What can you expect as a normal routine in med school?
I’m slowly learning that there is no such thing as a real routine in med school. Every week is different. Month to month there are some patterns: we typically have around 1 big exam (40+ chapters), 2 small exams, and 1 patient encounter every 4-5 weeks.
My typical schedule:
- I have class for about 2 hours a day because our curriculum is PBL and most of our learning is done at home!
- I usually study around 8 hours a day. This number changes based on if we have an exam that week (more on that below) and the difficulty of the content. I studied more hours overall during our neuro block than during our endocrine!
- The rest of the day I have time for things like going to the gym, getting outside, attending student clubs/meetings, watching TV, or going to the beach. Most of the time I have time for fun things and I usually feel balanced and happy.
- One week out from any big exam I’m usually studying around 16 hours a day. During these exam weeks I can start to feel “stressed,” but we only have 3 big exams a semester… So 3-ish weeks of super long days isn’t too bad!
Side note: I personally prefer having fewer exams with a larger amount of content on each exam. I can kind of get a “break” between exams and I feel that the consistent review of material over a month really helps it stick!