My medical school schedule has been highly requested, so I decided to write this post. This post is mostly about what my courses are like at the moment, and it will be changing sometime in mid-October. I am still figuring out my studying groove so I did not include that in detail just yet. 

Here is the day to day break down:

Monday

Mondays aren’t too bad. We have lectures for about four hours for the Foundations of Medicine Course which are focused on the foundations of science and human anatomy and physiology. This course also focuses on including epidemiology, pharmacology, nutrition, ethics, and behavioral and social sciences integrated throughout all the blocks. Lectures typically start at 8am and end around 11:50am. These lectures are recorded for us so we can watch them later. Since the quality is not perfect, they also give us last year’s recorded lectures. 

These lectures are often taught by multiple professors depending on the subject. In one day, we may have four different professors teaching four subjects. Some days, the lectures might be longer so we only have two or three distinct lectures in that four hour window of time. 

These lectures are typically in the standard lecture room. My roommate and I already noticed half our class is already missing from these lectures which means they choose to do them remotely. 

In addition to these lectures, the professors host a review session from 1pm to 2pm. The review session is for the previous week’s material. This material is covered by the professors who taught those lectures. 

Tuesday

At the moment, Tuesdays and Thursdays are my least favorite days because our days start at 8am and end at 5pm. I can’t think after these days, and typically just want to go to bed. 

The first half of the day is just like Monday where we have FOM lectures from 8am to 11:50am. We get about an hour break for lunch. 

The second half of the day is for CAS which is like the “doctoring” course at my school. Currently, we are in “CAS Bootcamp” because they start sending first year students to the clinics in the tenth week. For now, Tuesdays from 1pm to 5pm are dedicated to learning clinical skills. 

For this course, we are going through the patient interview for an initial primary care visit. We will eventually learn the physical exam and other skills(I am SO excited for that!). We usually have a lecture on the patient interview or skill they want us to practice. After that, we break off into our small groups and meet our preceptors to practice these skills. 

After bootcamp, my schedule will be changing. I will be assigned to a clinic, and my time will be either on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. So in the future, there may be a change in which days I am exhausted after and how I decide to attend lectures. 

Wednesday

Wednesdays are just like Mondays in that we have FOM from 8am to 11:50am. For Wednesdays, we sometimes have Active Learning Classrooms which are group activities that reinforce some of the lecture material. 

Wednesdays are pretty great because of how short they are because I can catch up on my studying from Tuesday. 

Thursday

As previously mentioned, Thursdays are pretty rough. They’re rougher than Tuesday though because we have all three of our courses during the 8am to 5pm day. 

We start off with our CAS course, and we meet with our physician preceptors after we get some lecture material on the clinical skills. After the lecture material, we go to the smaller groups and pair off and practice through various vignettes. These sessions are pretty fun and I have enjoyed the structured time for practicing.

After CAS, we are usually assigned asynchronous lecture modules for two hours. They can either be one activity or two activities. These modules are usually meant to reinforce the information that was already introduced to us in lecture. I usually try to get these done as quickly as possible while I’m at school because the assignments are usually due on Friday. 

After the one hour lunch break, we have our final course from 1pm to 5pm. This course is focused on research and scholarship. Thus far, this course has focused on biostatistics and introducing the purpose of the course. We will be doing more biostatistics and starting journal clubs for this course. For biostatistics and journal club, we have two small groups that we break off into. The first week of school was very confusing because we had multiple small groups of people for all three courses, and it was very difficult to learn my classmates’ names. 

At this point in the day, I am usually exhausted and yawning by 2pm because my body naturally gets tired around then (all the time, ever since I was in high school). It’s been difficult to stay focused, but fortunately they are recorded so I can go back if I missed important information. I also stop drinking caffeine by 12pm to help with my sleep as recommended by my OB-GYN, and it has helped tremendously. 

I usually don’t want to do anything after Thursdays. I try to do some Anki, and I prepare for the next day’s case study. I am usually so exhausted that my eyes feel heavy, and I just can’t focus.

Friday

For Fridays, we have lectures for FOM from 8am to 9:50am. After these lectures, we have our case studies which are technically part of our FOM course. However, these case studies integrate everything that we’ve learned from the entire week.

Case studies are really interesting, and I truly enjoy them. We have smaller groups with a preceptor. This preceptor apparently changes every block, but I really like our current one. He’s very nice, and my group is pretty good about going through the case studies. 

By Friday, any assignments are usually due by noon or 11:59pm. We are also required to complete our Pharmacology modules for the week by 11:59pm on Fridays. 

After class, I try to get groceries and do laundry while multitasking at home. I also try to study as much as possible, but I don’t have a set Friday schedule yet because every Friday has been a little different recently. 

Hours After Class

Most of the students at my school study between 3 to 4 hours a day. I am still trying to figure out what works best for me. However, I am very grateful that my school’s atmosphere is very supportive, and doesn’t feel too insane like other schools. I will make a point to do Anki every day. I have Boards and Beyond now so I am going to integrate that into my pre-FOM Lecture preparations. 

Let me know in the comments below if you would want an updated medical school schedule later, and if you have any other questions!