The Pre-Med Playbook
The Pre-Med Playbook is the definitive roadmap for the next generation of physicians, hosted by Casey Pearce to deconstruct the pre-med journey from freshman year to the White Coat at NYITCOM at Arkansas State. This series provides a localized, end-to-end perspective on the medical school pipeline, offering direct access to the faculty and students navigating the Arkansas healthcare landscape. By transforming the daunting path to medical school into actionable steps, Casey and his guests provide the structure to turn a dream into a clinical reality at Arkansas State.
The Pre-Med Playbook
Study Smarter: Crushing Med School's First Year
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You can be the “smart kid” your whole life and still get humbled fast by the first year of medical school. Right after finishing their last exam, three NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine students sit down with me to unpack what the transition really feels like, from the relief of being “25% doctors” to the stress of never feeling fully ready for a test.
We dig into imposter syndrome and the practical ways they fight it, especially after a rough quiz or before a simulated patient encounter. They explain why med school earns the “drinking from a fire hose” reputation, how they learn to accept that you cannot know everything, and what it takes to keep moving anyway. We also get specific about medical school study strategies and time management: strict schedules, hard cutoffs, recharge days, spaced repetition with Anki, practice questions, and the underrated power of a study group.
You’ll also hear what surprised them most, the wins that brought their motivation back, and a clear overview of first-year curriculum including foundations, neuro, systems, and osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM). We close with what they wish they’d known earlier and how they plan to use summer break to rest, reconnect, and build momentum before boards prep ramps up. If this helped, subscribe, share with a future med student, and leave a review with your best first-year survival tip.
@arkansasstatemedianetwork.com.
0:00 - Surviving the First Year
3:15 - Becoming “25% Doctors.”
8:40 - Battling Imposter Syndrome
14:20 - Drinking from a Fire Hose
22:05 - Med School Study Strategies
28:30 - Anki, Repetition, and Study Groups
35:10 - Curriculum Breakdown: Neuro & OMM
43:55 - Surprising Wins and Motivation
51:20 - Summer Break and Board Prep Plans
Welcome And Meet The Students
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the Premed Playbook Podcast, part of the Arkansas State Media Network. I'm Casey Pierce. I'm the Director of External Relations and Marketing for NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine. And today we're going to talk about your first year of medical school. I'm joined by three of our medical students at NYIT Commodase State. They literally just finished, as in a couple of you, like a couple hours ago, your first year of medical school. So, you know, we've talked throughout this show that medical school is incredibly challenging, but it's also incredibly rewarding. Uh, the curriculum and lifestyle is completely different from undergrad. And today we're going to talk to you all about what that adjustment was like. And we're just kind of gonna kind of unload from uh your first year, thinking back, looking back, and and looking forward to uh moving on in your medical education. So uh if you would first, let's just introduce ourselves, Jake. Let's start with you. Tell us who you are, where you're from, where you went to undergrad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, my name is Jake Burton. Uh, born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Uh, I did my undergraduate here in Arkansas at uh Hendrix College. So I've been here in Arkansas for about six years now. Um and yeah, just finished up first year. Super excited to be done.
SPEAKER_00My name is Edgar Gonzalez. I was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas, a small city, about 14,000 population. Uh, I actually went to junior college first and played soccer there as a goalkeeper. And then I went to Baylor uh on a Fulbright scholarship.
SPEAKER_01I am student Dr. Gabriela Rico. I grew up in Los Angeles, California.
Feeling Like 25% A Doctor
SPEAKER_01I got my bachelor's degree from Florida Atlantic University in Florida, and I'm so happy to be here today.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Thank you guys for joining us. So, you all have, like we said, just finished your first year. I've heard your classmates say you're 25% doctors now. How does that feel?
SPEAKER_02It's almost like the biggest weight taken off your chest. I mean, I remember turning my test in on Friday. It was our last test. Um, and honestly, it just kind of seemed unreal not having to go back home and already start prepping for the next block. It was just like kind of searching for the next thing to do. And I kind of had to reassure myself. I was like, as of right now, like you're done. There's nothing else to worry about.
