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Submitted by keegan@planete… on Mon, 01/16/2023 - 22:57

-Kim Moscatello

Part I 

Most medical school faculty members will not openly offer this kind of advice for several reasons. They are either too busy, afraid of getting in trouble (yeah, we think about this too!), don't know, or aren't like us! The first year of medical school is no joke! For some, it is their first time away from home; for others, it is the first time they have studied, for real! No matter the issue, the journey to becoming a physician is not easy. Some of the following points may seem like "duh" advice; read the details to see why they are essential to your success!

The basics:

  1. Live alone
  2. Time management
  3. Seek help early if you need it
  4. Self-assessment is the key to mastery
  5. Don't cheat
  6. Don't join clubs until at least the second semester

A deeper dive into each item listed for those who prefer more than lists!

  1. Live alone. Period. Even if you never have before. In over 20 years as a medical school professor and Dean, I would not have the time to list the crazy roommate stories I have heard in this blog! In medical school or any professional school, you aren't going to have time to deal with significant issues stemming from roommates. You will already be under tremendous stress, so even small things like leaving dirty dishes in the sink could drive you mad. Make friends; these will be your colleagues one day and a great asset; just don't live with them!
  2. Time management. You have never experienced a semester on the level you are about to. Think of your worst semester in college. Did you take 15, 18, or 21 credits? The typical medical school semester in the first two years is approximately 30 credits per semester, including labs and various other requirements. Starting in the preclinical years of medical school is the time to manage your time on a whole different level. Once you receive your schedule, sit down with a planner (or any electronic calendar) and begin to construct your days around class time. You should schedule time for studying, eating, going to the gym (or even taking a nice walk), and time for relaxation. Yes, it is challenging to be spontaneous in medical school, so scheduling time with friends for a movie or dinner is essential and will give you something to look forward to. So, how much time should you allot for studying? Well…that will depend on you! But in general terms, a lot more than you did in college. Many successful students will study 4-6 hours a day during the week and 6-8 hours on the weekends. Sometimes, the weekend numbers increase based on Monday's exams. It would help if you pretend that school is a job; a job that requires weekend work and at least 8–10 hours a day. That will be a good starting point. If you played sports or were in the band in college, you will have an advantage in the time management department. Most college athletes must maintain a full course load and a certain GPA, all while balancing workouts, practices, and games. Suppose college athletes have the grades and meet the requirements to get into medical school; they are often admitted to the class because admission committees know they possess excellent time management skills. If you are still unsure about how to manage your time, consider consulting your advisor or someone in Student Affairs. There is always someone to help you!
  3. Seek help early if you need it. Procrastinators, I’m talking to you! Seek help for anything that is keeping you from being successful. If that happens to be the coursework, the longer you wait to speak with an advisor or mentor, the deeper the hole you may dig for yourself. Reach out to the faculty if you are struggling in a particular subject. Yes, even if you don't like them! If you are reaching out for help and they answer your questions, you can deal with the salty prof. Otherwise, you will start saying ridiculous things like "I’m just going to take a hit on that course and focus on the others" or "I’m putting all my eggs in this basket because I’m doing well in the other courses." This type of strategy never works out well and, in my experience, results in multiple failures. For help in other areas, such as mental health issues, accreditors require schools to have support for you 24/7. Therefore, you should always be able to reach someone for help! Even if you think "there is nothing they can do," I promise you that most of the time, there is. There is no need to suffer alone. This career choice is extremely rewarding. However, it is also a stressful, tiring, and costly endeavor. The rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicide are elevated in medical students, residents, and attending physicians. Please, please take care of yourself! Making up an exam to seek help is so much better than suffering.
  4. Self-assessment is the key to mastery. Self-assessment is an active way to learn and identify areas for improvement. That is why there are MANY question banks available to medical students. However, none are quite suitable for curricular success in the preclinical years. For example, the assessment questions in the back of most textbooks are usually simple recall or fill-in-the-blank, which do not represent the level of knowledge you will need to show proficiency on your exams. And then, there are the commercially available question banks geared toward board exams that assume a level of expertise and integration that first-year students typically have not yet learned. Working on an academic level more than a year ahead of your curriculum can create frustration and make first-year students want to give up. And this is the reason we launched MCQ! Here’s the tea. Students ALWAYS ask the faculty for practice questions. Why not? Practicing questions before the exam is the best way to see if you understand the material and the level of difficulty in the questions that will be covered on an exam. However, most faculty members hate writing them because it takes a lot of time to develop practice questions. At one of my former institutions, we used to provide our students with practice questions for our course, but guess what? They always wanted more! So, MCQ is our response! Once you quiz yourself on the exam material, you can go through the questions, see where you are weak, and fix the problems before the exam! If you don't understand the concept from the explanations, each question will direct you to a primary reference book that most medical students have. And if you still don't understand? MCQ will be offering help sessions in concept areas that students commonly struggle with! Additionally, MCQ offers questions with different levels of difficulty that you pick, so you are still learning at your own pace without feeling overwhelmed. Start easy or go to the Einstein level; it is up to you!
  5. Don't cheat. No, we don't think everyone is a cheater, but times have changed. I have younger kids, and I have "caught" them doing things they tell me everyone does that I would consider cheating. Moreover, medical schools will also consider it cheating. Pictures of homework meant to be completed individually, sent out in a group text, are just one example. If your school does not return exams and you find yourself with an old copy of an exam that has been passed down, that is also considered cheating. Also known as exam recall schemes, this type of “cheating” has created a huge problem on physician board exams in the past. Exam takers would memorize as many questions as possible and then dump them in a database, and the board exams were essentially recreated from the question dumps. The physicians who used these banks or participated in the schemes had their licenses to practice revoked. Yes, after all that work, they LOST their license. If you think I am joking, do a quick Google search on "exam recall schemes" and Radiology boards or the American Board of Internal Medicine. Those are only a few examples. The other, more altruistic reason not to cheat is that your future patients deserve better. Do the work. Would you want to send your family to a colleague you know cheated in medical school? Yeah, neither would the rest of us! So, the bottom line is, if you have to ask yourself, "Is this considered cheating?" Assume it is, and don't do it!
  6. Don't join clubs until at least the second semester of your first year. This advice is the opposite of what you may have done in undergrad, especially if you attended a large school and didn't know many people. However, you will have plenty of time to discover if you want to be in the Internal Medicine club or Wilderness Medicine club (no, I'm not kidding) during your medical school tenure. Give yourself time to adapt, figure out your study strategy, assess its effectiveness, and ensure you are earning passing grades. The clubs will also be active in the second semester, and you will be better able to participate in the events and even run for office once you have a better understanding of the curriculum requirements. Additionally, you may decide after taking a few courses that you actually don't like the kidney, and perhaps you may want to join a club other than the Nephrology club. Hey, it happens!

