How I Would Study in Med School (If I Could Start Over) 

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One think that changed my grade from 60% to 80-85% was to understand physiology and anatomy in a relevant way. I didn’t learn random details again but what I did was instead of memorizing symptoms and clinical features. I simply learned the reason why. For example nephrotic syndrome. I can just memorize proteinurea, pitting edema coagulopathy and lipidemia. I had learned why protein is going away, and because you lose protein you have less albumin in your blood and that makes your oncotic pressure low and you body needs to fix it somehow. You have two ways, 1- you can increase the products that take part in oncotic pressure 2- you can decrease the amount of water in your blood. For 1, your liver tried to produce more albumin but you don’t have any, so it makes lipids to compensate. 2nd you lose the water, the water outside of your veins cause edema. The thing that keepsmthe water from mobilizing in your body is albumin, you don’t have any so water mobilises and that’s why when you press on it you cause pitting. Antithrombin 3 is a protein you need so that you dont clot. You lose that also and now you have coagulopathy. This way you can quickly work your way around everything and even give educated guesses on things you don’t actually know so that your chances of getting the questions right even if it is something you are not familiar with. This way you can also create discussions, give well-thought answers to your teachers and ask meaningful questions in classroom and on rotations which will make a place in you professor’s head even though you are not correct everytime since you are showing that you have general understanding of the systems, you analyze and compare things and you can think critically.

Generalizing the tips for any subject: 1. Simplify, simplify, simplify! Simplify & make the material intuitive to you--less is more. How will I use this info IRL? Fake it till you make it. 2. Pick your losses. Concentrate on what’s most important to you & why (fit other areas in if time allows). 3. Projects - Center studying on what you’re likely to use during the week for your current project. This allows you to apply/build on the experience for your project from what you just studied.

This title is awesome, it’s like “how I would study software if I could start over” cuz I see that trend soo much but this is more about studying rather than what you study

Not many folks even in med school have the insight to come to these conclusions. I’ve had a similar experience to what you describe. It is extremely interesting to me that I could have information encoded in my brain in one direction (x disease causes chest pain, y disease causes chest pain and so on) but when asked in the reverse direction (what are the causes of chest pain?) the neural pathways to answer that question literally don’t exist. Absolutely fascinating but drives me absolutely crazy. Not only do we have to learn things in a way that we can remember them, we also have to worry about learning them in a way that they will come to mind when the situation arises in real life, which seems crazy but these are definitely 2 separate objectives. I think we learn the preclinical knowledge in a way (disease oriented knowledge) that makes it impossible to retrieve it and effectively use it with an undifferentiated patient in front of you. The first 1.5 years in my opinion should be spent learning like this (bc I think you have to in order to gain effective knowledge) then 6 months or something should be spent drilling down on how to approach patients clinically which requires your knowledge to work in the reverse direction. Then you can go on to clinical rotations and build on that with patients

Been waiting for this type of content. As a medical student who started late in medschool (28 y/o) due to problem in studying; thank you Justin!

your approach to making medical education practical and applicable is invaluable! Focusing on real-life clinical applications and simplifying complex topics not only enhances understanding but also ensures that knowledge is retained and usable when it matters most. 📚

By YouSum 00:00:50 Overengineer your learning approach for exams. 00:02:29 Be discerning about the level of detail you study. 00:04:45 Utilize your clinical attachment days effectively. 00:06:14 Study topics from a clinical reasoning perspective first. 00:08:58 Simplify complex topics to aid understanding. 00:11:20 Deliberately seek simpler ways to understand overwhelming information. 00:15:34 Study Anatomy with a practical, operational mindset. 00:17:37 Make things simpler and more intuitive to understand complex topics. 00:17:59 Break down overwhelming information into simpler parts before diving into details. 00:18:22 Consider the clinical application of knowledge before learning new concepts. 00:19:00 Recognize the difference between being a medical student and a doctor in training. 00:19:46 Selectively prioritize what to learn and focus on clinically relevant information. 00:20:17 Optimize clinical placements by aligning your study with anticipated experiences. 00:22:00 Engage actively during clinical placements to maximize learning opportunities. By YouSum

Currently a nursing student, but I want to go to medical school later in life(prioritizing family right now), and his mention of learning what symptoms point to what diseases(rather than learning the symptoms of every disease) is kind of how we learn. They don’t teach us every disease, but they teach us how certain symptoms present and why the body may react that way. Watching this video made me feel confident that my nursing knowledge(and study habits) will transfer to medical school.

In summary: 1. Forest, then trees. Common things are common. Look for horses, not zebras. So focus first on learning the simple, basic, foundational, fundamental things, then get the details. For example, read a book like Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple, then Pathoma or even Robbins Pathology. 2. How is it clinically relevant? Figure out how this knowledge or information is going to be necessary for real living people. For patient care. Don't think in terms of a long list of abstract diseases, per se, but think in terms of signs and symptoms. A patient will not present with a STEMI or aortic dissection, but rather chest pain that feels like an elephant sitting on them, etc. In other words, read a book like From Symptom to Diagnosis, Frameworks in Internal Medicine, or the Oxford Cases in Medicine and Surgery, because these books will teach you how to think in schemas or frameworks or whatever you want to call it.