SPEAKER_00So definitely like a big relief. Yeah, I think this first year of medical school, like it's gone by so fast. Like to think that we are 25% doctors already. And we've all said that at least once since we finished our test. Uh, it's it's insane. And uh, you know, sometimes the days go by slow, but the weeks go by fast, the months go by fast. I can still remember taking the the exam previous to this one so clearly. And now we took the previous one a few days ago, and you know, in a few months we'll be second-year medical students starting out our uh orientation for a second year.
SPEAKER_03And Gabrielle, any thoughts on just finishing your first year where you're at?
SPEAKER_01I think it's surreal. Just the amount of effort and time that we've put into fulfilling this dream of becoming physicians and to see it come as a reality. It's hasn't sunk in fully yet, but it's amazing. It's living the dream every single day.
SPEAKER_03It's probably a little bit of a piece of okay, I can do this. Like it's like the first big milestone, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. I definitely agree with that. I think for me at least, getting rid of some of that imposter syndrome by passing a few of my exams, you know, proving to myself that I I belong here and that, you know, it wasn't a fluke that I got into medical school uh because I was accepted off the wait list uh fairly last second. And so I think passing some of those exams in the first semester and now getting through the first year of medical school is uh I I I didn't expect that a year ago. I wasn't in medical school, and now I'm I'm going to be a second-year medical student.
SPEAKER_03All right, you said a word there that I that I want to pull from. You
Imposter Syndrome And Belonging
SPEAKER_03said imposter syndrome. We hear that a lot. Uh basically, uh what I hear is do I belong here? Um, and I think that's a really good place to start. Um, is that something that that you deal with? And how do you kind of deal with that? Like I do belong here, I can do this.
SPEAKER_01I think uh something I definitely feel often every week coming through this. And um, I just have to remind myself of all the work that I put in to get here that I'm here for a reason. Um sometimes I have doubts, you know, especially like if a quiz didn't go the way I wanted it to. Um, if we're in our simulated patient encounters and I'm walking in there, it's just me and the patient and thinking, wow, like I'm responsible for this person. I'm gonna be a doctor. Um, I just have to remind myself why I'm here and why I'm doing this. Uh, what's my purpose? And that's to become a physician. I'm here to learn. And I don't think I would be here and be selected by the school if they didn't believe in me. And so I just have to remind myself to believe in myself.
SPEAKER_02I think this opportunity that we have right now, kind of after finishing first year, finishing our last test, finishing our last sanitized patient encounters, it allows us to really kind of take a bird's eye view of what we just went through and actually be like, oh wow, I really do belong here. Like, I can do this, I've got this, and kind of gives you that motivation moving forward. It's something like you lose sight of throughout the year. Uh, I know for me, I study in a dark basement all day uh with not a lot of sunlight. So kind of day by day, you can lose sight of what the goal is. But now with the semester over and kind of taking a little bit less time in the school, you can actually look and be like, I've got this. I'm I'm on the right track.
The Fire Hose Pace Explained
SPEAKER_03You know, one thing that is probably a challenge and and the one of the more interesting pieces of the transition of medical school is everybody who gets into medical school was at the top of their class in undergrad because you have to be that proficient. And then when you get to medical school, you're kind of all with a bunch of people that are that are high achievers at that same level, but it's not the same. It's it's um from what I understand, haven't experienced it, but I want to hear from you, your experiences. It's a lot harder. Can you guys kind of quantify that? Just uh the the content, the level of commitment. I mean, it's just kind of a whole new world compared to undergrad, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01I think they talk about it a little bit. You know, you hear these rumors or ideas of what medical school is going to be like. It's it's drinking out of a fire hose, is like the analogy that's brought up often. And they're not lying when they say that. It's the amount of information that you have to process, it's not like the information is difficult, it's having to organize and manage it in a timely fashion to be able to perform for those two-hour exams. Um, and you talk about a little bit about the idea that our classmates um are top of their class. And at times that can be a bit intimidating. I think when I started medical school, that, oh my goodness, like I'm not the smartest one in the room anymore. But at the same time, I kind of loved it because these conversations that you would try to have with people that just didn't get it, they get it. Like I can talk to my classmates about things that are interesting about the human body, about new research that's coming out that is intriguing that I wouldn't be able to talk about with anybody else because they just get it and they're at that level.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. How about you guys? How would you quantify the the pace, the level of commitment, the the content, the um, the quantity of content compared to undergrad, especially?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I the analogy of drinking from a fire hose is spot on. It the first week, first weekend of lectures, uh, you're just hit head on. I think there was like 15 hours worth of lectures, something like that. And it's honestly just taking a first look at it, it's super overwhelming. And the biggest thing for me was actually implementing like a schedule of saying I'm getting up at this certain time of the day, I'm gonna be started sitting at a desk by this certain time. And then I actually had to put a hard cutoff on the end of the day. Uh, and that just allowed me to kind of manage the material, make sure I was getting through it, kind of check the box saying, okay, I watched this lecture. Okay, I did this, okay, I did that. And kind of getting used to that over time, it kind of helped me realize yes, it's a lot of information, but you're not you don't have to master every single uh thing bolded on the PowerPoint, every single line. You just kind of have to get through it. And the more reps you put in, the more you'll actually learn the material.
