Term 1 Advice

Congratulations on your acceptance to medical school! Making it this far is an enormous accomplishment, and you should be extremely proud of yourself for taking this huge leap of faith by moving to a tiny Caribbean island to pursue your dreams. At SGU, we all come from incredibly unique backgrounds of education and experience, and you will meet so many amazing people during your time on the island. You’re about to begin the most exciting journey of your life!

That being said, your first term of medical school also comes with a very steep learning curve. We’ll start by sharing some basic tips for success in Term 1, then break down each module with some helpful resources. We know you’ll have a million questions, but don’t be frustrated or anxious! We’ve all been in your shoes very recently, and we’re here to help. Let’s get started:

Top 10 Tips For Term 1 Success

1. Take care of yourself. This includes eating well, drinking enough water, exercising, and getting enough sleep (no all-nighters!!). You would think that this would go without saying in our “self-care” obsessed culture, but it still bears repeating. Please take care of yourself in medical school. You need to be functioning at your best, and no one is going to do this for you.
2. Do your own thing. Everyone is going to tell you how to study. This includes DES staff and facilitators, upper termers, and your own peers. But while all of their advice is worthwhile, take it with a grain of salt – what works for one person may not work well for another. Try out some suggested methods, but don’t feel compelled to stick to them if they’re not working for you. By the end of this term, you’ll have developed your own study style that is unique to you.
3. Experiment with study strategies. Don’t allow yourself to become overwhelmed with resources. Stick to 2-3 for now, and then expand once you get the hang of things. Term 1 is all about finding out how YOU study best, so be willing to experiment. Med school is nothing like undergrad or graduate school, and your study habits will change.
4. Establish a routine and stick to it. Make a list of the 3 major tasks that must get done today, and all other tasks are considered secondary and can wait until tomorrow. Try to wake up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every night (yes, even on weekends), which is easier said than done but will help you immensely on exam days that often start at 0730. Don’t forget to schedule in some “fun time” at least once a week!
5. Choose several favorite resources and stick to them. I’m a firm believer in something I coined the “Resource Trifecta,” which consists of a flashcard resource, a multiple choice question resource, and a video resource. There are many, many resources to choose from in each of these categories. It is quite easy to get overwhelmed by all of the options, so make sure to do your research and always try the free trial week offered by almost every resource before you commit to the purchase to make sure the resource aligns with your goals.
6. Be patient with the pace of “island time.” It’s quite easy to become frustrated with the slow, easy pace of Grenadian life, but it’s something each student has to come to terms with in their own way. You will learn to adjust in time, and any struggles you encounter will make you better for it. You get to study on a beautiful Caribbean island, and you are lucky to be here. Make the most of it, and take some time to learn all you can about the local culture and history of the island. You may even leave the island with a more relaxed way of looking at things!
7. Take time to do something just for you every day. Don’t sacrifice the things you love because you think you need to be studying 24/7 – this is a huge misconception about medical school. Whatever you did at home, continue to do that. Gym, cooking, church, hanging out with friends, etc. You’ll be happier, and a more balanced student is able to retain far more than one whose mental health has been put on the back burner. Don’t forget to keep in touch with your loved ones back home – they miss you just as much as you miss them, and they’ll want to hear about all of your successes (and failures) just as they would if you were home.
8. Remember your priorities. Don’t waste the opportunity that has been given to you – always remember what you came here to do. SGU has given you the chance to prove yourself, but what you do when you get here is up to you. Studying always comes first, regardless of whatever personal troubles may arise during your time here. You will inevitably experience fights with significant others, family emergencies, missed birthdays and weddings, even deaths of loved ones while on the island, and while it is important to deal with these things, you cannot allow them to distract you from your goal of succeeding in med school. Think of your time in Grenada as a break from the responsibilities of “real life.” Any stressors will likely still be around for you to deal with when you get home. Compartmentalization and focus are key. However, if you ever feel legitimately distressed or need to talk to someone about your circumstances, please visit the Psychological Services Center (PSC) for help.
9. Let your actions reflect those of a future physician. Being accepted to medical school is a great privilege that must be earned each and every day. Being a medical student requires you to maintain professional behavior at all times (including on social media) and holding yourself to a higher standard. You are not here to binge drink at Bananas and Brewery every night. You are not here to abuse drugs and potentially ruin any chances you have of a professional career. Do have fun, but be safe and smart. You came to this island to do one thing – kick ass in medical school and move on to clinical years with prospects of a great residency ahead of you. You’ve sacrificed a lot to get where you are, and that’s not worth jeopardizing.
10. Be kind and stay humble. You never know what someone else is going through, so make an extra effort to be kind to everyone you meet – students, staff, faculty, and locals alike. Try to make a positive impact on each person you meet and you will be rewarded for it. Never put someone down if they aren’t as academically successful or clinically experienced as you are. At SGU, we have a culture of lifting people up, sharing study resources, and supporting our own. Don’t boast about your grades, don’t ask how others did on the exam, don’t compare yourself to anyone else. “Work hard in silence – let your success make the noise.”

