 Medical school was awesome for me. Easily the best four years I spent in school over my very long educational journey. But here are 13 things I wish I had done differently. Number one, keeping notes of the pearls. In hindsight, one of the best parts about medical school is being around some amazing physicians in their specific fields and learning those little pearls about how to better assess a patient, do a clinical exam, how to better take care of them, just based off their experience, their research, whatever it may be. I wish I had written more of it down. I think we have that with any type of guidance and learning that we do, any mentorship. Most of us just kind of absorb it and often as a student, we're kind of stuck up where we're like, I can't wait till this is over so I can go home, yada, yada. Honestly, I wish I had listened more actively to the people who were teaching me and for my future self. I wish I would have done what I would do now back in medical school, which is to take that information collected into something that I could use, like a journal, I love using Notion, and typing up, you know, Dr. Gregg's lecture on hyponatremia and putting his pearls on there or just having a section for hyponatremia in my journal or in my Notion database and adding more lectures, more research articles that come up over my time of being a physician, being a student. Number two is reading more journals. Often students are interested in journals for the wrong reason. This is typically when you're on your rotations and you're like, let me read something so I can share that I read something and ideally get a better grade. This happens all the time, I was definitely guilty of it myself. But on the flip side, most students really just don't read journals, frankly, because they don't have time to. You're often just spending most of your time trying to consume your class material or the material for your rotations, and rarely do you have time left over to actually read anything else, much less a journal article. But if there's one thing that was different between medical school and residency training, and particularly now as a full-time physician, is that there's still a lot of questions that you have after taking care of patients, such as the small nuances. Is this medication better than this one? Should this patient really be on this medication at all, given their risk factors? Often people have done the hard work and have done the research, but it may not show up granularly in your PowerPoint slides, unless you may not know the answer. And so I wished over time, either in the fields that I was interested in, or in the fields that I was the weakest in, I wish I would have found a few articles that related to the topic that I needed help with the most, maybe review articles, and again, collecting into something like Notion. And if you guys are interested in using Notion, we actually have created an entire medical journey dashboard and Notion template that can go with you all the way from studying to collecting things like journals, but also collecting things like your personal to-dos and so much more. If you guys are interested, that would link down below. One part about medical school that I'm truly grateful for is a group of six individuals that are in my TBL group. We called ourselves Team Go. That's how awesome we thought we were. And these six people were the individuals that we would be doing anatomy labs with, that we would be doing TVLs with, and like group activities, taking quizzes together, taking group quizzes together, and they were an absolute blast. And one part, in addition to just having fun in school, is we had purposeful hangouts. We played sports, we signed up for races together, we just enjoyed each other's company, we did friends giving, and not all of the TBL groups did this, but we could easily see that our camaraderie or rapport amongst each other and just our overall happiness improved because we saw each other all the time. We saw each other outside of school and it really just helped elevate the mood because all of us were working hard just like the rest of our peers, but we had each other to do it with. So make sure you find your crew or you find your group of people and ask yourself how you can have purposeful, meaningful experiences with them and hangouts. Whether that's playing sports, we'd play basketball almost on a weekly basis, hanging out with each other for dinner or for movies, just doing things outside of your medical journey and enjoying each other's company even there. Number four is having outside challenges. I'm a big proponent that you should have personal growth and personal challenges in everything, not just being a student. Otherwise, you're gonna be really good at taking tests and not so much of dealing with the other difficulties that life will throw at you. So having things that you are challenging yourself through, whether it's physical, such as signing up for a 10 mile race, signing up for half marathon, I signed up for a marathon in my residency, which is crazy because you're so busy, but it was probably the most enjoyable thing I could do as an upper level resident because I had something to work for and I still wanted to make sure that I did well for my patients. Number five is keeping a list of my favorite patient interactions. Now this is something that I did, but I wish I had done more formally because you see so many patients. You'll see hundreds and hundreds of patients by the time you're done with training. Now on a weekly basis, I see hundreds of patients. And I wish I had a system where I could just say, here is a patient who I have great experience with. Here's a really cool diagnosis. Your patients, if you're attentive, will teach you so much more than just the disease you're trying to educate yourself on. You'll hear about personal stories that are awesome and unforgettable. You'll see clinical exam signs that if you paid attention, will really make the difference in future patients you take care of. And most importantly, you'll find small things that you do that either irk or actually make your patients absolutely fall in love with you and having a storage of those experiences will grow with you to where you can just become a better physician and at least make sure you remember of all the patients that you took care of. Number six, something I wish I had done more of, being smarter with my money. And now I didn't feel by any means I was irresponsible as a medical student, but I do feel like I could have educated myself or asked questions like, what