SPEAKER_03And Edgar, how about you? How did you deal with the quantity uh of information you had to deal with?
SPEAKER_00So personally, uh, I feel like before the exams and like leading up to the exams, there's like nothing that's more stressful than that. Um as in our first semester of medical school, the pressure of the exams of having to pass our foundations course to get through the second semester. Uh, that pressure is so is so immense and it weighs on you every day. And even just like the nights before the exams, you know, don't follow this, please. But we would, me and my friends would be up at 3 a.m. sometimes scared for the next morning, you know, the couple hours we have till the exam, feeling like that we need to look at some notes uh again and again and again. We have to cover the PowerPoint that we haven't seen in two weeks. Um, and I that that stress of the exam, like you are never, maybe never, but you you will not feel 100% about the exam sometimes. And I think uh dealing with that is part of being a medical student. And I think we are lifelong learners here, and we will have that feeling um multiple times throughout our career. And I think finding a way to live with it and finding a way to deal with it internally, I think that's a big part of uh, you know, taking this journey to become a doctor.
SPEAKER_03Gabriella, you're nodding your head over there.
SPEAKER_01So I think it definitely speaks to like tackling that imposter syndrome each and every day. It doesn't matter how much you study, the content is so vast that there's no way for you to understand and master everything at once. And I think part of what medical school does a good job of teaching us is to be okay with that, because as medical providers, we're not gonna know everything. But it's the fact that we're able to know enough that we can educate and teach our patients and treat them and heal them the best way that we can. Um so yeah, what do you think, Jake?
SPEAKER_02I actually think a lot of that imposter syndrome does come from the fact that us as coming from being like the smartest kids in our class or uh achieving a lot of like super high uh accolades in undergraduate. We kind of want to know all the information. We are always searching for the next best thing, the next best thing. We always want to be super high achieving. And when we get here, that's the hardest thing is we're never gonna know everything. And you kind of have to learn that and accept that in order to excel here in medical school. Cause at the end of the day, you can't learn everything. It's impossible.
SPEAKER_03You gotta figure out what is the most important things and and what you can kind of use that to make everything fall into place from.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. And I think the the last thing I'll add is that I'm sure we've all put many hours in uh learning a topic before the test just to not get a question about it on the test. Yeah. And so sometimes you have to accept the loss, let's say, on that PowerPoint or that topic and just move on. You know, sometimes it may not even show up on the test. You may never see that topic again.
SPEAKER_01But it'll show up in real life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it may show up in real life.
SPEAKER_03You know, when I talk to our third year students, they'll say that that there's something that they hadn't thought of in forever, and they're in a room with a patient with their preceptor, and they see that and they're like, I remember studying that. So yeah, it's all going to eventually have a I want to talk about um work-life balance, which I guess it's school life balance.
Work Life Balance And Boundaries
SPEAKER_03You know, Jake, you mentioned that you have a pretty you had to be very disciplined about your schedule. You know, we think about you're in college, you get to enjoy things, it's a very social time. It's uh undergrad, you play intramural sports, you uh you go to athletic events, you um, you know, take trips with your friends. How do you guys manage that? Like, what's that look like uh in medical school as opposed to undergrad?