I hope this was helpful and a good starting point. Part II is coming soon, and I would guess that Part III will follow. The fact is, this advice stems from decades of experience in teaching and administrative positions. And do you want to know what my favorite part of those jobs was? You guessed it, YOU! The students! These are only some of the things I have seen students struggle with and sometimes even fail to get their medical degree because of. Keep pushing forward, and we will help you where we can!

Blog Date
Blog Image
Advice

Advice from your med school faculty for your first year of medical school.

July 24, 2025

Advice

-Kim Moscatello

Part I 

Most medical school faculty members will not openly offer this kind of advice for several reasons. They are either too busy, afraid of getting in trouble (yeah, we think about this too!), don't know, or aren't like us! The first year of medical school is no joke! For some, it is their first time away from home; for others, it is the first time they have studied, for real! No matter the issue, the journey to becoming a physician is not easy. Some of the following points may seem like "duh" advice; read the details to see why they are essential to your success!

The basics:

  1. Live alone
  2. Time management
  3. Seek help early if you need it
  4. Self-assessment is the key to mastery
  5. Don't cheat
  6. Don't join clubs until at least the second semester

A deeper dive into each item listed for those who prefer more than lists!

  1. Live alone. Period. Even if you never have before. In over 20 years as a medical school professor and Dean, I would not have the time to list the crazy roommate stories I have heard in this blog! In medical school or any professional school, you aren't going to have time to deal with significant issues stemming from roommates. You will already be under tremendous stress, so even small things like leaving dirty dishes in the sink could drive you mad. Make friends; these will be your colleagues one day and a great asset; just don't live with them!
  2. Time management. You have never experienced a semester on the level you are about to. Think of your worst semester in college. Did you take 15, 18, or 21 credits? The typical medical school semester in the first two years is approximately 30 credits per semester, including labs and various other requirements. Starting in the preclinical years of medical school is the time to manage your time on a whole different level. Once you receive your schedule, sit down with a planner (or any electronic calendar) and begin to construct your days around class time. You should schedule time for studying, eating, going to the gym (or even taking a nice walk), and time for relaxation. Yes, it is challenging to be spontaneous in medical school, so scheduling time with friends for a movie or dinner is essential and will give you something to look forward to. So, how much time should you allot for studying? Well…that will depend on you! But in general terms, a lot more than you did in college. Many successful students will study 4-6 hours a day during the week and 6-8 hours on the weekends. Sometimes, the weekend numbers increase based on Monday's exams. It would help if you pretend that school is a job; a job that requires weekend work and at least 8–10 hours a day. That will be a good starting point. If you played sports or were in the band in college, you will have an advantage in the time management department. Most college athletes must maintain a full course load and a certain GPA, all while balancing workouts, practices, and games. Suppose college athletes have the grades and meet the requirements to get into medical school; they are often admitted to the class because admission committees know they possess excellent time management skills. If you are still unsure about how to manage your time, consider consulting your advisor or someone in Student Affairs. There is always someone to help you!
  3. Seek help early if you need it. Procrastinators, I’m talking to you! Seek help for anything that is keeping you from being successful. If that happens to be the coursework, the longer you wait to speak with an advisor or mentor, the deeper the hole you may dig for yourself. Reach out to the faculty if you are struggling in a particular subject. Yes, even if you don't like them! If you are reaching out for help and they answer your questions, you can deal with the salty prof. Otherwise, you will start saying ridiculous things like "I’m just going to take a hit on that course and focus on the others" or "I’m putting all my eggs in this basket because I’m doing well in the other courses." This type of strategy never works out well and, in my experience, results in multiple failures. For help in other areas, such as mental health issues, accreditors require schools to have support for you 24/7. Therefore, you should always be able to reach someone for help! Even if you think "there is nothing they can do," I promise you that most of the time, there is. There is no need to suffer alone. This career choice is extremely rewarding. However, it is also a stressful, tiring, and costly endeavor. The rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicide are elevated in medical students, residents, and attending physicians. Please, please take care of yourself! Making up an exam to seek help is so much better than suffering.
