Key points:
Most students enter medical school without a good idea of how they’ll approach the required studying and quickly realize the study methods they've used so far in their education aren't going to work in medical school. There's simply too much material! There has been no set of books specifically for medical school, and students have been left on their own to find the best material that supplements the lectures.
The main problems that medical students face include
Many students purchase various tomes written for medical specialists or use post graduate and college textbooks for some subjects, but then find that only about 5% of the content directly applies to their studies. Some buy various help-books filled with outlines of what is most important to learn but find them impossible to assimilate. Many buy Q&As for the USMLE Step exams and then cram to pass these tests.
Studying in medical school is the biggest source of stress for many students. There are scientifically proven methods you can use to study more efficiently, deeply encode the material into your long term memory, and have more confidence in what you do know.
Many well-known methods of learning have been passed down through generations of educators. We use them ourselves and teach them to the next generation—it's probably how you were taught to study! But it's not optimal for how your brain processes memories.
Over the past 50 years, scientists have been studying how the brain works, and specifically how it processes memories. We now know—based on the results of empiric data—that specific study techniques are not helpful for long term learning.
Through empiric testing, scientists have discovered two study techniques that are proven to help your brain remember more of what you learn: spaced repetition and interleaving.
Spaced repetition (or retrieval) is your secret key to successfully learning everything you need to in medical school. This is because the repeated retrieval of a memory progressively spaced out over weeks to months can make that memory easily recalled for years.
It’s all about how often you bring concepts back into your study sessions to quiz yourself on it—even if you know the material well. Once you’ve comprehensively studied a concept—meaning you fully understand it—you should review the Q&As or Flashcards for that concept. Depending on how correctly and easily you answer the question on that concept, you should “shuffle” it back into your study material to revisit the concept in 2 days, 10 days, 2 weeks, 10 weeks, etc. Each time you revisit the concept, your memory of it is stronger. Coming back to it at progressively longer intervals will strengthen your memory retrieval of the concept, making it easier to remember it on exam day or in the clinical setting.
You don’t have to create and manage a crazy study calendar to implement spaced repetition on your own. There are several tools and apps out there that will do it for you. MedStudy’s Personal Trainer takes the Core books and Qbank+ questions and serves you weekly study plans. It automates spaced repetition for you so you automatically see concepts at perfect intervals to strengthen your long term memory of the content.
Interleaving is combining multiple topics into the same study session. So you don’t want to just study biochemistry until you master it. You want to study concepts from several topics together, which is proven to enhance not only the encoding but also the cognitive processing involved with learning.
Most medical students report that they study 3–4 hours per day. Besides classroom time and clinical time, your schedule in medical school will be packed with studying. If you understand how your brain processes memories, you can optimize your study habits to recall information faster. You may even be able to cut down on the study time, and you’ll definitely feel more at-ease walking into exams.
If you’re relying on any of the 6 study mistakes we mentioned above, you really should look into reading the free StudyWise guide. This 32-page guide is written by a doctor—Tony Hannaman, MD, who voraciously studied learning science in order to help doctors he works with to cut down on their time spent studying.
This is a great video from Zach Highley, a medical student in PA, that describes a few study methods he uses in medical school.
There you have it! The 19 best tips for how to study in medical school. Now that you know which study methods to leave in the past (ahem, rereading and highlighting!) you can start your study journey off on the right foot!