SPEAKER_01It's it's definitely discipline. I think that in medical school, at least from my personal experience, that I spend 12 hours a day studying. And just saying that out loud, that that's a lot. That's just what I need to do to understand the information, to digest the amount of information that there is. Um, but you have to be pretty strict with yourself, at least for me, of organizing the amount of content that we have. That I don't get to just go to somebody's birthday party like I used to. I don't get to go to like a concert that I want to go to because we have a set timeline of what we need to study, when we need to study, study, when the next exam is gonna be. Um, but I have to remind myself that it's only for a short amount of time and that it's gonna be worth it in the end. And when we do have those short breaks right after we take an exam, I try to be very intentional about that balance and taking care of myself. Um, so I try to do like a little getaway with my fiance or catch up on like a movie or something like that that we were missing out on. Um, and then right back to it again.
SPEAKER_02How about you guys? I'll say going into medical school. Um, I wasn't prepared for how unstructured it was. Um, I came from a background of uh growing up playing athletics and college athletics. So I kind of always had that structured timeline of you've got practice at this time, a meal at this time, okay. And then you've got these two hours to study. Coming into medical school, it's there's nobody telling you you need to go study. You have to have the discipline to sit down and do it yourself. And that was something that I think I struggled with at the beginning, um, not knowing kind of what my timeline was looking at. But when I kind of sat down and created that day-to-day schedule, that checklist of I need to get these things done today in order to say that today was a win. Um, that kind of helped me see, okay, I can tackle this mountain of information and I can move forward on to the next topic and then the next topic. And then I realized, okay, well, if I put the hard stop at five o'clock, I got everything done for today. Now I have time to spend a lot a little bit more time with friends or go to the gym or do a hobby. So just kind of keeping that strict schedule, it makes it makes the material just that much more manageable.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think I still don't have a good study strategy down. And I I I do I do find on the exams, uh, I think the the time management part is the hardest part for me still. Um I I don't have a super structured study schedule. I I kind of try to make sure I can talk through the material uh when I am studying um and try to get at least two to three passes, probably three passes before the test. Um but I so you know, leading up to exams, it's a little bit stressful, feeling you have to go back and look at the material. And this semester, I kind of implemented some more uh space repetition and some more um like uh you know, more Anki cards and stuff like that. And I think that's helped me a lot. But uh now going back to like the the scheduling thing, uh you know, you you do have to manage your time uh fairly well in medical school. And I I do that by studying, going to the gym, and after exams, like don't talk to me about school. You know, please, please don't talk to me about school. I'm going somewhere with my friends, I'm going back home uh to see my family, I'm going somewhere with my girlfriend, I'm doing anything besides school. And there's people that will start studying that weekend after the test. And uh, I don't think I will ever be a person that studies the weekend after a test or the day after the day of the test. Um, but yeah, I I do need that time to unwind after you know such a stressful thing, uh, which is like a medical school test.
SPEAKER_03And so yeah, it's so like with anything in life, you gotta find some balance some places.
SPEAKER_00I think that's
Surprises And Learning Yourself
SPEAKER_00that's ideal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, was there anything about your first year that you would say surprised you? I mean, you guys probably like prospective medical students that are listening to us right now, they're trying to take some advice from. Yeah, I'm sure you guys plugged into some of those things, but I'm sure there was also some things that might have caught you off guard once you got in the weeds, regardless, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think uh it it kind of piggybacks off of what I just said a little bit. You know, I watched so many videos on how to study in medical school. 10 tips to survive your first year of medical school. And uh I don't I can't recall anything that I watched in those videos at all. You know, you kind of get here, you have to find out what works for you. And sometimes for some tests, you have to study a certain way, versus for other tests, you have to study a different type of way. You know, some tests you can just like do a bunch of flashcards, some tests you have to look at the PowerPoints to look at some histology or pathology or some images that will help you like memorize the information a little better. Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think med school really forces you to get to know yourself really well. Um, you have to understand how is it that I learn? How is it that I understand this information best? Because how each of us understand things is completely different. And I think that um if I was a pre-med going into medical school again, I would write down all my reasons of why I want to be a doctor. And I would look back on that when I'm having difficult days, um, studying for several, several hours each and every day. Um, because it's good to remind yourself why you're here when you're in the midst of all of this information and understand that it can be pretty isolating and you need to be able to show up for yourself and put yourself first and know what you need to do to succeed that could be very different from your peer.
