Surviving your first year in Medical School

This particular post is related to the MBBS course and includes the various topics that medical students wanna know generally after they enter the medical school. It talks about the time management ,books and resources to use ,useful websites to hack learning in medical schools ,important apps and many more...

The course :MBBS(Masters in Bachelors and Master in Surgery)

In Nepal the common duration of the course in various medical colleges is 5.5 years including one year of internship. Its a long course but it is worth it. This course must be completed in order to be eligible for future degrees like MD/MS and other post graduate stuffs. 

                         I , being a first year medical student at PAHS in Lalitpur, have talked about what resources are useful while studying in first year in this post.

SO LETS START!!

Life hacks for successful medical student life

1. Seniors are the Saviors !! You must not underestimate you seniors. You should know that they were once in the same phase as you are now and they have survived. So they can be a lot help to you if you know the technique to apply from their help. You can ask about how did they managed their time during their studies, what resources they have used that have come to be useful, you can borrow their old books for at least a week and highlight the important exam oriented questions  .
2. You should be able to update your knowledge by reading journals, attending conference, discussing cases with colleagues and lecturers.
3. Don't forget to enjoy your medical life. You probably will make more friends while in med school than forever. So be ADVENTUROUS - make friends as much as possible. I recommend making a study group too ( with about 3-4 members) .It helps a lot and saves must of your time at home for self study.
4. Sharing what you know with your friends is another way of perfect learning . You are not confident with the topics unless you are able to explain it to you friends in your own words. So try giving a demo of what you have learned to you friends while you are having coffee in your college canteen or it is your break time and you are in the sun watching at the patients .
5. Use different methods for studying . DON'T CRAM!!. Cramming never helps. You must understand each and every topics of the Basic Sciences. You should not forget that this one year is going to be your base for all your  future knowledge.

Resources for the respective subjects

While choosing resources you must be wise enough to select what books are must and what books should be used as references. You have got very limited but enough time (if utilized properly) to go through all the textbooks . It should be considered that you don't miss the important ones following only the recommended books by you seniors or any other who is in your line. Actually we had a long vacation before starting medical school which gave me enough time to do research on the resources on the internet. 

            Few web links which I recommend every medical student in their first year should watch are mentioned below:

             1. This link will take you to one of the best answers so far on the resources to study for all subjects in first year.

https://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-books-recommended-by-Ahmad-Ozair-for-MBBS-1st-year-students-for-studying-anatomy-physiology-and-biochemistry.

          

              2.This link will take you to a very useful medical blog channel which is my personal favourite ,that talks about almost every thing that a medical student requires

 youtube channel : Doc Ossareh

           ANATOMY 

Anatomy is fun learning whwn you have proper resources . You are most likely to learn much of it if you have a proper atlas . Visual knowledge is more important than textual for Antomy. You already might have guessed what is the most important thing to do for learning Anatomy , yes, its attendind every practical classes regularlyand being involved energitically every time.Trust me when I dont skip practical classes because  you wont get such oppertunities ever in you medical life again. To see whats inside a human being is so amazing and make use of every sections of the cadaver very properly because thats real and you can hold it and look at every nerves, blood vessels, tissues and muscles from every angle which is not possible with books.

Here is a list of highly recommended books which should be enough and with high yield information within. 

•  Gray's Anatomy for students 
• Moore's clinically oriented Anatomy 
• Netters Atlas of Anatomy (good text after every pictures )
• Flashcards ( for fun learning ) - either of Gray's or of Netter's

            PHYSIOLOGY

Physiology deals with the various functions of the body and how the sequence of processes occurs to accomplish a huge task in the body. It is fun learning Physiology when you can CONNECT THE DOTS. You should be able to connect the various topics and co-relate them to have a proper knowledge . You should know that all the systems of our body are connected to every other systems in many ways. So its important to learn by co-relating the topics . Don't forget to link Physiology to Anatomy , Biochemistry , Pathology, Embryology  and Pharmacology .

Here is a list of highly recommended books and resources for Physiology.

• Guyton's Physiology - this is of course a massive book. But you are not supposed to go through each and every lines of the book. If you are a fast reader, this book is best suited for you . Because it has many repeated texts. The must read chapters in this book are - cellular physiology and the CVS.
• Ganong's Physiology - This too is a huge book and also a bit of high standard. You might not get everything understood in you first read but gradually you will get used to it and can take out the high yield information from it. Revision of this book is recommended in your second year because this book has good information important for USMLE.
• Costanzo Physiology - Very important for USMLE and has high yield content within.
• BRS Physiology - a good review book for exams.

