Drowning!

[PA2016!]

This is a just a venting post as I take a break from my studies!.....

 

Three weeks in and I am DROWNING in the material! First semester Anatomy is INSANE!!!! Vertebral column, Spinal Nerves, Arm, Forearm, Hand, All Muscles, O,I, Action, Innervation, and theirs blood supply. THIS IS CRAZY! I feel like I have been staying up on the material really well, but at the same time it is so overwhelming! Not to mention the other 3 classes I have like Phys, OSCE, and applied medicine! I am doing my best to stay on top of things, but with exams approaching, my mind is starting to go into a scramble and I feel like I am falling behind. I have not done to hot on some practice quizzes, so I have to change my method of study or something..... I knew this would be rough but holy crap.....Day one they told us that if we were getting 4 hours of sleep a night we were over sleeping, but I can't function like that. I either have to be a more productive studier or figure out another method! Any thoughts, opinions, or students that is in the same boat as I? 

 

Ok, rants over....got a quiz in the AM. 

 

 

[PACdan]

Get your sleep! Programs love to toss out all this doom and gloom stuff. I get that they don't want people to slack at the onset, but it can be overkill and borderline sadistic at times.

 

No can know it all. Focus on your study skills, but remember the goal is to pass and understand enough to do right by your pts. Don't fret over a 72 vs. a 92.

 

All us newly minted first years are at this awkward stage right now, settling in and trying to learn the ropes. You are not alone by any means. Just don't let it overwhelm you. Almost all of us will be fine (statistically).

:)

 

[patachok]

First things first, welcome to Hell! :)

Now as for some advice...you need to study enough to pass, i mean just enough and that is it. It will come with time and practice. Also, you need to find study partners like ASAP. You cannot pull through the didactic year on your own, at least i know i could not.

Good luck! I am sure you will make it. :)

[Deanj59]

First things first, welcome to Hell! :)

Now as for some advice...you need to study enough to pass, i mean just enough and that is it. It will come with time and practice. Also, you need to find study partners like ASAP. You cannot pull through the didactic year on your own, at least i know i could not.

Good luck! I am sure you will make it. :)

I'll second that statement about study partners. My class has a Facebook page where many in the class post the study guides they have made from their notes off of lectures. Do your own work as well of course, but try to rely on help from those in your class too. With so much to know and read, I think it's wise to split up all the tasks into chunks within a small group. This relies on you trusting on the competency of the group members of course, but when making an outline or study guide it's a REAL time-saver to just focus on your assigned tasks and then go off of the group-made guide when studying for tests.

[hitzgrl123]

My advice, as a brand new PA-C who was in your shoes a very short 2 years ago, is to try to maintain a little perspective. Getting into PA school was your biggest hurdle. The vast majority of students who start the program go on to finish it and become PAs. Now you're on a conveyor belt, the same one that many have successfully ridden in the past. All you have to do is keep trying, keep sane, and keep showing up.

 

For me, the first round of exams was by far the hardest- not because of the material but because of the intimidation factor- not knowing if I was studying correctly or adequately. Especially anatomy- for me that was just something that had to be survived. It gets better. Every passing grade gives you a little more confidence and gets you a little closer to the end goal. This will all be in your rear view morrow before you know it!

[EMEDPA]

what helped me:

do all the reading before the lecture so you know what the topic will be and can interact with the professor.

take minimal notes but write down main points discussed.

do all the course objectives. if it was in lecture and in an objective , it's on the test.

make flashcards of gross memory stuff like innervations, origins, and insertions. by the end of pa school my pile of flashcards was almost as tall as me.

study in a group and compare notes. quiz each other. you will figure out fairly quickly who you can study with and who you can't. I started with a group of maybe 6 and ended up with 3 + myself. we all did fine.

they(your teachers) want you to pass. in fact, they need you to pass or their stats will suck and no one will go there.

most folks get through pa school. in my class of 80 we had 3 who didn't pass the first time around(they all failed a class or a major advancement exam), but they all passed the second time around and graduated a year behind the rest of us. we had no one fail out.

[whoRyou]

The best advice I can give (granted I am not a PA-S yet) you will NOT know everything about medicine and that is OK.