SPEAKER_02Kind of adding on to that, the biggest thing for me was learning who I was as a student. I had to learn that I wasn't this student, I wasn't this student, I wasn't this student. So I couldn't copy what these students were doing, the the study tactics that they were doing. For instance, like you were talking about with Anki, Anki just didn't work for me. The the flashcards, it was just something that didn't stick, it didn't help me. I recognized the pattern and I was able to just kind of get through it without actually learning anything. And I kind of faced that failure at the beginning because of that. And so what I had to do was make an adjustment and figure out well, what study tactics work for me? And once I figured that out, I was kind of able to excel and move forward. And I think that's one of the hard things that you experience when you first get into medical school is you see all these students doing different study tactics. And with that imposter syndrome, you're wondering, oh, or do they know something I don't? Do I need to be implementing that into my schedule? And the answer is if it works, do it. If not, don't do what works for you and not what works for others.
Study Tools Anki And Practice Questions
SPEAKER_03You guys said Anki a couple of times. I want to be careful on buzzwords. Explain what Anki is for people who might not know.
SPEAKER_00Anki is a program you can download and it's essentially just online flashcards, which you can change the interval. And so essentially, let's say I see a card today, I press again, I'll see it in 15 minutes. Or then I see another flashcard, I'll press good on it and I'll see it tomorrow. Or I'll press very easy and I'll see it in a few days. And essentially it spaces out your flashcards uh like on the on the forgetting curve so that you hopefully don't forget it by the next time you see it. And the easier a card is, the farther out in uh like in time you'll you'll see it again. So it manages repetition. It manages the repetition easy, and a lot of medical students do it, right? And it's an easy way to study, especially if you use a a huge deck like the on king deck, which uh is what I use primarily to study. I watch third-party resources and I use uh the on king deck for whatever video I'm watching on Borge and Beyond or on Sketchy, which is my favorite resource by a mile. Uh Pathoma is really good for pathology. And so I think that kind of triad is what carried me through P Palm at least, uh, which is the semester of uh medical school we just had, uh, where we got into modules and blocks versus the first semester, which is foundations and kind of touched on a bunch of random topics, I feel like, and we gave us a big, big foundation of uh science that we kind of need to know for you know our future endeavors.
SPEAKER_03Well, so Jake, you said Aki was not your favorite. Did you have some other resources that do work for you?
SPEAKER_02For me, it was practice questions. Uh, that was the best way that I could learn. Uh, because for me, just seeing the topic on a flash guard, it just didn't work. I I knew the material deep down, but I wasn't applying it. And once I started doing practice questions, I was actually able to apply the knowledge and store it situationally so that way it could answer questions on the test. And I just kept doing more and more practice questions, practice questions, practice questions. And that's where I really saw like a boost in my test scores.
SPEAKER_03Gabrielle, how about you? What worked for you?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think applied learning definitely works for me as well. I love doing practice questions. Um, something that I also do, I was very blessed to find one of my classmates who was a PA for 15 years before coming to medical school. And so she has a lot of experience in the field already. And so I would just get together with her and I would talk about the different topics that we're learning. And she would explain to me the different ways that we apply them in clinical practice. And for me, that made the most sense. I had to see it in not an abstract frame, but exactly like how we are um using the fact that genetically hemophilia A has like the eighth chromosome of, you know, each thing. So I think that is what worked best for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's one of the most underrated things in medical school. That a lot of people don't talk about, but is like the importance of a study group or just having like a group of people around you that you can bounce things off of. I think in the beginning, like once you get here, it can be super isolating and you don't really see like everybody coming here doesn't nobody really knows each other. So everybody's kind of coming in on the same level. But uh as time goes on, like you'll be able to form groups. And those groups are super important when it comes to studying because you can kind of bounce some of these topics back and forth, or maybe this person might be able to explain a topic a little bit better to make it stick for the test. And more times than not, that when you ask somebody a question, it'll end up being on the test. I mean, I can't tell you how many times that's ended up happening.
