I thought it might be interesting to do somewhat of a day in the life post so you can get an idea of what it is like on a busy day for a medical student at my school. I know every school is very different in their scheduling and even in the classes that they take each term so this is just representative of my experience!
Typical Tuesday schedule... Anatomy Lab Day
7:00 AM ~ Wake up... no snoozing allowed for this girl. The first thing I do after I shut off my alarm is send good morning messages to my loved ones and then do some social media checking before getting up and making oatmeal for breakfast.
7:30 ~ Ready to go in my scrubs (long sleeve shirt underneath). The buildings here are freezing, especially the cadaver lab so I always dress warm even though I'm sweltering when I get there.
7:40 - 8:50 ~ Wet lab quiz. We answer three clicker questions and then we get right in to examining the previously dissected bodies... my school doesn't have dissections so we learn a little differently.
9:00 - 10:00 ~ Imaging and Clinical small group quizzes. Then we move to another building and have imaging lab where we do Ultrasound for 20 minutes with volunteer patients and then we look at imaging files of normal cases as well as abnormalities.
10:00 - 11:10 ~ We are broken up into groups of ten students and we go over case studies that we had to research and answer questions to.
11:10 - 11:50 ~ Last part of lab, at this point everyone is tired and ready for lunch but we have to have the most energy now because we get to do physical examinations on volunteer patients. We work in groups of four with one patient and try our best to rotate to give everyone a change to do the assigned exam for the day.
12:00 - 12:30 ~ I hurry back to my room and prepare lunch, change for class and pack my snack.
12:30 - 1 ~ I head early to class. My class is over 800 kids and I like to make sure that I get a seat at the front of the lecture hall. There is an option here to watch lectures at home instead of going to class but I like learning right there in the lecture hall and be able to see and hear the professor in person.
1 - 5 ~ During this time we have four lectures, they are 50 minutes each with a ten minute break in between. The class schedule changes by the day but we have two classes back to back of two out of our three subjects so it alternates each day between Biochemistry, Anatomy and Histology. Needless to say you really have to keep on your schedule.
5 -6 ~ Finally time to take a break. I go home, eat dinner and FaceTime my parents. This is my one hour break time for the day and I savor every moment of it.
6 - 7 ~ Time to start post reading for class. This is where you go over your lectures from the day and write notes, read further information and get as much of a first review as you can. Takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes to review one 50 minute class as a general rule of thumb here.
7 - 8 ~ On Tuesddays I have a review group for Biochemistry where we meet with an upper term student and he gives us questions to go over and answers questions that we have on current material.
8 - 11 ~ Study time. My dorm has an amazing study hall upstairs that I have been loving. There is also another building close by that I go to a lot. I focus much better out of my room, fewer distractions.
11 - 11:30 ~ Time for winding down for bed. This is so important... I haven't been doing enough of winding down and my mind races at night! So I need to get better at this!!
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