 So today for your benefit, I'm going to do an interest experiment. Currently, I'm a third year resident in internal medicine, but what if I had to go way back to my very first day of medical school? What would I do differently? Let's get into it. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. We're here at the empty journey. We help you succeed on your medical journey by doing it with less stress. Now, like I mentioned, I'm currently a third year internal medicine resident, but if you made me go way back and just said, okay, do the process all over again and ask myself what would I do differently? What would I do the same? I think that'd be a great video to kind of help you understand, regardless if you're early on the journey midway or haven't even started, what type of things you should consider to make the journey even more kind of fruitful and just more successful. So the first thing that I would do is to focus all my time on becoming the most efficient learner through minimalization. Now what I mean by that is when we're brand new medical students, we just see every possibility of all the resources, all the different styles that we can use and all of them are great. And some of them may work better for you than others. I have various videos here on this channel in case you're interested, but really it's the jumping around and trying to add too much at one time. They're really complicated because you're not really sure what's working and what's not. And so the first thing I would do on my first day of medical school, the first month, say, okay, what is something you think would help you study? And for me, I'm like, I have flashcards may work for you, maybe practice questions for other people, maybe group study, pick one thing. And then ask yourself, okay, like, let's make the simplest model, like the stupidest model of how I would want to study as a medical student. And you start doing that and then ask yourself, okay, in this model, like what is inefficient? Maybe it's how you gather information. Maybe it's how you write stuff down and then you don't even actually use it. Maybe you should skip that step. But then just evaluating every single step. And if you want to learn kind of a practical step-by-step way of doing this, check out the rapid study accelerator program, which is linked down below. It's something you can go through a weekend, but it's basically what I had in mind when I was trying to create the most efficient study system. Now, as you go through one iteration of your study system that becomes more efficient, you want to do it again and again and again. And that's basically how I was able to go from 10 hours a day in medical school to studying less than five hours a day. And it's not just the amount of time that you say that is the benefit here. But as you go from like the default state where you're going from resource to resource for study technique to study technique, again, they all may work for you, but you start to have diminishing returns. If you just keep kind of bouncing back and forth and you also lose your energy that you could have gotten if you just stuck with one thing. So if you start with the most simplest, the most stupid kind of model of how you want to study, whatever it is for you and then keep refining that before you add more on, just keep refining and refining and refining. Then you can really use that extra time to either do more of it or talk about some of the things a little mentioned in the later parts of this video to really make the rest of your medical school experience so much more fruitful. And before we get on to number two, if studying is something that you're struggling with and definitely check out this video on how to study in medical school step by step, as well as some of our other resources that we have for you at the MD journey, which will be linked down below. You can also see some of the results as to as I've gotten after going through those various programs. Now, the second thing that would have done something I didn't do enough of when I was an initial medical student, but if I was to go through the process again, one thing I would definitely do is to create a hit list of things that I just wanted to learn from my own curiosity and personal knowledge, and then just learn them on a casual basis. So for example, now as a third year resident, I have information and things that I just haven't learned or seen for quite some time. So I use my Notion Database or some kind of checklist on my daily notes. And then I just read about those on a very casual basis. It may just be watching a quick video or going on YouTube or reading a quick up to date article, but having this approach of saying, here are things that I naturally would like to know more about and taking a very casual approach of watching a video or something that's very like five minutes, 10 minutes to learn it to where you can say, this is where I was, here's where I am now. It's just a little bit of details that you pick over time that really make you a phenomenal doctor. And again, this has nothing to do with how well you do on your classes or your tests. It's simply for your own curiosity. As a physician, you're not going to be taking multiple choice tests. And most of this information, if it doesn't show up on a multiple choice test for a few years, you're just going to totally forget. But if I wanted to learn about mitral regurgitation, if I want to learn about rheumatic heart disease, if I want to learn about ulcers in the stomach, because personally I don't like GI, but I should learn about it because I'll have to take care of patients with those possibly tomorrow. And if I had just a little bit of curiosity to learn it and have a hit list when I was a medical student, I'd be so much smarter now. And it's really not the tests that make you. It's your curiosity to learn those small bits of information over time that give you this complete package of being a fantastic physician. And so this is a full encouragement that if you're early on your medical journey, whether you're pre-med or brand new medical student, or if you're like a third or fourth year, create a hit list of things that either you've forgotten or wish you hadn't or things that you just wish you knew