 So if you've always been curious what really med school is like in this video I'm going to break down year by year. Let's get into it. All right guys, what is going on? Luxury for an empty journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. If you guys are new to the channel, welcome. My name is Lux. I'm a first year internal medicine resident making videos just like this for people just like you. So if you want weekly videos to help you on your medical journey, make it a little bit easier than definitely consider one hitting that like button and two subscribing to our channel. So in this video, I'm going to essentially take you year by year basically hold your hand, accelerate you to the path of four years in school. So let's start with the first year, which is obviously when you're going to be the most excited because you're finally in med school, but also when you're the most anxious because one, don't really know much and two, there's just so much more unknown as you go through the journey. But the first year of med school, depending on your institution, obviously, is really going to be a year about just learning the basics. And that means like bare bone based these are your classes like anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, microbiology is essentially if you can add an ology, you'll probably learn your first year in med school to be quite honest. A lot of these topics won't be brand new to you. You probably have learned some element of physiology. Maybe you've even taken anatomy course during your college experiences. What really will be challenging for you in medical school is that you'll be expected to balance difficult classes that are very time intensive and doing multiple of them at a time for a long consistent basis. If you recently graduated college, you may have had an easier spring semester than a summer vacation off. And now you're getting into the trenches of med school is usually a lot to overcome. First year in med school is really where you get to learn the foundational elements of medicine. That way you understand the concepts when you get to eventual patient care and typical schedule for somebody in their first year is really going to vary. I'll put a link down below of what a typical day in med school look like for me back then. You guys can check it out. You can consider your first year in med school of being very similar to what your college experience may have been like at an accelerated as well as more information dense space. I'm mainly going to be spending your time doing classes in the morning. Maybe some labs like anatomy in the afternoon. I'm just kind of repeating that with tests on potentially a weekly to a monthly basis, depending on the institution. And during your first year your experiences as an actual physician or you're practicing clinical skills, there's usually also develop this is where you learn how to use the stethoscope, how to check up blood pressure as well as understanding what different vitals as well as different exam skills mean. And so while a majority of your time may be learning the foundations, you're also going to basically be getting your feet wet understanding how to take care of patients. So now let's get into year number two. Now this is basically where you're got senior of the first half of med school because the first half of med school is really where you're in the post per se versus actually taking care of patients. You're kind of learning the foundations and the first year you definitely master some of the basics such as anatomy and farm and microbiology. Now you may start learning what happens if the foundation elements of the heart aren't working. What disease comes with that? What conditions and how do you treat it? And your second year med school is really where you focus more on the abnormal pathology of your body. So your first year you may have focused on something like how the heart basically moves with the normal function. Your second year instead you may start learning about what happens when the heart isn't working correctly. What disease come from it? How do I notice those symptoms? How do I test for it? And then more importantly, how do I take care of these patients arguably probably one of the more favorite years of med school because you're starting to feel like you're learning the medicine you truly got into med school in the first day of school. Now while I'm talking about fun I do have to put a little bit of a wrench in that story because as you go down your second year med school you're usually also going to start preparing for your first board exam. Now here in the United States we have three licensing exams that you have to take to eventually be certified as a physician and they are kind of spread out through our medical journey. The first one happens to be after your second year of medical school. This is your step one exam notoriously which recently was changed to be pass fail. There's a video and a link down below that you guys can check out to understand how to do well on step one as well as what to make of the new grading system. As we're wrapping up our second year the one big difference that you'll probably also notice is that you may have more clinical experiences whether it's through simulations or working with mentors who are exposing you to the patients that may have diseases that you may be learning about in your classes. Now we're going to go ahead and continue to zoom through year number three. This is probably the most exciting anxiety-provoking stressful but most fulfilling. I'm not sure how many conflicting emotions I can come up with. This is the year that you're going to start doing your rotations which basically means you're going to have anywhere from a month to a two-month experience in different specialties. You think about the different kinds of physicians that you know of that includes your surgeons, your internal medicine doctors that's me, as well as things like your neurologists, your psychiatrists, your pediatricians, and more. You will have the opportunity during your third year to do a month to six weeks to eight week experiences in these rotations and basically get to be on these teams as well as take care of the patients that they pertain to. And that's obviously a reason for excitement. You finally get to use that set the scope unless you're on psychiatry and not probably not so much. But then you finally get to learn the nitty gritties of medicine as well as how it's not as crystal clear as you're taught for the first two years. We knew this is going to be the year that on your surgery rotations you get to actually be in the part of the OR and see some pretty cool procedures as well as help out to some extent. Or you may be on your internal medicine rotation and start taking care of patients with heart attacks, blood pressure issues, hypertension, you know different diseases like cancer. Or you may even be on your OB-GYN service and get to be a part of delivering a brand new newborn. So definitely a lot of exciting elements. The third year med school usually represents kind of what you went into med school for. Usually we don't want to be reading books for two years and eventually kind of getting our reward. But it is going to be the time where you're going to be able to expose yourself to what kind of medicine you'll enjoy and then start making decisions about what kind of doctor you want to be in the future. And at the same time this year is also very anxiety provoking because the hours are going to start to