Thank you Dr.Sung I've graduated from med school more than a year ago and I couldn't agree more on what you said.. I also think that one should be aware when things are going wrong early on and act actively to that because the more time goes on the more you'll be overwhelmed and it's really easy to fall into depression especially in medschool..but as always.. Never Give Up!

Thanks my Learning Coach, It’s so inspiring to always hear you talk about how you transitioned from been an MD to follow your passion ❤❤❤

''a unique experience that i dont wanna do again'' but you did!! and now it lead you to your position now, an obstacle that opened other doors for you while closed this one ❤❤

Thanks alot Doc! Vet student here! Been waiting for a video like this; and honestly, i've watched your other videos, but I was'nt sure how to apply those ideas in the context of my profession. However, this video cleared up lot of my doubts, and I have a general idea to finally study in a way that gives me long term learning in a much effective way. Thanks again, loved the vid!!!

As a first year medical student, these tips are gold! Especially for preclinical years! Hats off to you Dr! Amazing tips!

Hello from Pakistan Justin! Your tips have been helping A TON, please never stop making content

This video is literally an answered prayer! The way you broke it down was absolutely genius, and now I feel that much more empowered to succeed through my preclinical years.

Incredible! Your content has completely changed the way I approach topics in medical school. Amazing work, thank you very much!

First year Radiology Resident here! And yes I don’t want to go back in medical school😂 Thank you Dr. Justin

Big Kudos. Justin is a great man. And a great teacher. ❤

wow, i am really so grateful - these tips are profound and so many daily standard complications are adressed - i feel like finally i got a key to my study problems... i would definitely love to hear more content about what to do in the lectures, even more how to create the different times in semester (mostly beginning without exams, later one exam after another, also lots of lessons, that are mandatory and only seem to take time) . And also how to combine university with private life and how to just get everything organized well

Honestly, this is one of the most useful advices I’ve ever been given to. Currently, I’m a first year Medstudent who are struggling in finding the most efficient learning method and I make those abovementioned mistakes too 😅😅. Hope this channel will develop stronger to help Medstudents like me reform their learning method

This came at a great time! Started my first placement last week and I definetely related a lot with your experiences. Ive been focusing all my outside studying for my boards but maybe if i center it around my placement ill end up learning most of what I need both to do well in hospitals and my exams

Awesome video! I'm so grateful for your advices.

needed this! good to know that you had the same struggles with medical school too

Thank you so much for this. My heart sank because I just took my finals and BOMBED them. I was lucky enough that I did very well on my other tests/assignments to pass the class, but I realized this as well towards the end of the semester that I needed to make it simpler and there is no way in heck a person can memorize all the powerpoints in a given semester + going forward everything builds on top of each other. I realized it's better to get a solid fundamental understanding first, and as you said put the smaller details in later so it makes sense. I only have 2 years left of "school," and I feel so lost.

I'm not a med student, but love your video! Another excellent one, thank you!

i'm loving the quality of your thumbnails recently! :)

this is one of the most valuable videos i have seen as an incoming medical student. i cannot thank you enough!

This video is one of a kind, *make things simpler and make learning intuitive* which actually holds so true, excelling in any field, moving further brings plethora of complex knowledge and our learning gets dissociated, As a person studying commerce, this video has helped me equally because the concepts are much more bulky now and in our schools and colleges we all at some point focus on exam oriented learning without seeing things from a practical approach, which becomes a blunder in long run and also makes learning harder. Thank you for reminding me that again coach.

A lot of humility in this video. ❤ Sounds like the idea is to work backward from hands-on experience to know what you need to focus on. But you still need some base level of knowledge to understand the hands-on experience. How do you recommend studying for necessary information you need to have before you can participate in a hands-on setting?

Thank you for the video!

starting med school next month, thanks a ton for the video

Watching this while studying for my final year medical school final exams. It may be too late for me to apply what I learnt in this video, but I’ve internalized it and can now teach it to juniors below me. Great video Justin!

This was incredibly informative and as a 3rd year medical student, I wish I saw this video sooner. Thank you so much !

This is great! Thanks

16:38 The point made here was very helpful. Thank you very much for your content.

Was waiting for a video like this

Thank you, really inspiring

this video is a gem!

Thanks Doctor sung appreciated this video so much ❤

Gracias por el contenido. Aprender es realmente maravilloso

Thank you 😊!!! I’m currently in my last year in high school and ofc I’m going to med school. I think this will be able to me out a lot, thank you very much 🙏🏾

This is brilliant!

Thankyou sir! Super helpful❤️

Thank you sooo much!!!

Knowledge about is different from knowledge of. Representative practice! I think practice design should be focused on far more by educators and learners.

Thank you so much justin! Support and love from Pakistan ❤

Thank u so much Justin!

As a medical student i see this as a big win

Just me yesterday during my exams. So much knowledge about how a particular topic but when a diagnosis came that was not in accordance with what I stored in my brain I couldn’t relate. It gets better.❤

Find the shortest book on any topic and read the whole thing.