[rev ronin]

So did you review anatomy before school, or did you take a vacation?

[Simplify]

So did you review anatomy before school, or did you take a vacation?

Hopefully a vacation. EVERYONE feels overwhelmed at first. Just keep swimming.

[Derbingle]

You will get better at handling the huge amt of information. Your brain will change, youll feel it about third month or so, the forearm is tough and coupled with spine makes for a tough combo. Its isnt like that all the way through but anatomy seem to define the lines in class as far as top to bottom, at least in our class. Keep at it. Youll get faster, better. Think of the first 8 weeks as conditioning, judt like sports conditioning. Your neurons will wake up!

[gbrothers98]

You have gotten good advice here.

 

Pay attention to objectives. Some programs help focus students on what is truly important clinically vs what is knowledge for knowledge sake. 

 

Look at what makes up your grade. In many classes, there will be quizzes, exams, projects, papers that make up a final grade. Learn to triage what really contributes to your grade and what affects it very little. 

 

Preparation prior to lecture is very important and gets short thrift from students. Not coming to lecture prepared is a very passive way to learn and you will not retain.

If you think you are not studying well, at least you have that insight.

 

The 2 most effective methods to study are:

Practice testing: flashcards are essentially this if used correctly. I know E, that is a tall stack of flashcards.

Distributed practice: dont cram, break studying down into blocks.

Good article that outlines this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/27/study-techniques-that-work-and-surprisingly-dont/

 

Students get lost in reading. Instructors tell you to read 200-300 pages in a night. Right. Here are 2 links to help with reading:

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/docs/sq3r_method.doc

http://www.princeton.edu/mcgraw/library/for-students/remember-reading/

I think the second is a better one take.

 

To summarize a concept, I think mapping is the best way:

http://lsc.cornell.edu/Sidebars/Study_Skills_Resources/Study%20Skills%20PDFs%20for%20LSC%20Website/Concept%20Mapping.pdf

 

Study partners and groups. Tread carefully here. What works for one does not work for all. I paired up with one classmate who to this day I count as one of my best friends. He was struggling, I was not. He was and is much smarter than I. He just wasnt focused. I brought focus and he brought insight into all sorts of subjects that I would or could not do. I also participated in many impromptu review sessions with classmates, cover main points in 15-30 minutes prior to quizzes and exams. Always helped.

 

Anxiety. Depression. These are a mind killer. Very common in PA school. You will see it manifested in many ways with your classmates and yourself. Several ways to combat this:

1. Plan out the week. Know what is coming.

2. Get some sleep. If the program is telling you you should only sleep 4 hrs a night they are idiots. Sleep deprivation makes you STUPID. Go to bed at 10, get up at 6 every day.

3. After school nap. Suggested to me by a PA when I went to PA school. Calms and focuses. I may or may not have slept but I had 30-45 minutes to myself to relax and clear my mind.

4. Exercise. You can become a fat &ss in PA school. Cardiovascular exercise reduces stress and improves blood flow to the brain. Plus you will still fit in your clothes to go out on rotations.

5. Friday night is yours. A beer with classmates or outside friends. Date night with significant other. Time with kids. Ice cream and Netflix. Do it. 

6. Meds. I am not advocating this but for some it may be what makes or breaks your year. This is a huge life change and many dont understand its effect till they are in the middle of it. Buspar, paxil, zoloft, effexor. I have seen them all be effective.

 

Good luck.

G Brothers PA-C

[Guest MedLib42]

It's normal. Anatomy was what did me in the first semester too (on top of everything else) and I felt like I simply couldn't stay on top of everything (that changed big time by second semester though, and it got MUCH easier). Funny thing was, I'd recently aced undergrad anatomy and had recently spent some time tutoring it as well, but PA school focuses on completely different details than undergrad, so for me it was almost like taking a different class entirely. 

 

For anatomy lab:

1) Netter's anatomy flash cards. These SAVED me. I'd highlight relevant structures and memorize them before the next lab (we knew what structures to look at ahead of time). 

2) The lab dissector. I'd go through this prior to lab to learn where structures were in relation to other structures, so I could more easily identify them. Worked amazingly.

