Medical School In a Nutshell

Hoover  26 Oct, 2006  Medical School, The Wards

You busted your nuts to get to medical school, studying your ass off for four years to keep your GPA up and to ace the MCAT. Once you’re finally there, medical school can be summed up rather nicely.

Year 1 is simply memorize and regurgitate. Commit random facts to memory and spit them back out on some stupid test. Rinse and repeat. Hanging out and drinking after exams is a frequent occurrence.

Year 2 is more memorization and regurgitation. Commit more random facts to memory and take more silly tests. Drinking at bars after exams is still somewhat common.


Between years 2 and 3, you take the USMLE Step I. This is the ultimate memorize and regurgitate, but somehow the test writers over at the NBME come up with rather clever ways to trick you. There is still very little application, however. While studying for this test, partying is typically not common.

Year 3 is your no-life year. You wake up early and come home late and generally are always suffering from lack of sleep. You put up with asshole residents and cocky attending physicians who have no life. They make you bring in journal articles that you care very little about. As long as you know that disease X presents as Y and is treated with Z and the side effects of treatment Z are A, B, and C then you’ll do fine. To hell with the journal articles and all that bullshit. Memorize and regurgitate instead.

Year 4 is your vacation year. You get to pretty much make your schedule. There are some required rotations, but they aren’t much different than those from your 3rd year. It’s a bit of payback for 3 years of hell.

Sometime either before graduation or before residency, you’ll take Step II. While not as hard as Step I, it’s the same old song and dance. Recognize presenting symptoms and know what to do next. More memorization and regurgitation. If the patient is pregnant, change up the most common drug to one that’s safe during pregnancy.

Honestly, medicine is just treating patients by cookbook. Once you’ve been doing it long enough, you memorize all of that bullshit and can start doing things without looking it up. At this point, you are known as a “good doctor.” Some mature faster than others.

Sure, you need to be smart to be able to memorize all of that crap in the first place but even those with average IQs can do it with enough repetition. In short, medicine is nothing stellar. It sure isn’t rocket science. Space or computer engineers actually have to apply their knowledge to solve a problem. In medicine, those types of illnesses are few and far between.

But, I guess you have to put up with the common shit to find that publication-level workup and diagnosis that just might come around once in your career, huh?

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7 Comments so far »

  1. panda bear said

    February 12 2007 @ 5:57 pm

    Stox, brother. Your blog fucking rules. It makes mine look like a cheap imitation made in some crappy Eastern European country. A must read for anyone contemplating a career in medicine. Hell, it should be required reading.

    You know, I like medicine but it was touch and go for me last year when I found myself almost stuck in the what I consider to be the crappiest of specialties, Family Practice, looking at a career which would be essentilaly nothing but wiping snotty noses and coming up with tactful ways to tell fat people to lose some fucking weight.

    I bow to your superior blogging ability.

  2. Hoover said

    February 12 2007 @ 5:57 pm

    Thanks for the comments Panda. I really appreciate it, and it means a lot coming from you. I’ve always looked up to you as a blogger.

    I’ve followed your blog and posts over at SDN for some time and always thought you were spot-on with everything that you said.

    It’s good to see you over here checking things out. :)

  3. irishdoc said

    February 12 2007 @ 5:58 pm

    It’s great to hear someone finally telling it like it is during medical school. A friend of mine just quit her residency 1 month into it. She said she was pretty unhappy but everyone said she should finish and then she’d be happier. She matched in EM but then decided Fuck It. She sounded real happy last time I talked to her.

  4. Hoover said

    February 12 2007 @ 5:58 pm

    Yeah, that’s what they always say Irish…”you’ll be happer when it’s over.” I’ve heard that over and over. Some people will never be happier, and it’s best to cut your losses as soon as possible. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that medicine isn’t for you, but so many people have a hard time doing it.

  5. bd2009 said

    February 12 2007 @ 5:59 pm

    Awesome blog. Thanks to Stox for your writing and Panda for pointing me in this direction. I love hearing from those who are more advanced in their training than I am and aren’t afraid to tell the truth about how messed up our training really is.

    I can only hope that my poor excuse for a blog can someday be a shadow of Stox and Panda’s.

  6. kyekue said

    February 12 2007 @ 5:59 pm

    Nicely put. I went to medical school in Africa, trust me the road is bumpier here. I finished by the grace of God,the happiness was shortlived. Working as a doctor in my home country is craaaazy! And to make matters worse the goverment pays us peanuts

  7. Norm said

    December 20 2007 @ 11:43 pm

    Hey Hoover & Panda, OK you’re both great blogers, now stop kissing each others asses and get back to writing.
    It’s been years since I’ve read something as entertaining as both of your blogs

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