A Busy #DayInTheLife of a 2nd Year Med Student

Hey Friends!

I thought I would share a little day in the life of a second year med student, just for fun & for anyone who is interested in going to med school and curious about what a busy day can look like! I know when I was a pre-med, I was searching for any and all information about med school. So if you find yourself in those shoes, I hope this helps bring a little perspective!

As a disclaimer, this is just a random busy day for me. This is obviously influenced by my own personal habits, routines, and schedule at my medical school. Please keep perspective on just how much one person's experience can vary from another!

I got up at 6am.

On this particular day, I was prepping for an anatomy exam in the afternoon. This was a verbal exam on a cadaver, where we needed to talk through specific muscular syndromes (like pronator teres syndrome for example) & show the involved structures from our dissection. I got up at 6am to study in bed for about an hour and a half before I needed to get ready for the day.

7:30

I made myself a warm, cozy, oatmeal breakfast, took care of my adorable kitty cats, and got ready to head to campus!

9

Before our anatomy lab exam in the afternoon, we had a patient case activity that we worked through in our peer groups. These are pretty long, and are focused on topics we learn about in pre-work. For example, we might have a couple hours of pre-work on Muscular Dystrophy, then we will go through a patient case about it where we need to apply what we learned & problem solve. These cases are facilitated by a MD or PhD, and can take an hour and a half to two hours to go through. After which, we have another lecture that wraps up the concepts we learned & sometimes adds more information.

11:15

I scarfed down a super quick lunch & went for a walk over to my own doctor's appointment! Great thing about being in med school & on a hospital campus is your own doctor's appointments are very close by, lol.

11:30

I went for a quick check-up to address a cough I had all of July that I just couldn't seem to kick. (Not COVID, and was luckily knocked out with a short burst of prednisone!)

Noon

I went to anatomy lab an hour before it actually started so I could start reviewing the structures in my verbal exam before the lab begun. It gave me a chance to clean up any structures in the dissection, and map out exactly what I needed to demonstrate for the various muscular syndromes I was presenting. If you're curious, we have access to the lab whenever we want to study. We could technically be there at 2am if we wanted! Though I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, but there are lots of times where we go in on the weekends.

Our anatomy lab is a cadaver lab, meaning we do dissect people who donated their bodies to science. It's an incredibly generous gift that I do not take lightly, so I won't be describing anything about it except aspects that pertain to how this is used in our medical education.

1pm

Anatomy lab actually starts. Our exam is done in our groups (about 4 people in a group), and we take turns presenting the structures coinciding with a muscular pathology. Our exam wasn't until the end of lab (starting at about 3:30pm), so it gave us a couple hours to finish any dissecting we needed to & identify all the structures we would be tested on. We were all very anxious (as correctly identifying structures on a cadaver can be quite a challenge sometimes!), but we worked great as a team & passed our exam with flying colors! (If you're wondering why I say pass & not a grade, it is because our first & second years are all pass/fail).

4

Anatomy lab finally ended, after a pretty intense four hours. I was exhausted, smelly (the formaldehyde smell really sticks to you somehow), and a bit famished. I grabbed food on my way home, and threw my scrubs in the wash as soon as I stepped in the door, then went straight for the shower. I then chowed down on some serious food & took a nap.

6:30

Back awake, clean, feed, and a little less tired (though admittedly still pretty exhausted). I curled up in a cozy corner & started studying for our exam coming up two days from then. (I passed it if you're curious). I spent the evening reviewing our lectures from the last week, and sipping on some night time tea.

10

I was pretty much studied out, and very sleepy. So I called it a night; ready to start fresh the next day!

Nothing crazy happened like you see in Grey's Anatomy, but here's a realistic, random, busy day in the life of a second year med student! I hope this helped give some perspective if you're curious about the day-to-day life in med school. Our days can really vary a lot, so in the future I'll try to share another example to extend the perspective a bit. In the meantime, may your days be fulfilling, joyful, & filled with delicious food, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Sincerely,

Natasha LaGrega