become very similar to what they are as a physician. You may not have a predictable schedule where you show up at lecture at 9 o'clock when you're done at 12 and you have a break. You're going to be responsible for patient care and that may require you to be coming much earlier as well as staying much later. And not only are the hours going to be demanding during this year but you will also be responsible for studying to learn about this new rotation that you probably don't know enough about as well as prepare for likely exams that come at the very end of the rotation both on a national level as well as potentially from your institution. And so going through rotation to rotation with demanding hours at test as well as kind of a little bit of an unknown where you feel uncomfortable and soon as you do you may be switching to a new rotation. All of these elements can leave to have a tendency for burnout but I promise you if you check out some of the videos and tips down below that this is probably the most enjoyable year of medicine because again you get to feel like you're finally doing what you signed up for in the first place and you also get to go ahead and learn what kind of physician you want to be and start making some true future decisions. And before we move into year number four remember I told you about these different licensing exams you take an hour about to get to step number two which is going to be an exam that's going to focus more on some of the clinical skills you've been learning throughout your rotation and usually students will take this towards the end of their third year in med school and this is also the time before we get into the fourth year that you're going to start applying for residency. So residency is basically specific training depending on the area and specialty you want to go into. So if you want to become an internal medicine doctor who works in the hospital and deals with different diseases like heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, you name it, you're going to be doing a specific residency track where now all you do is focus on patients in that kind of sector but if you want to become a surgeon then there's a different residency path after med school. It's a long story short you're going to have to apply to these programs the same way that you applied for medical school and the end of your third year in med school is basically where that process will start you're going to have to do the letters of recommendation, the personal statements, the full application essentially is just med school application 2.0. It does come with a little bit of a twist and I've explained that full process in this video right here telling you how the match works and how it's different than just your typical college or med school application. At the end of your third you're going to go ahead and start getting these applications in and ready and finally coast into the fourth year in medical school which is probably and arguably the best year best year ever and that's simply because you have so much more free time this is time where you finally get to take vacations you've earned it as well as you just have a lot free time to schedule your interviews and the institutions will try their best to avoid you having clinical responsibilities like a rotation as well as having to go on interviews so I had several months off during my fourth year in medical school I definitely declined in my medical knowledge but my wellness my ability to do different things like plan my wedding were allowed and at the same time I was able to obviously go across the country and interview at different programs for internal medicine and to fast forward the rest of the fourth year you're going to be applying for residency and start interviewing for programs anywhere from october all the way to january and then in march you will find out one institution that you're going to it's not a lot of programs that will give you offers instead you get one envelope with your name on and the institution you're going to again if you guys want to understand how the match process works video over here and that's pretty much fourth year you're going to have graduation you're going to have a few rotations that maybe you weren't able to do your third year in med school and you just kind of need to finish before you graduate but it's it's pretty nice you have a lots of free time you're able to go ahead and go on vacations that you may be wanting to do before starting residency you basically get to enjoy the combinations of the reward for the past three years of hard work that guys is a summary of the four years of medical school the way exists right now but there are going to be a few changes one of the biggest ones that I can think of is that you're going to definitely see a bigger transition of people starting their clinical rotations somewhere in their second year my institution was actually a pilot program that my first year instead of waiting toward third year to begin rotations we actually began midway into our second year and it's because it's just really important to get that clinical experience a little bit earlier most people learn better by doing they do by reading a book and then hoping that they can apply when they see the patient and also I think you're going to see a push for institutions we're going to focus more on utility of technology was coming a little bit unknown because it's coming at such a rapid pace as well as focusing on pattern recognition usually the act of medicine and diagnosis and treatment is truly a form of pattern recognition as we start to see more and more patients with similar things we can identify when different symptoms as well as complaints are related versus trying to memorize everything on there the symptom as well as diagnosis tab of our textbook and so I think you're going to start seeing a push from med school getting away from giving you bits and information chunks at a time and instead giving you true patient experiences through cases simulations are going to allow you to see okay I noticed that here and I can also see that here maybe they're related for a reason X and eventually you're going to have enough of your repertoire that you're going to be able to walk into a patient's room and have a pretty good idea what that guys is my overview on the four years in med school hopefully you guys enjoyed it let me know if there's something that wasn't clear drop them in the comments actually down below and as I always say if you somehow made it to the end of this video and a like button hasn't been smashed go ahead and just just to smash it for me and definitely consider if you haven't joined the community to go ahead and get on the bandwagon because we're trying to move to two videos a week if we haven't done so already so go ahead and subscribe and hit that notification bell and lastly if you are interested you're still nervous you know you're about to start med school you're just not sure how to navigate each different year then I'll go ahead and put a link down to different resources that we have with md journey and I'll also put a link to a bundle of ebooks that we have on the website that basically walk you through the first second third and fourth year med school and teach you how to succeed along each way with that being said guys thank you so much for watching this video hopefully you guys enjoyed it thank you for being a part of my journey hopefully I've been a little help to you guys and yours I'll see you guys in the next one peace