SPEAKER_01And it's usually when you're walking into the test, like when you're walking up from the car and you see your friend, you're like, wait, tell me again, what's the drug that we use for that? And lo and behold, it is like the second question on the test.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think the last thing I wanted to mention before we got into this uh like honky talking, whatever it's study study strategy. I think so. The biggest piece of advice I would give to a pre-medical student is you are allowed to have bad days. You like there's so many times that even just like for this exam or for the previous exam or for our first semester of medical school, that you just have a bad day and you don't study that day. And sometimes you need that to recharge. And maybe, you know, you have more bad days than you would like, but like there's people out there, including myself, that have, you know, some bad days every week or every month where you just don't feel like studying. And I think those days use them as recharge days, do what you want. Uh, you know, go out and hang out with your friends, you know, let your friends know that, you know, that you you need some social support and you know, you use the people around you, you know, to help you recharge yourself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'd arguably say that's the most important day, like study day of the week, is just having that day off because it gives your brain that opportunity to recharge, reset, and then you come back feeling refreshed the next day. For for me, I try to take at least two half days off. So never a full day, but Saturday Saturday and Sunday, I'll try to take like a half day off Saturday, half day off Sunday. So that way after the weekend, I can come back and feel like fully refreshed and recharged for the week.
SPEAKER_01It's part of practicing what we preach, you know, as osteopathic physicians. Um, one of the tenets is the body as a unit and listening to your body and what it needs, I think would make us a better physician and make our minds more ready to receive the material.
SPEAKER_03That's good stuff. So we've talked a little bit on some of the uh the harder things we've talked about and kind
Wins That Restore Motivation
SPEAKER_03of drawn those out. And I don't want to be completely negative, it's not quite the that word, but let's uh add some positivity to the conversation. Was there a moment or two that you guys think about you had a victory that um specifically you can speak to? Like something really good happened. Again, you've said several times, okay, I can do this, but you need some wins to be able to grind through. Do y'all have some examples of wins?
SPEAKER_02I don't know if it was necessarily a win, but it was an opportunity to like take a step back and remember why you're doing this. Um, in some of our labs, we have a lab called DPR or Doctor Patient Relationship. Uh, they ran a mock code scenario. Basically, somebody was not breathing, their heart wasn't beating. Um, and they kind of gave all of our preceptors, our teachers gave everybody different roles. And I had the opportunity to be the attending physician that was running it, and it was just a super unique opportunity. And it kind of helped me step back and be like, that's what I'm working towards. This is the goal. And that kind of gave me energy the rest of the week to study. And I was more excited to study because I had that motivation, I had that excitement.
SPEAKER_00I think for me, the there's a certain like scenario that that I you know come back to often. It was actually before medical school, and it was the summer before I started medical school before I got accepted uh off the wait list. And it was actually um I was driving to Houston, and it was a small city, the only stoplight in the city. And uh, this gentleman had uh had a heart attack or something, and he was they there were there's two uh women that were pulling him out of his vehicle to start compressions on him. And I saw that like a few seconds after it happened, and I immediately had to pull over. And um, you know, I I helped I helped them get him out of the vehicle, and we we we did compressions, and it was like five o'clock or six o'clock, and there was a local hospital, and some of those nurses were just getting off shift, and they knew exactly what to do. And so I think that I come from an emergency medicine background for like my pre-medical experience, and I think that was that like experience in in general, it was very powerful for me. And like there's nothing else that I would have wanted to do. I I had to pull over and I had to see if I could help in any type of way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh yeah. Kind of affirmed what you were about to get yourself into. It affirmed it, and I really think I want to do emergency medicine because of my experiences, and that's one of the ones that I think about often.
SPEAKER_03Gabrielle, how about you? A victory, your first year.
SPEAKER_01Um, I think definitely recognizing when you need to ask for help. Um, when I was starting out, the transition to medical school was very difficult for me academically, um, especially with anatomy. I was having a hard time conceptualizing things, especially when we got to neuroanatomy. Um, but something that our school does a really good job of is all of our professors are very willing to help us and very excited to educate us about the material that they're so passionate about. And so I asked my anatomy professor if she was willing to meet with me for office hours to go over like the different pathways of neurons. And she was very excited too. And she met us uh right before the snow day that we had too. So it was a very cold, snowy day. Um, and she took the time out of her day to explain to me and my study group all the different pathways and how that worked. And it ended up, you know, for the best. And being able to ask for help made me succeed academically. Um, so I would consider that a win.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. So big picture.
