you wouldn't never expect or use a, a hammer that you would find at like a hardware store for oral surgery of any kind.

Um, but the last thing I have here is, um, viewing procedures with VR goggles. I think that that's something that's gonna become more common over time.

Um, but maybe not super common at, at the, at this moment. But, um, there have been some surgeries and procedures that are recorded in 3D and students can view it with the VR goggles later to get a better and more immersive experience as far as seeing how a surgery would normally be performed.

Um, because I think sometimes, uh, even just being in the room in real life when I was a med student, um, in the, or if you're scrubbed in, you can still have situations where you just can't see what's happening.

You don't really know what the doctor is doing or the surgeon is doing. And, um, having a more um direct, uh, first person view of what the doctor is doing would definitely be a, a great teaching tool in that regard.

So, moving on to the next topic is the um some of the things that I wished I paid a little bit more attention to when I was starting med school and that would be being open to different or new studying methods or strategies.

And there's definitely some strategies that I'm sure some of you have dismissed in the past and ones that you've just never tried before and I don't think it hurts to um, revisit some of those strategies that you may have thought didn't work for you.

Well, in the past, whether it's in undergrad or, or even high school, um I know for me personally, both high school and college, I was not necessarily the most efficient ST uh efficient studier.

And um I often just relied on paying attention in class and taking notes and before exam, just studying for my notes and reviewing powerpoint presentations from the professor.

And I think for undergrad that that was sufficient. But in med school with the much bigger volume of information, we need to know, it really does help to have uh a more established um way of going about studying.

And one of the ones that uh I really utilized a lot when I was studying, especially for step one was um using flash cards with spaced repetition.

I think before I thought flash cards might have been a waste of time because I spent more time actually making the flash cards as opposed to reviewing them.

But what I realized with um digital flash cards now that utilize uh space repetition, it can be extremely efficient. And that actually helped me bring up my, my practice step one scores quite a bit when I was studying for that exam.

And we actually have a video on youtube about space repetition. If you haven't learned much about, about it or how it works.

And if you are uh osmosis prime uh subscriber, then we actually have a flashcard system that also uses uh space repetition.

And the next item I have is M Nemonyx, which is just another thing that I didn't use much in undergrad, but definitely used in med school.

Um It really helps with subjects or topics that are not necessarily complex, but they just might have a lot of detailed information you need to know.

So things like um when I was reviewing the different types of viruses, I needed to know which ones are DNA or RNA A, uh which ones had envelopes, which ones didn't, whether they considered coronaviruses or were they considered flaviviruses all of that.

Um having the mons to, to use, um, really helped with that. And I also, um, used a lot more, um, study partners when I was in med school.

I think that's something I shied away from a lot in undergrad. But I realized that it really does help a lot when you have a study partner and when you try to explain things to each other, you've actually learned the material a lot better when you have to explain it.

And sometimes even reviewing the same material, you realize that somebody else has a, a different perspective of the same information that really helps you understand it um in a much deeper level than you would otherwise on your own.

And uh personally, I also felt like having a study partner that you study with regularly help uh keep you and your study partner accountable for each other and more focused while you study.

OK. So um before we move on to the next topic, uh I just also wanted to mention that uh another thing that I did use was the Pomodoro technique and that was something that uh Doctor Marina Ho ho uh talked about during her uh webinar last week.

So if you didn't see her presentation, it's, it's a great presentation about overcoming test anxiety. Um You can watch it um the recording of it um on osmosis.

I think the website is osmosis.org/uh events and she goes into details of study techniques that she used, that she found useful, which includes also the Pomodoro technique.

So um in addition to that, there's also uh a book that we have at osmosis is called How To Learn in health care or health professions.

And I think that is also a valuable resource that you can check out um on our website. But in general, I also wanted to, to mention that it's very common to, to be overwhelmed by having too many study sources or too many resources.

And it's important in the beginning of med school to, to try a lot of things. But it's also important to realize that um certain things may not work as well for you and those, those things, you should just simply stop continuing because you'll be wasting your time using a method that doesn't necessarily work very well for you, which is also my, my final point on this slide is that you need to figure out what works um for you specifically.