would the future five year or 10 year version of you wanted to do with this money right now? And I probably would have made some adjustments in some things that I did, such as how much loans I took out on a yearly basis, how aggressively I applied for scholarships, as well as whether I chose to have a roommate or not. I've talked about my debt extensively here on the channel and all my financial struggles. If you guys are interested, I'll link down below our entire playlist. You guys can check that out. But on the note of money, number seven is starting a side hustle. Now this is something I did and I'm super grateful for because that's exactly how the MD journey became to be. Honestly, if you guys aren't aware of the story, the MD journey started because I wanted to just share my experience to my family. I wanted them to understand how hard the medical journey was. And the only way I could share that is by sharing how I was doing studying or how well I was doing or how poorly I was doing. And then random strangers like you guys, they found the blog which turned into a YouTube channel and a podcast. And now here we are. Doing so has completely changed my life and the possibilities of what you could do when you focus on helping other people. When you start a side hustle, the first question is not what am I gonna sell? How much money am I gonna make? But it's really what value and service am I going to provide somebody that really is meaningful to me that will grow with me. The mission and the vision that I have for the MD journey is so much bigger than myself. And I'm excited to finally see that come into fruition when the first few years was really about me just being behind a blog or behind a camera. It's completely changed now. And having that allows me to again have an outside challenge from my medical journey and something that I have to grow up as as an entrepreneur, as a manager, as a founder of a company, which is awesome. Next, I wish I had worked out more. Now, keep in mind, I worked out pretty much five out of seven days every single day for the first two to three years of medical school. I was pretty consistent. But now that I realize how fit I should be after doing that much, I wish I had worked out more purposefully. I wish I had worked out all of the different parts of what considered to be overall fitness. That includes flexibility, explosiveness, endurance. I didn't get into running marathons until I was a resident. But if I had focused on my overall fitness in all different aspects, not just how much I could squat or deadlift, I think I'd be a much healthier version of myself now because I would have been able to use that as a foundation. Next, I wish I listened to more medical podcasts. Now, this definitely changed when I was in residency because I was forcing myself to say, well, you have a 20 minute drive to work. Why not just listen about medical cases that maybe you'll see in the future or listen to the clinical problem solvers podcast and see if you can solve the diagnosis based off of what you've learned. It was a really cool experience, but I wish in medical school had done that more because it would have been a natural way of saying, how does somebody who is five, 10 years senior to me, somebody who's further down his line, think, how should I be thinking now as a brand new student, as a brand new training? I think it would have given me a much bigger leg up compared to having to go through all these textbooks and saying, I still don't understand hypotraemia. It's a really hard topic. But if I had listened to some of these podcasts, I could easily see how somebody's wheels turn if they're an aphrologist for 20 to 25 years and have to deal with that same problem. And so if you haven't gotten into podcasts just yet, definitely check out ours if you haven't done so already, but also consider checking out some of my favorites, including curbsiders as well as clinical problem solvers, both really good starters, and then you'll find your favorites from there. Next, and I know a lot of you guys need to hear this, is I wish I had stressed out less. Now personally, I feel that I tend to be an easygoing and calm dude, but even then I had my stress. I had my anxiety, I had those days where I was like, what in the hell am I doing? Why am I trying to become this profession? It is so tough. And in reality, I don't remember most of the grades that I've gotten. I still have to Google sometimes my step one or step two score when I have to put it on applications for work. And I definitely don't remember that random biochem quiz that was freaking me out my first week of medical school. I still remember that level of stress. It doesn't matter. It tells you that you care and after that you just need to get to work. The stress doesn't do the work for you. I wish I had done less of it. Even now when I'm stressed as a full-time position with things on a daily basis, things that I have to do on a long-term basis, I realize it probably won't matter in 10 years how much I worried. It does matter that I care about it, but now I need to make the steps to actually get work done. So stress less, take a deep breath, make sure the parts of you that are most important to you are still included in your life. And at the same time, make medical school or your medical journey a priority as well. I promise you that you're gonna be happy as long as you follow the rest of the tips that we talked about. Next, I wish I built a story for my future career. Now this is something that I'm pretty adamant around the channel that I did that I think made the biggest difference in terms of how successful I am. Now this is not me bragging, but basically I don't think I was the smartest person in my college class, my high school class, definitely not my medical school class, definitely not my residency class. But I do feel like I was given opportunities that excelled my potential compared to some of my peers in the same level or above me. And that's because every part of the journey I asked myself, what do I like? What do I not like? And now what experiences should I search out? Because of that. And doing so, I found myself loving teaching, found myself loving medicine, I found myself doing online education. Now I can tell a story of somebody who loves to use online innovation, somebody who loves to just talk and use their tips and advice to share things. I love to teach my patients and future trainees. I can see what kind of doctor I'm going to be in five to 10 years, what role I'll be serving. And it's very easy for me to sell that on