What First Year Curriculum Looks Like
SPEAKER_03I know we don't necessarily need to get into specifics, but give us an idea curricularly at what your first year looked like. What are you learning? I mean, obviously, you're learning about the human body, everything there is to know about it over the course of four years of medical school, and then uh even take a deeper dive once you get to residency. But if you guys could kind of uh summarize or um or give me high level, what did you learn this year?
SPEAKER_02So the way that it worked for us our first semester, it was focused all on foundations. And what we mean by foundations is maybe some of the things that you've seen before you've gotten here, just a step up from there. So you're gonna get some of the biochemistry, some of the genetics, some more anatomy, you know, things like that. Um, so you can kind of build that base. They're gonna start adding in some pharmacology. Once you finish that, we moved into our second semester where we had uh our neuroblock, and it was just all neuro. We had neuroanatomy, then just everything that goes along with that. Uh, then after that, we moved more into the systems based. And I think that was a lot more fun. I I enjoyed that a lot more than kind of just the hodgepodge of foundations. So the body systems, the cardiology, nephrology, so on and so forth. Yeah. So we'll move into the cardiology and nephrology stuff more in our second year. So kind of when we get back from summer. Uh, this semester we had more of like psych, uh MSK or like orthopedics, dermatology, uh, hematology, oncology, all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00Edgar, your thoughts? Yeah, I think uh coming to an osteopathic school, I think OMM is definitely like you it's hard to describe to somebody, right? It's like it's hard to osteopathic manipulative medicine.
SPEAKER_03The yes, the one curricular piece that uh that differentiates MD schools from from DO schools. It's that extra tool in the toolbox, the hands-on diagnosis. I'm giving you my reader's digest version of it. And now I want to hand back to you and let you explain like what that meant to you learning that.
SPEAKER_00And so, yeah, learning it, it's it's like a whole new language. It's it's completely different to what we're learning about in our foundations and our uh like modules that we do. It's it's hands-on. You feel the body and you feel certain things here, like in the thoracic spine, cervical spine, uh, the hips. We've we've diagnosed, I think, every every joint we can. Um you learn how to like feel different movements, uh, variations and you know, one body to the other. And it's another level of of care you can provide for your patients. It's hands-on, it feels personal, it is personal. Um yeah, I think it's something that you know you could even like you know, help with your family out or your friends out with uh certain problems that they have. It's it's something that I think I'll definitely use in in my life, even if it's not in the emergency room necessarily, but in, you know, my friends and family that I can help them with my hands.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna have Dr. Kenzie Kornack on the podcast later this month. And he is our chair of the Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine. Say that three times fast. OMM. Uh, and he'll he'll give us a little bit deeper dive into what you're talking about. But that that extra tool is really beneficial. And so I'm I'm glad that you provided that perspective. Gabriela, what's how would you compartmentalize or summarize what you learned in year one?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the first year was definitely a roller coaster. The first semester was a basically a summary culmination of everything we learned in our first four years of doing a bachelor's um of science. And then going into the second semester, we're learning about systems and how our body works with medicine, how it can go wrong, how we can fix it. And having that OMM component, I thought was an incredible addition. I couldn't imagine learning medicine any other way. We have these visceral somatic reflexes that like certain areas of our spine can clue us into if our heart's not working, if we have a gallstone, things like that. And I think the way that that plays into what we're learning on a textbook is incredible. And this first year definitely was a journey. It taught me a lot about myself. The way that they structure the curriculum here, I think they do an incredible job of laying that foundation. And I'm excited to keep layering on top of it and become more than 25% doctor.
SPEAKER_03That's
What We Wish We Knew
SPEAKER_03right. So so um looking back, speaking to our future medical students, what's one thing you know now that you wish you'd known 12 months ago, eight months ago?
SPEAKER_01It's okay to have a bad day.
SPEAKER_03Yep, Edgar just said that. Yeah, it's very normal to have a bad day.