 

For anatomy lecture:

1) Lecture objectives: I made a study guide just based on these alone. Most of the info came from lecture, with a little supplementation from the text.

2) Flash cards - all the difficult info from the lecture objectives, such as origins/insertions/actions, etc. went on flash cards.

3) Drawing can help!! Draw out the blood supply pathways, nerves, etc. I had a set of colored pencils and a sketchbook dedicated to anatomy class, and I put some time into making it into art with enough realistic detail and labeling and all of that, and found it relaxing and cathartic as well as educational :) But you don't have to go that far - some colored lines work just as well. I also used to post my drawings all over my house where I'd be forced to look at them all the time. It helped.

 

As far as sleeping, I can't function on less than 7 hours a night, nor did I try to at any point in PA school. I think I actually slept more than that because I was so exhausted all the time. I tended to do better on exams after giving up on studying and sleeping a full 7-8 hours than staying up all night or only getting 4 hours. Sleep is the time when your brain compartmentalizes and cements everything you've learned. Without sleep, the information you're cramming into it will tend to feel less retrievable, and more scattered. 

[rev ronin]

Hopefully a vacation. EVERYONE feels overwhelmed at first. Just keep swimming.

I'm sorry if you misunderstood... I was asking the OP, not for random other people to butt in with their own assumptions and personal perspectives.

[Simplify]

I'm sorry if you misunderstood... I was asking the OP, not for random other people to butt in with their own assumptions and personal perspectives.

I'm sorry too, and seeing as how you must be new to the internet, I will fill you in.  Generally, public discussion threads on public internet forums are designed to elicit personal perspectives. 

[dannydude57]

There is a lot of good advice on here. Experiment and find what works for you. Personally, I zeroed in on ways that maximized how I studied. I found studied better alone, so I did that. I believe in having a general foundation before mastering any particular area. That way I could either think through questions or look for triggers. I studied like an industrial miner, not a drift miner. I studied one layer at a time, not diving deep into any particular subject. I knew I didn't have time for that. I reviewed everything and summarized things in the least amount of words possible. I created a chart with simplified information (I had an section for pathology, etiology, signs and symptoms, treatments, diagnostic tests, and misc stuff.) I looked for similarities and differences, then focused in on those. A good instructor will put the most common or most likely first on a list (useful with etiology, especially infectious disease). I focused more on the top of the list. Finally, I created mnemonics whenever I could. Then I repeated in a little more detail until the exam. Some subjects I became really good at, some I didn't. More importantly, I survived to my clinical year, which is a whole different story.

 

Dan PA-S2

 

P.S. It is in my clinical year that I am finding I have time to delve deep into specific topics. There is a place for everything. Realize it is okay, even normal, to feel the way you do. I have not met anyone from the three local PA schools who has not felt as you have in their first year. Go with it, work your butt off and you'll make it.

[dchampigny]

There is a great amount of advice here.

 

some things I agree with/ add in

 

• Take Friday night off. This doesn't mean drink yourself into oblivion, but take some time off and enjoy time with classmates. It will do wonders for your psyche. If you absolutely have to study on a Friday night, do something simple to make you feel like you got something done (plan out the next week, etc).
• Exercise. I just finished my first semester and didn't exercise as much as I would like to. You'll feel so much better physically and mentally if you do.
• Find out how you study best. If you work well in a group, seek out classmates. Personally, I don't study in groups until I have a good mastery of all the material. I think it is good to get to the point where you can teach a concept to someone else before you get into a group.
• Keep time in perspective. If you have already put in a significant amount of time for an exam and it is the night before.....think logically. What will benefit you more? Cramming another 2 hours to get 2-3 more questions right on the test or getting a good night's sleep to maximize memory on test day?
• Know your limits. You WILL BURN OUT if you study every hour of the day. It simply can't be done (for very long).
• Take care of yourself. Don't be the guy who wears the same thing 3 days in a row. 
• Keep it all in perspective and don't lose sight of the end goal of that PA-C. You are studying your butt off so that you can take care of patients one day and make a positive difference in other people's lives. That's powerful stuff. Don't ever lose sight of that.