a personal application, on an interview, whatever it may be. But on the flip side, if you're somebody who is just focused on what grades you're going to get, you're going to be disappointed because when you sit across that interview chair, you are going to be in a room compared to other people who sat in that same chair with you, likely with the same grades, if not better than you. You also have to sell yourself with a story that is just as attractive as those board scores and those grades that you work so hard for. The easiest way to do this is ask yourself, what do I like now? And what should I use that level of interest to pursue next? Every time you have an experience, you're going to learn things that you like and don't like and use that to propel a story that makes it very easy to sell yourself going forward. And if you work hard in all other aspects of the medical journey, promise you you're going to be happy and also successful. Number 12, I wish I had eight and slept better. Now I'm going to start with the second one, the sleep aspect of it first, because the MD journey, at least the blog, took off because I wrote an article of how I used to wake up at 4.30 every single day for 21 days for a challenge and how I continue to do that for the first two years of medical school. I think it attracted some people. It was polarizing. Some people think that you didn't need to wake up that early. And to be honest, you don't. I just found it worked really well for me. But in hindsight, I wish I had focused on less so much of what time I was waking up and how much sleep I was consistently getting. If I wasn't going to bed at 9.30 or 10, like I intended to, to wake up at 4.30 fully refreshed, I should have been okay with delaying my wake-up time to make sure that I was the most energized when I did wake up. On the flip side, I definitely wish I had eight more. One thing that I'm still struggling with now isn't as a full-time position. It's just fighting those cravings that we all naturally have. I love sugar. I love little snacks. And sometimes training for a marathon as I'm doing now makes it a little bit easier to consume those extra calories. But I do think that if you're going to be in the medical journey, you have to be a good representation of what healthy looks like. You don't have to have a six-pack. You don't have to be able to run a marathon. But if you're going to tell your patients X, Y, Z is what you need to do, you have to be able to take your own medicine from time to time. And so I definitely wish I had started the foundation building as a medical student, as a resident on how to eat and sleep better, especially if I was gonna give that advice to my future patients and definitely my current ones. And lastly, anyone who is turning 30 as I'm about to in a few months is I wish I had stretched more. Medical school has caused me severe back pain twice. Once was during step one, the other in step two. Those hours that you just kind of spend hunched down doing multiple choice questions for eight, 10 hours a day can be really grueling. And although based off the weight that I could lift, I considered myself to be fit. I couldn't often bend down without having an ache or a pain or having to stretch or use some Advil. It was pretty bad that I was in my mid-20s, but just because of how stationary I was, I was becoming stiff and immobile. So one thing that's not going to change is that medicine is likely still going to be a very stationary job. Yes, you'll walk a car or so to the hospital all the time, but when you're writing your notes, you're gonna be at a computer. When you're talking to your patients, you're pretty much just going to be standing. Majority of the time, we don't move around very much unless we're intentional about it. And so as a student, I wish I had a ton, at least those one to two to three mobility stretches just to make sure that I could do this basic movements of touching my toes, squatting and having my ankles touch the ground, all those basic things that just make you feel like, okay, all my joints are moving and I feel good. But those guys are the 13 things that I wish I had done differently as a medical student. Let me know in the comment section down below based off of your experience as far, regardless of where you are, what you wish you would have done differently or more of. Hopefully you enjoy this breakdown. As always, if you want more help on your medical journey, there are tons of free resources as well as some of our paid programs down below in the description. If you're interested in getting some suggestions on where to start, definitely recommend checking out that medical school handbook. It is absolutely free. It is a growing document of all the tips and lessons and strategies that I wish somebody just gave me on my first day of medical school. Again, it's absolutely free. Continuously grows as I write my weekly newsletters and just come up with more ideas. If you guys are interested, they have a link down below. And if you want even more, if you want more help on your medical journey, getting that step-by-step advice, but also finding yourself saying, I'd love to have some coaching or somebody who could just give me guidance whatever I needed it on a weekly basis. You're exactly who we've created the Medellin Academy for. It is where myself and the rest of our study coaches will hop on a call once a week with you and the rest of our students and answer all of your questions. We also get access to all of our courses, the ones that we've made, as well as the new ones for one price. There'll be a link down below in case you guys are interested. You'll get to work with me as well as our wonderful study coaches that we have as part of our team. And regardless if you're interested or if you want to join, I always want to make sure that I'm thanking you guys for making it to the end of this video. I do appreciate the support. I hope that it at least helps you a little bit on your journey. If did, just hit that like button, that subscribe button, notification bell. If you're listening to this on a podcast, hit that subscribe and follow on your favorite listening platform. And if you enjoyed today's episode, then you'll probably enjoy this episode right here on my entire time management system that I used in medical school and I still use today, as well as this system right here on how you can become a top 1% student. As always, my friends, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I was a little help to you guys on yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.