SPEAKER_01And who you surround yourself with is very important. Having a support system and cultivating that support system is incredibly important. I think they don't really talk about the sacrifice that goes into becoming a physician and being a physician. Um, the amount of emotional time that it takes, the amount of mental strain that it puts on you. Um, so for me, I was very lucky to have moved here. You know, I don't have any family in the area with my fiance. And um, having that support system where he's cooking meals for me, he's making sure that I'm mentally okay, like saying, hey, it's time for a break. Let's take a walk, um, kind of thing. I think it's incredibly important to cultivate that for yourself.
SPEAKER_02It's important to remember, don't forget to call your family. Don't forget to call your friends. Um, you're it's gonna feel like you don't have time to do that, but those two minutes, those five minutes are gonna end up paying dividends. Um, because what we're doing is super stressful and it does take a toll. Um, and just having that time to be able to reset, remember why you're doing it, remember who you're doing this for, it's super important.
SPEAKER_03Edgar, how about you? What's something that you wish you'd known eight months ago that you absolutely know now?
SPEAKER_00So for me, it my my journey was a little different. I I like barely found that I got into medical school eight months ago, right? And so I think for me, I would I would tell myself if I'm struggling to get into medical school that if you keep being persistent, if you keep being resilient and you keep working towards that goal, I believe that it's possible. I don't think it medical getting into medical school is an impossible feat. Um, I had completely given up on this cycle. And so I I already had applied to the the this previous cycle that had just ended. And I had retaken my MCAT. So I spent my last summer before med school retaking the MCAT. Um, but it all worked out, and you know, if if I would talk to myself before I got in that summer, I would I would have still chose the same path, you know, not spending that much time with my family or friends taking trips that summer, like everybody else did who got in before I did, you know, I still would have done the same exact thing. And uh I'm you know extremely grateful and happy to be here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, throughout these episodes, we've heard a lot of people say that everybody's path is different. No, the destination's pretty much all the same. There's a lot of different ways to get there. Um, but but that's that's one great thing about about this journey. So um we'll end
Summer Plans Rest And Momentum
SPEAKER_03with this. So at the end of your first year of medical school, you actually do get a little bit of a break. Um the our second years are now in a dedicated study period, getting ready to take their board exams. Uh, our our third-year students, they kind of zip right through between third and fourth year to really uh make that final push towards applying for residency. Our fourth year students are doctors now, about to start residency. But you guys, you get a little bit of time off. What are you guys planning to do during that time? And is it a true break or will you study a little bit?
SPEAKER_02Uh for me, uh, I'm taking a little bit of time off. Um, by that I mean like one or two weeks. Uh, and then I'm actually starting the EMT program that they're offering here. Uh, it's a quick, uh, super accelerated uh summer EMT course. It's about seven weeks uh and doing that in conjunction in conjunction with some research, uh, just kind of help build some things on my CV. Uh, and then I kind of got super passionate about this research project. So um doing things kind of help bolster my resume uh moving forward to try to get into residency. How about you, Edgar? What's what's on the plate for the summer?
SPEAKER_00So for me, I I do have some trips planned already. And I think this summer, uh, from a lot of the physicians I worked with in the ER, they they say to value your free time because once once like you get into a second year, you have to prep for boards, you have to take boards, you have to prep for your third year, you go straight into your fourth year into residency. So like this is kind of like, in my opinion, the peak of the mountain. Yeah, and then after this, it's just an an endless slope of like the like I don't know, like the like the an avalanche of like of things that come that are coming towards uh in the future. Uh so I am taking some time off. I will I say I'm going to study a little bit, so we'll see if that happens.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, we'll have a time off. We're all here to hold you accountable for that. We'll check back in with you. And Gabrielle, how about you? What you got planned the summer?
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm definitely gonna take the beginning of the summer to celebrate this win of finishing the first year of medical school because wow, it was hard. But um, I'm gonna see my family, I'm gonna give them a hug. My nieces and nephews spend some time with them, and I'm gonna do a little bit of study because they say that forgetting curve definitely happens. If you don't, if you don't use it, you lose it. Um, and then I'm going to rediscover what makes me me because it's it's been hard. It's been a journey, and I need to make sure I'm filling my cup up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Awesome. Well, I hope you guys have a great break. Thank you all for sharing your insight. It's been uh encouraging and it's been very informative. We hope you've enjoyed our conversation today, and we hope you'll join us again. You've been listening to the premed playbook on the Arkansas State Media Network. Thanks so much for joining us.