I'm not a medical student but a nursing student and its nice to see that most of these study tips still apply. Also interesting to see that medical students could struggle with some of the same aspects of clinical application as we experience as nurses.

You should make a medical school playlist!!!

This video is precious

From Iraq thanks Dr.justin

thank you Justin

Very helpful

Thank you for this video. Sincerely, a med student who is deeply depressed.

Love uuu justin❤❤❤

I hope too, solidarity

Thank you

Only 3 months left in my physician degree , wish me luck and i wish this was made 3 years ago 😂

Hi Justin been watching your content, I am just wondering how I can apply your system to maths , physics and mechanics concepts. As a retake high student starting out with a serious revision schedule for the first time I am a little confused with the method. How does it fit in a revision schedule and how do we space it out. Within Physics and Maths there are worked examples, complex equations and definitions we have to understand how do we incorporate them, and How are we not able to forget the lengthy information associated with the connections we make. Thanks

Lol honestly this concept can be applied to life in general. I came up with a night routine, for sleep. I forced myself to get up, do each single task, even when tired. What became more important was checking off the boxes on my habit tracker instead of making sure I was meeting my goal... sleep.

When I learned about exposure therapy, I processed it well - because I needed it to help me solve a problem - my struggle with anxiety. - Cole

Tips for high school students? Overwhelmed by physics, chem and ext maths rn.

Hi! What would be the some suggestions for how to simplify the study of infectious diseases?

Thank you😢❤

I would beg to differ. In medical school, there are case presentation wherein differentials are part of the presentation given all the symptoms of the patient presented. This is already part of the learning process in medicine.

That means … for anatomy.. Start with basics (divisions of abdomen ) then a clinical case (eg. stomach pain) and then relating normal gross and histology of stomach, peritoneum etc .. Am I thinking in the right direction ??

I'm in my first year of medical school and almost at the end of the year and I feel like I know nothing. Just like you said, I study for the exams but I struggle to remember the material past that. I'm afraid of continuing the mistake through my second year up to boards and through rotations, and I don't want to feel so dumb anymore. I am going to use your tips to try to understand the material better and in a more simple way. Do you have any recommendations for remembers facts that are hard to learn by understanding? like gene translocations of cancer for example. what do you recommend to remember these kind of facts more permanently?

Can you give an example on how you simplify a subject in anatomy in a mind map please?

Hi Justin, could you give some advice on how a 14 year old starting high school next year can start developing the learning system you follow?

You should collab with Dr Mike!

I have a question about something, how do you prime a subject like math, or chemistry in the summer, without trying to study it.

my mindmaps are very cyclic in nature (sometimes stemming from the central idea), how to avoid? plus there's a little bit more info..which i think i need it there, advice?

Nurse Practitioner student and I really need to simplify antibiotics...frustrating. I do not understand why I'm having trouble memorizing/understanding MOAs and what that med is best for.

Hello sir.... Actually I'm from maths and physics department currently studying in uni but due to college conditions i have to self study everything.....can tell us how should we study these two subjects like from very new topic or start

how do you improve your essay writing?

I know ur a med student but can u do a video on studying programming (computer science) and engineering. ❤

how best can we utilize lecture time? i find it hard to concentrate or understand in lectures and feel like it is a waste of time

Some of these problems sound like thre's a problem with the class structure at your medical school.

TLDR; Focus on practicality - what purpose does this information serve? Ditch the details first - once you have a good, pragmatic understanding of the whole and you could apply it in real life, then should you get into the details to understand the why's Only learn what you are going to implement/use in a short time horizon, as an efficient learner you cannot afford to learn something you will forget anyways

How do I apply this

I just finished 1st year

Maths Maths Maths Maths Maths Maths Maths Maths Maths Maths maths maths maths maths maths maths maths maths maths maths maths Btw, how do you create mind maps of mathematics ..??

❤

7 ads on a 20 min video that could’ve been 10 minutes is crazy. There were a few decent bits here but overall this video was not time efficient.

HOW TO LEARN STRUCTURES OF VARIOUS DRUGS ??

Had exactly the same experience like you…..serious lack of guidance

Your videos are helpful but why're they so long tho😢

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Please excuse me for saying a problem with your videos is that you repeat the same thing for quite some time and that's kind of frustrating even at x2, but thanks a lot

I graduated medical school when in my country we only started having home PCs, and the internet was very slow (I'm not that old :D it just took time for technology to reach it). I obviously had no clue about a better way of learning, and studied exactly as you described - for exams, trying to cram as much as possible, forgot everything the day after. I managed to work in a small hospital, where one needs quite restricted amount of knowledge. 5 years later I moved to another country, and I was shocked, I was supposed to know much much much more, the students and interns that worked in our department knew a lot more than myself, asked me so many Qs, I was burned out trying to catch up, I think mostly because I still used the same methods, saw no connections, and needed to restudy material all the time. Currently I'm on a maternity leave, I've watched all of your videos, changed my learning style and it just makes so much more sense. I'm so grateful that you share this knowledge for free. I hope you understand how many lives have you changed. Thank you.