  4. Self-assessment is the key to mastery. Self-assessment is an active way to learn and identify areas for improvement. That is why there are MANY question banks available to medical students. However, none are quite suitable for curricular success in the preclinical years. For example, the assessment questions in the back of most textbooks are usually simple recall or fill-in-the-blank, which do not represent the level of knowledge you will need to show proficiency on your exams. And then, there are the commercially available question banks geared toward board exams that assume a level of expertise and integration that first-year students typically have not yet learned. Working on an academic level more than a year ahead of your curriculum can create frustration and make first-year students want to give up. And this is the reason we launched MCQ! Here’s the tea. Students ALWAYS ask the faculty for practice questions. Why not? Practicing questions before the exam is the best way to see if you understand the material and the level of difficulty in the questions that will be covered on an exam. However, most faculty members hate writing them because it takes a lot of time to develop practice questions. At one of my former institutions, we used to provide our students with practice questions for our course, but guess what? They always wanted more! So, MCQ is our response! Once you quiz yourself on the exam material, you can go through the questions, see where you are weak, and fix the problems before the exam! If you don't understand the concept from the explanations, each question will direct you to a primary reference book that most medical students have. And if you still don't understand? MCQ will be offering help sessions in concept areas that students commonly struggle with! Additionally, MCQ offers questions with different levels of difficulty that you pick, so you are still learning at your own pace without feeling overwhelmed. Start easy or go to the Einstein level; it is up to you!
  5. Don't cheat. No, we don't think everyone is a cheater, but times have changed. I have younger kids, and I have "caught" them doing things they tell me everyone does that I would consider cheating. Moreover, medical schools will also consider it cheating. Pictures of homework meant to be completed individually, sent out in a group text, are just one example. If your school does not return exams and you find yourself with an old copy of an exam that has been passed down, that is also considered cheating. Also known as exam recall schemes, this type of “cheating” has created a huge problem on physician board exams in the past. Exam takers would memorize as many questions as possible and then dump them in a database, and the board exams were essentially recreated from the question dumps. The physicians who used these banks or participated in the schemes had their licenses to practice revoked. Yes, after all that work, they LOST their license. If you think I am joking, do a quick Google search on "exam recall schemes" and Radiology boards or the American Board of Internal Medicine. Those are only a few examples. The other, more altruistic reason not to cheat is that your future patients deserve better. Do the work. Would you want to send your family to a colleague you know cheated in medical school? Yeah, neither would the rest of us! So, the bottom line is, if you have to ask yourself, "Is this considered cheating?" Assume it is, and don't do it!
  6. Don't join clubs until at least the second semester of your first year. This advice is the opposite of what you may have done in undergrad, especially if you attended a large school and didn't know many people. However, you will have plenty of time to discover if you want to be in the Internal Medicine club or Wilderness Medicine club (no, I'm not kidding) during your medical school tenure. Give yourself time to adapt, figure out your study strategy, assess its effectiveness, and ensure you are earning passing grades. The clubs will also be active in the second semester, and you will be better able to participate in the events and even run for office once you have a better understanding of the curriculum requirements. Additionally, you may decide after taking a few courses that you actually don't like the kidney, and perhaps you may want to join a club other than the Nephrology club. Hey, it happens!

I hope this was helpful and a good starting point. Part II is coming soon, and I would guess that Part III will follow. The fact is, this advice stems from decades of experience in teaching and administrative positions. And do you want to know what my favorite part of those jobs was? You guessed it, YOU! The students! These are only some of the things I have seen students struggle with and sometimes even fail to get their medical degree because of. Keep pushing forward, and we will help you where we can!