With that, let’s dive in to each individual module and the resources you may find helpful.

Foundations to Medicine (FTM)
This is a largely introductory module comprised of a hodgepodge of biochem, physiology, histology and genetics. You may find it easy, or you may find it unspeakably boring. However you feel about it, make sure to do your best and start off strong in this module, because as its name implies, concepts in this foundational module will appear over and over and over again for the rest of your basic science years. It’s a great time to experiment with your study strategies and figure out which resources you like to use. You’ll be just getting into the swing of life at SGU throughout this module, figuring out when to cook your meals, do your laundry, socialize, eat, and study all in one day (oh yeah, and go to class, lab, professionalism sessions, etc.). It’s a lot to take on, but after the second exam of FTM, hopefully you should have your basic routine etched out. For studying, you’ll be heavily relying on the SGU lecture slides since the material is so introductory and a bit scattered all over the place, i.e. hard to pinpoint in a textbook. You’ll want to start integrating practice questions early on, as this is the scientifically proven best way to actively learn new material. Remember to use these questions as a learning tool, NOT an assessment tool! This means you should be incorporating practice questions into your daily study routine (yes, daily), preferably right after you’ve finished post-reading your lectures. At your DES Orientation, they will tell you about how to preview and post-view all of your lectures – take this advice to heart, but again, don’t be afraid to make it your own, as this exact approach may not work perfectly for you. Just keep an open mind, that’s all. Here are some reliable sources of practice questions for each subtopic in FTM – all of these sources are available on our Google Drive in the FTM Practice Questions folder or in the Textbooks folder under their respective topic (BRS series has its own folder):

• Biochemistry: Sakai questions, Lippincott’s Q&A, BRS
  
• Physiology: MOTO, Guyton & Hall, Pretest, BRS
  
• Histology: Lippincott’s Q&A, Blue Histology
  
• Genetics: Sakai questions, Korf & Irons text, BRS

Musculoskeletal (MSK)
This module consists of a lot of rote memorization, which means that you will have to change your study approach slightly from the way you studied during FTM – this is hard to adjust to since you probably just found your study groove that works for you. Alas, this is the course of medical school – just when you think you have it down to a science, things are switched up on you and you must adapt quickly. Since anatomy is all about memorization, flashcards and MCQs are going to be your best friends during this module (they really should be for every module, but especially for memorization-heavy topics). A few tips to get you started:

• Do your “Gray’s questions” (assigned from the Gray’s Anatomy Review textbook, which was written by our own Dean of Basic Sciences, Dr. Marios Loukas). Do them early, and do them often. For the Upper Limb, Lower Limb and Back chapters, even do the unassigned ones. Don’t worry about unassigned questions for the other chapters, as these will be covered in other modules. Many of your peers will do them twice or even three times, but there’s really no point to this. You have plenty of other resources to get through.
• Don’t waste time in anatomy lab! You will get 1-2 hour-long sessions per week in the anatomy lab for the rest of the term, and you will need to use your time wisely so that you don’t have to waste valuable study/personal time returning to the lab to “learn” structures. We say “learn” because what often ends up happening is this – students venture into the lab during open hours alone or with some friends, stare at some structures for far too long a time and make an educated guess on what they think it is, but since there are no instructors around, you really don’t know for sure (unless you did a PhD in anatomy or something in a past life). This ends up wasting a lot of time and you may even be teaching yourself things that are incorrect. It’s only worth going to anatomy lab open hours if there are anatomy and/or visiting faculty around to help you, and these hours will be announced by your faculty on Sakai. This is why it’s crucial that you PAY ATTENTION during your anatomy small group sessions in the cadaver lab – grab any instructor walking around and hold them captive at your table by asking as many questions as possible about the structures in front of you. The cadavers you see in lab are the specimens you will be tested on in the practical exam at the end of the term, so if you learn the relevant structures now, there will be no need to use future study time to fumble through them again.
• Don’t neglect other topics besides anatomy! You are still responsible for a good amount of histo, biochem, genetics and physiology during the MSK module – these don’t simply disappear because learning human anatomy is a huge task by itself. You must learn to multitask and not forget about the other subjects that still demand your full attention. The MSK exam is only about 50-55% anatomy questions, and the rest come from the other disciplines. On that note…
• Don’t forget about cumulative material! Starting with this module, you will begin being tested on material you learned in previous modules, and this will not go away for the rest of your time in med school. You are still expected to know things that were tested in FTM just as well as you knew them prior to that exam, so you need to spend some time DAILY going over cumulative material, even if this just means doing a handful of Firecracker or Osmosis flashcards on the topic.

Below are the most important resources you will need for this module. Lecture slides on this topic are fairly unhelpful, which we can’t really blame on the school – it’s genuinely hard to teach anatomy from a PowerPoint, but due to the enormous size of our student body, this is the way it has to be done. Pay attention in your small groups, and keep your Netter’s Atlas open during these sessions as well as while you do your Gray’s questions.

• Gray’s Anatomy Review (question book)
• Netter’s Atlas
• Gray’s Anatomy for Students text
• Netter’s Anatomy Flashcards
• MOTO (Muscle Physiology)

Cardiac, Pulmonary & Renal (CPR)
This is the most daunting but exciting module of them all – it’s really the first module in which you remember that you are in medical school, and not simply repeating your undergrad anatomy and basic sciences courses. CPR is an extremely physio-heavy module, which again means that you must change your study approach. Instead of rote memorization, this module requires you to truly build a deep understanding of physiological concepts, and once you understand these concepts, you will be able to answer any question on the topic. Therefore, you will be doing TONS of multiple choice questions during this module. Thankfully, there are many resources for that. This is the order we recommend:

1. Sakai questions (written by instructors = predictive of exam)
2. MOTO for each organ system
3. BRS Physiology (more of a reference textbook, but each chapter ends with 10-20 practice questions to check understanding)
4. Guyton & Hall
5. Pretest Physiology

In addition to these MCQ sources, many students find that this module is a good time to begin exploring video learning resources to supplement SGU lectures. There are many choices out there, but the ones that we most highly recommend are Boards & Beyond, Osmosis and Physeo, which focuses on just physiology topics (hence the name). These types of sources are extremely helpful for explaining difficult topics in a different voice, so to speak, and giving students an alternative perspective on topics that might sound extremely confusing one way, but make complete sense if articulated a different way. These videos are not for everyone and are NOT a substitute for SGU lectures, but using them as a supplement has helped many students achieve success in physiology-heavy modules.

For every module, you should try to use First Aid as much as possible. This textbook is written for students by students and contains all of the information that has been tested on the USMLE Step 1 in recent years, as reported by test takers. As with all other resources, this book does NOT substitute SGU lectures and relying on it exclusively is a surefire way to do extremely poorly on exams, but by annotating lecture notes, important concepts from MCQs, or other pearls into its wide margins designed specifically for this purpose, you will be setting your Term 5 self up for success during your final term of basic sciences and your subsequent Step 1 dedicated prep period. More on that later. For now, buy the hardcover book and bring it with you to the island if at all possible, and get ready to mark it up!

We hope these tips were helpful to you! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us using the contact form here, or visit us on Facebook. You can also leave a comment on this post below!

-SYStematic MD

Post last updated December 2018