              EMBRYOLOGY

Embroylogy is the study of the embryo and its development.It is fun studying embryology . You must be able to co-relate this with Anatomy and Physiology . While you are in you lab learning from cadavers , don't forget to take in account embryology of every organ you study. Its very useful later while yo study at you home or most  probably you hostel. 

Here is a list of commonly recommended books by most of the people in this line.

• Langmann's Embryology
• Moore's Embryology ( as a reference from library )- this book is important for USMLE Step I
• David Sieden's Videos on embryology lectures.

              HISTOLOGY

Histology is the study of tissue structures and their functions. To get most from it one should be able to couple this subject with other subjects. You must have a great histology atlas for studying it properly. 

Here is a list of recommended books and resources.

• Ross Atlas and Textbook of Histology
• BRS Histology - good for exam review
• Human Histology - IB Singh

                PATHOLOGY

The study of causes and effects of diseases is Pathology. Here is a list of highly recommended and must have books for Pathology.

• Basic Pathology by Robbins (medium Robbins- I prefer to call it)- this book should be your ultimate study book .
• Robbins pathological Basis of disease(large Robbins)-this book is huge. I recommend using library for this book.
• Rapid review Pathology  by Goljian - Best book for review of what you learned.
• Pathoma by Hussain Sattar - very important for USMLE.

              PHARMACOLOGY

 Pharmacology is the branch of medicine concerned with the uses, effects, and modes of action of drugs.
Here is a list of recommended books .

• Lippincott's Pharmacology

• Katzung Pharmacology

• Kaplan lectures notes.

               BIOCHEMISTRY

 It is the branch of science concerned with the chemical and physico-chemical processes and substances which occur within living organisms. 

You can enjoy learning Biochemistry only if you have a habit of revising on a regular basis. Don't take too much burden. Do it gradually and you will do it for sure.

 Here is a list of highly recommended books .

• Harper Review of Biochemistry

• Lehinger Principles of Biochemistry

• Kaplan lectures (get a pdf book of the lectures)

• Dr. Najeeb lectures videos

Lecture videos of some which I recommend you watch :

• Dr. Najeeb lectures
• Acland's video Atlas on Anatomy
• Anatomy Zone
• Physiology Zone
• Hank Green's Crash course
• Armando Hasudungan
• Khan Academy ( for biochemistry videos)

Tips for bringing most from your practicals

I have already mentioned somewhere above that if you skip any practical class, you are having more trouble in the future with your texts. Utilize each and every moment of the practical. Learn from the cadavers. Discuss with your colleagues and the teacher. 

1. Gray's clinical photographic dissector-This book is very good because it containds the various sections of a cadaver with colorful images and also texts. So if you carry one with you in your lab, it is going to be great help. 
2. Get yourself some disposable gloves, good pair of scissors, scalpels and forceps. I recommend buying these from shops that actually sells the real ones that are used by surgeons.
3. Its always better to be prepared for the next day . So you can ask your teacher about the next day's dissection and read prior to it. This will help you save your time on searching what you actually wanna see from that particular section of the cadaver.
4. Use YouTube for observing cadaver dissections and learn from them

Studying and having fun go together

One who uses various methods for studying wins the race. Few methods of how you can not get bored from study are to use these :

• matching images and terms
• Crosswords
• Anatomy arcade
• Ken hub quizzes.
• Color atlas of Anatomy
• Flashcards (Anki- a great app for spaced-repetition learning)
• writing on whiteboards and blackboards

About USMLE 

While some of you might have planned to get a residency in US after comleting your MBBS, this is important. Early start is always the best option. So I recommend you to research on it and know what this actually is for? 

I have given a link for the original website of the USMLE here:

                                                    http://www.usmle.org/

This much in this post. Hope you had a great time reading this. Above all I hope that my research of more than a month will be very useful to many medical students in various medical colleges all over the country. Please subscribe to the newsletter so that you don't miss many other important future posts. Comment below on how do you feel about what I am doing.

  Thank you guys for being here!!

Namaste!!