Um I've come across a lot in med school where I had very well intentioned uh classmates that would say um I have to study a certain way or I have to do a certain thing for a specific exam.

And that might have been something that's super effective for them, but it may not be something that applies to you as well.

And II think it's important to realize that um what works well for other students may not necessarily work for as well for you too.

So there's also um moving on to the next thing which is um to not be afraid to make connections with everyone around you.

And, and that really includes everyone, whether it's your classmates, your upper classman, residents, professors, attending doctors and even your family, um like finding friends and mentors that you trust and feel comfortable um discussing any problems or concerns you have throughout med school is super important.

And um II personally put this topic here because at least for me, I felt like that um o oftentimes especially during undergrad that I was a alone in my studies and I was supposed to deal with any issues I had or challenges on my own.

Um But part of the reason why I believe I felt that way was because I didn't want to bother other people. But also because I thought that maybe reaching out was a, a sign of weakness that I shouldn't be needing help.

But that's definitely not the case. I think everyone can use some help from time to time.

Um And I, and I realized also that when I do reach out that uh people around me more often than not, they're more than happy to help and they're often uh glad to help for um or glad that I asked for help and asked for their advice.

And uh in the case of learning from upper classman, um I think that can also be very important depending on what school you go to and, and your goals.

Um because every school has very unique characteristics, there are new, unique um challenges that students have. Um for example, I went to med school in Poland and a lot of my classmates uh were American and we, we wanted to come back to the US to study or to practice.

And um just knowing what we needed to do in order to be able to do that was kind of an a more unique situation than um somebody that was in the country that they want to practice medicine in.

So um networking, I know can um sometimes sound cold or businesslike. Um But it really doesn't have to be and I think it's good to think of it more as just making connections with the people around you.

Uh Sometimes we think that we only network with other people because we want or need something from them. Um But II think we shouldn't look at it that way and see it more as a way to make connections where um essentially everyone benefits.

I can help the people I meet and they can help me as well and uh cultivating these uh relationships with people around you.

It really doesn't have to be anything intense or super formal. It can be just as simple as introducing yourself to an attending or staff member in the hospital um and just being engaged in everything that you do at school.

And also just not to be afraid to ask questions. Um Some personal examples I have for, for me is that I had a particular interest in pathology.

And um I was able to get some interesting clerkship experiences because of classmates I knew and it wasn't even classmates that were um at my school, they were, they were uh classmates or medical students that I met during my rotations.

And a few weeks later, after the rotation actually ended, he, he remembered that I enjoyed or was interested in pathology and said that he knew somebody that uh could use an extra student to help him with his work.

Um The next item is uh asking family to help with test preparations. So for me, I guess, II guess it's not really um a far stretch as far as networking.

But um I definitely asked my mom a lot, a lot for help when I was studying for the step two CS exam uh or clinical skills exam where um I basically asked her to, to act as uh like a, a fake patient for me to practice medi uh to practice my uh physical exams and patient inter interviews with.

And I think that really helped me a lot prepare for that exam since um I didn't get a lot of experiences with that beforehand.

And I spent maybe a few weeks every single day with her. Um as my, my fake patient.

Um, and the last item I have here is getting to know or getting, uh, getting my, uh first job out of school. So this was actually before med school.

Um II first was working and I got my first job after my master's degree because of the people I met um, in my master's program, since a lot of them were already working in the industry in, in uh pharmaceutical companies and, and so on.

So when we graduated, one of my classmates knew that, um her boss was looking for somebody to join the team and she remembered how I was in uh my master's program, how I studied how I worked.

And she uh recommended me. I ended up working at Baxter Bioscience.

Um Right after I finished my master's degree, which is, or which was a, a great opportunity um working for such a big company.

And um I learned a lot while I was working there. So the last thing I wanted to talk about was simply just taking care of yourself too.