more about, just hasn't made sense. And you just kind of like hoping that you just eventually pick out, whether it's x-rays, EKGs, reading a CT scan, or things like immunization schedules, which I personally hate, but in creating a list of these and you just casually do them on whatever basis once a day, once a week, doesn't really matter. But going through it really will make you feel like you're learning medicine for your own interest and not just simply what's going to be on your learning objectives or your ultimate exam. The third thing I would do if I had to start medical school all over is to do more practice questions. Now the best way to really assess how well you understand something is to look at the viewpoint of somebody saying, these are the relationships in terms of information that somebody who mastered this topic should know. And a practice question is a perfect kind of representation of that. In the form of vignette, you're going to get clues. Some of them are going to be traps and then you're going to get multiple choice answers. And your main goal should be to know that by the end of it, obviously. And doing more practice questions to really help you refine your learning models, your mental models, and your understandings of information and obviously doing better on your exams. But the more practice questions you do, the small nuances you pick up, but also the relationships between various different ideas, which you may not be able to do going from lecture to lecture. Now item number four is something that I did do and I would 110% do it again. And that's to create a side project. Now medical school can be very lonely. Medical school can be very challenging. That's just because your whole life has a possibility of just becoming a medical student. But for me personally, when I was a second year medical student, I actually enjoyed saying, okay, this worked. Let me share it with other people at that time. It was just my family and other people on Facebook who followed me. So thank you for starting the journey. But as random strangers started noticing the MD journey through blogs on Google, then I found, okay, like clearly what I'm doing is helping other people. Let's just keep sharing my failures. If I'd sucked at something, I'm going to tell you, if I did something really well, I'm going to tell you. And that's really where this YouTube channel, the podcast, the blog has come from. Now that has completely changed my life. Now, obviously there is like a financial component where the MD journey has been able to supplement certain parts of my life and that just goes without sighing. But I feel like there's a sense of purpose for me personally, aside from just being a physician. So having a side project that I've created for myself that's grown with me that I've grown all the time. Hopefully if you watch this video and you go back to my very first video, you'll see how things like video making and audio and like lighting, which all may not be perfect as the making of this video is so much better than the first thing that I did. What's up guys? Welcome to the MD journey. My name is Luxe. I'm a third year medical student and actually a part-time medical school blogger. And it's an extra challenge outside of being a physician that really just makes me feel like more of a complete individual. So you don't have to start a YouTube channel to be your side product. It doesn't have to be for like to make money. It can simply be a hobby that you want to do. But having something on the side that you commit to growing with, it can be something that you're already interested in or something that you would like to develop an interest in. I highly, highly recommend it. Again, it makes you feel like as you're going through the challenges of medical school, that you have this thing on the side that is also meant to grow and not just stay stagnant. So you're somebody who just feels that you're only growing as a student and really no other aspect of your life. I recommend asking yourself what type of things you're interested in that you would like to start on the side. And if you guys have more questions on how to actually have the time to do a side project to medical school, check out this YouTube short that I made for you guys basically answering that question. But also feel free to add your comments and questions down below in the comment section. And the next thing I would do differently of us to go back to medical school is I've interacted with more mentors, especially early on, you have to remember that everything you're experiencing on the journey, whether it be the good or the bad, most of us have also been through in the past. And whether it be having a mentor through YouTube, so you can look at this channel, for example, or an actual mentor in your medical school journey where you reach out to physicians in a field you're interested in and just send them emails and questions not to get a research project, not to get a recommendation letter, but just to learn, okay, what did you fail at? Why did you do it this way? What made you do this? Like, tell me about your experiences now as a third year resident when I work with attendings who have been practicing for 30 or 40, 50 years and I work with them more independently on a week to week basis. I can understand all their stories, all the things that really made them click and made them such a fantastic position. And as an early med student, it may feel like you don't have enough status to ask these questions, but you absolutely do. And I know as I get questions from you guys in the comment section through Instagram, through emails, I feel like it's only my duty to help guide you if there is a mistake that I made that you may also make. Let me just tell you, okay, this is what I was thinking. Here's what I've done differently. Hopefully that helps you out. Just imagine how many light years you could be ahead if you reached out to more and more mentors and essentially avoided more and more mistakes so you can make the more important ones that allow you to make even bigger leaps and bounds of progress. So if you're not doing it already, reach out to more mentors, whether it be in the field that you're interested in or people that you want to be