1. Medical school is expensive! I went to an out-of-state school instead of staying at my in-state school for the prestige. You will learn the same knowledge and still be called a doctor once you graduate, no matter where you go.
2. Don’t pay for an expensive apartment. Get a roommate and save your money. You will spend more time in the library anyway.
3. Find several students with study habits like yours and form a regular study group. This is especially helpful in human anatomy class.
4. You will be a human computer full of medical knowledge when you are done. Journals are constantly coming out with randomized controlled trials that change the way that medicine is practiced. Stay abreast of the literature and be adaptable.
5. Be available and ask what you can do without getting in the way. You will get to do more procedures if you are not still doing orders on the computer and finishing rounds.
6. Know your assigned patients well. Learn the disease process and treatment options. Know their vital signs trends and lab work. Find out the pathology report or radiology results as soon as they are ready. You will be “pimped” on rounds, and you want to know your stuff.
7. Wear real clothes unless you are on call or getting ready to head to the OR or delivery room. Don’t wear those germy, nasty scrubs home. Keep a clean and pressed white lab coat. Look like a professional. You will gain more respect from your team and patients.
8. Do your best even on clinical rotations that you do not like and know will not help you with your soon-to-be specialty. Those grades count as much as the rotations that you really like and do well in. Have fun!
9. Always, always be nice to the nurses. They know more than you do and can either make your life miserable, or you can have a pleasant experience on rotations. Learn their clinical duties as well. It is helpful to know how to program an IV pump, draw up meds, draw blood, etc.
10. Get to know a few professors from the first two years and keep in touch with them. Letters of recommendation from your anatomy professor are as important as the ones from your favorite clinical professor when it comes to applying to residencies.
11. If you are a woman in medicine, meet with several women physicians so that you know how medicine will affect your future life. You may not think you want to have kids now, but most of us do at some point. There are some career paths and specialties that lend themselves better to motherhood. Otherwise, make a lot of money and hire a nanny.
12. Don’t give up your dream. If you want to be a neurosurgeon, then do it. Get the best surgery residency that you can and know your clinical professors well. Their support will get you where you want to be.
13. Unless you want to be the premier cardiac surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, you do not have to get into the premier residency program. Apply to ones that you actually have a shot at, and save the money you would have spent on the wishful interviews.
14. Have a fallback residency position so that you know that you will match in your chosen field. You will get properly trained and pass your boards from any program, as long as you put the effort in.
15. Consider academic medicine. It is a great way to pass along your knowledge, stay abreast of cutting edge medicine, and to do clinical research if you desire.

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