I think it's something that we've all probably heard before. And I think, um especially for medical students, it, it's something that we can have a hard time following just because we're so driven and we're so focused on what we're trying to do.

Um And it's great that you're willing to, to sacrifice so much of yourself to do, to do well and succeed. But um I really urge you all to try to not forget about your own wellbeing.

Um that can include things like eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly. Um And it's even been shown that taking care of your mental health and physical health can help improve your focus and memory when you do need to study and work hard.

Um And, and II wasn't always the best example of this myself. II admit.

Um I know that when I was in my first year of med school, it was very common amongst my classmates to, to be very sleep deprived.

And this, this photo is actually of me and my, my classmates right before a class just because there was only a 10 or 15 minute break.

But we, we were so sleep deprived from studying for an exam earlier in the day that we all just knocked out pretty quickly and my eating habits definitely suffered as well, I think.

Um, just because it was convenient and, and cheap. Uh, I ate a lot of pizza during med school and, um, this picture of pizza boxes was between me and my roommate.

But I think we accumulated that, that amount of pizza boxes only within a week or two. And if you're, um, in the Europe area, um, I, you might be familiar with.

The next photo is which is burn, which is a common energy drink in Europe. And each of those bottles is a 1 L bottle.

And I it wasn't unusual for me to finish a bottle or maybe even two bottles in one day. So II definitely wasn't taking care of myself in that sense.

Um, and this last photo I thought of, it was kind of funny at the time, but in, in reality, it was a combination of the fact that I had gained so much more weight than I've ever had before.

But II made the joke that um I was studying so hard that my chair couldn't handle it because I broke my chair two times within the first year of med school.

Um just from being on it all day or every second that I had basically to study. So I also think it's extremely important to continue activities that, you know, you enjoy, whether it's maybe playing some video games every once in a while or playing a sport or reading, listening to music or simply spending time with your friends.

Um It's really important to, to let yourself unwind and relax once in a while. Um For me, uh II grew up enjoying and practicing martial arts.

So I was fortunate enough to find a classmate that also enjoyed the same thing and we practice once in a while together and we even uh performed for a cultural night um that our school put on once a year.

So, um in addition, um I think it's important to try your, your best to work and study efficiently and try not to procrastinate whenever you can.

I know that can be extremely hard to do sometimes. But um in order to help just decrease um the amount of stress that you have.

Um and it'll help to also increase the amount of time that you have for um things that will help you relax and uh just have free time um to, to, to unwind when you really need to.

So I think that's it actually for my slides. So, um if any of you had any questions, I think we have some osmosis team members that have been monitoring the chat and they'll be sending me some of the questions um on my computer over here.

Uh The first question I see is do the prereqs for med school ever expire? I think that that probably depends on your school in particular.

Um I know cer certain schools want you to have your prereqs completed within a certain number of years before you start.

So I think that that's something that you should probably ask your individual school about. Um There's so many resource.

The next question is there are so many resources. Um So how do you decide where to start?

I think um I it's very common to just ask your, your classmates um um What, what they used, what was effective. Um Even just searching, depending on what you're studying for if you're studying for the, the boards.

Um There's definitely many uh blog posts out there and, and guides and suggestions for what resources you, you can use. Another question is what if we fail to get into med school the first time?

Um, I think that that can be a pretty difficult, um, question to answer just because it probably depends on, on the individual and to, to know why you think that maybe you didn't get in.

And, um, if, if the reason why you didn't get in is something that you can improve upon. Um Sometimes it's hard if it's your GPA.

Um There's not as much as you can do because of how much time you've already spent in undergrad. But if you can retake the M cat, um maybe get some research uh under your belt that can be all things that help.

And let's see. Um Can we point to resources for prepping for residencies?

Um I think I will leave that question up to some of the other team members at osmosis. Um And some of the other questions that we may not be able to get to.

Um I, I'm hoping we'll be able to review them and maybe post answers to them on social media or possibly on our blog, which is at osmosis.org/blog.

Um But otherwise, uh I think that was some really good questions and I appreciate all of you attending and I wish you all the best of luck um in the future in med school.