more like when you're actually an eventually a physician. And next up, I would have followed more influential doctors on Twitter. Now, med Twitter has probably become more of a thing as I've been more in my residency, but as I realize, and I'm not really on Twitter very much, I feel like I would understand the most important things in a respective field if I just follow the people who are also important in that field. So versus trying to read various research articles and cardiology, because that's my field, I could just follow those influential attendings in my own institution as well as around the world and just saying like, what type of things do they retweet? Maybe I should read that because they consider to be important versus something else that may be completely bogus and they just don't care about. If they say, oh, here's a brand new article that's going to be life changing in the field of cardiology, I should read that. And so following more people on med Twitter or Instagram or YouTube that really can help define kind of your understanding of a respective field is something I definitely would have done more of and I'm definitely doing more of currently. And last but not least, I would be open with my side goals. Now, this is a little bit different than the side project that we talked about, but again, you don't want to be a 24-7 med student. And so if I was to start all over, one thing I would do just to make sure I had a good balance is I would force my goals to force me to have balance. For example, that brand new med student, I would tell other people, okay, I'm going to sign up for a marathon at this month or I'm going to, you know, do this class or I'm going to learn how to code this and being very open, whether it be on social media or people that are going to keep you accountable. If I, for example, said I'm going to plan on running a marathon in December, which I actually am, then people on social media, people in your personal circle will understand, okay, it doesn't matter how busy this guy or gal may be on their medical journey, they're still going to make time for this and that forces you to ask yourself, okay, if I have to dedicate some time running or the side hobby or learning this, then how I become again going back to number one, more efficient in my studying so I can still do the most important tasks that help me do well on my quizzes and exams. But being very open with your side goals makes people and most important you stay focused on having that nice sense of balance between being a student, yes, but also the parts of you that need to grow over the next several years when you're a resident, when you're a physician and also in your own personal life. And so if you're watching this video and you feel like you're a little bit of a runt where things aren't moving and medical school just feels like it's taking over all your life, commit to one goal that would be like, I would be amazing if I could do that in three years seems unrealistic and then commit to it. So for example, in three months if you're like, it'd be amazing if I could run a 10k. It's not really about finishing that 10k that you care about, but you just don't want to look like somebody who is not going to be able to follow through on what you tell other people. So having those side goals you're very open about the people that are going to keep you the most accountable. It's going to be such a good practice for your overall balance as a medical student. Those guys are some of the things I would do if I was to start medical school all over again. There's other questions of like, how would you do this? How would you do this? Tell me about questions about this. Add it in the comment section down below as well as a survey down below, which is going to be part of our Q&A show that we'll be doing here at the MD journey. So if you want me to personally answer to you in like a video form, there is a survey link down below. Just ask your questions. You can ask more than one. Now make a video responsible for you as well as other people who may benefit from that question. And if you found the tips in this video helpful, I promise you it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of other advice and strategies I have for you to really crush into medical school. Two things I recommend is one, the med school domination bundle. I keep adding free bonuses to this to really make your whole medical school experience, whether you're a brand new medical student studying for board exams, applying to residency, doing rotations. There is something there for you to really get past some of the most common mistakes the medical students make. If you don't believe me, just check out the results of hundreds of students who have gone through the bundles and the books and the courses have been able to experience. And if that's not enough for you and you want even more personal help one on one to help you get out of any type of rut, whether it be my grades aren't doing as well as I want. I'm spending way too much time. I'm not motivated. I need to get back to really like figuring things out so I can enjoy medical school and the medical journey. Then you are the person that we made the medic night program for. If you're even on the fence of saying I'm not sure if a coaching program would be for me, just check out some of the results of what students have been able to experience after just one call. I'll link it down below. It is application based, but if we're a good fit to work together, definitely reach out to you. So I'll be linked down below the med school domination bundle will link down below and some of my favorite videos on how to really crush in medical school, including this video on how to study for medical school step by step. And we'll be linked down below. But with that being said, guys, thank you so much for making to the very end of this video. I always appreciate your support. Thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I was a little help to you guys on yours. If you did enjoy this video, check out this video on how to study medical school step by step. So as this video on how to use Anki like a pro in medical school, you'll love this one. But until then, I'll see you guys in the next one. Take care.