[db_pavnp]

I read gbro's links and there's good stuff in there.  You also need to filter and experiment to find what works to maximize your time and retention for your particular intellect and personality.  There are many PA stories which suggest you will get better at it as you continue to work at it.

 

I like Quizlet.com - a fast, free, utilitarian online notecard tool.  You will break info down, rewrite it, and have a testing resource to bang through, all aspects mentioned in gbro's links.

 

Not so useful for you now, but I see no reason not to work on anatomy the Summer before school.

[wjm7]

I'm not going to read through what everyone has said, so someone may have mentioned this.  I'm sure there are plenty of good tips that have been mentioned.

 

My two cents: that whole "if you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep..." stuff is BS.  Get a good nights sleep.  I slept at least 8 hours per night during the entirety of my didactic year.  I rarely achieved A's, but I also rarely scored less than A-/B+.  And I maintained my sanity through the entirety.

 

Take care.  You'll be OK.  Work hard, rest (thoroughly), repeat.

[SHU-CH]

If there is one thing that I think really characterizes students who do well in PA school, it is their ability to identify the high-yield "need to know" material. Someone above used the term "triage" applied to studies which is a good way of looking at it.

 

As an example, when you read a 50 page chapter on something like hypertension, you have to be able to figure out what are the 10-15 most important things to know. Then what are the next 10-15 "nice to know" things. If you have a hard time identifying these things, one way is to look at the lecture or course objectives as suggested above. Another is to get together with classmates and discuss the material and see what sticks out for other people.

 

For many of your undergrad textbooks, they expected you to read them cover to cover. With Cecil's/Harrison/whatever you can't be expected to do that. You have to be able to scan and find the high points. It takes practice. You will get it.

[balsam88]

I was in your shoes a year ago. I totally understand how difficult and overwhelming it seems in the first month. Believe me I cried on my first week and thought I'll never survive all this, but I did, and here I am only 7.5 months left till I graduate. Beginnings are always tough, but don't worry you will develop a system and you'll eventually get more comfortable and figure out how to handle everything. Anatomy really makes a semester tough and it's a lot of memorization. My advice is to make flashcards and keep looking at them over and over and over, better yet with a study partner/s quizzing each other. Know mnemonics, they also help! Stick with the objectives for each class. Once you survive the first semester, you can survive the rest :)

[Guest Paula]

There are days when I wish I was back in school. It was such a blur and the memories just are not there anymore. 

[gbrothers98]

^^

If you have a program nearby, become a preceptor. Also see if you can lecture or participate in proctoring exams.

After I got involved it gave me a new perspective on many things. I also think this generation of PAs needs older PAs with extensive clinical experience to be mentors and resources for them. For many of them, they are babes in the woods when it comes to medicine and not only the clinical aspect of it.

They need our help and guidance. Doesnt take too much to make an impact.

G Brothers PA-C

[PA2016!]

Thank you to everybody for all the responses! It is really helpful and comforting reading some of them! We have our first round of exams coming up this week, so I guess I will get a good idea of how well my method is working. Rev, to answer your question, yes I took a one week vacay, but also studied anatomy during my off semester. That is one good thing I think I have going for me, its that I may not be able to tell your the exact origin/insertion YET, but I know the location of most of the muscle and with that, I can make an educated guess at the origin, and insertion and with that I can figure out the action.  I defiantly need to be better about looking at course objectives because during undergrad, my method was to know it all, which typically worked but in order to have a reasonable amount of info that I can look at objectives are looking like the fast track to whats on a NEED TO KNOW basis. Also, Gbro, thanks for the links. I will defiantly be taking a look at those and applying the methods ASAP. Thanks again to all! 

[rev ronin]

The nice thing about only taking a week of vacation is that you can tell yourself now that you didn't slack off prior to school, for which you'd be kicking yourself mightily if you had, say, taken a month or three off.

 

In retrospect, how well did you do in pre-matriculation prep?  Did it help you at all?  If you had to do it over again, what would you have changed about how you studied prior to school?  Less or more time, different focus, different methods...?

[EMEDPA]

I didn't study anything in the summer before pa school, I drove across country the long way to relocate to Philadelphia from L.A..

I did a part time 3 year program and had off the summer between year 1 and 2 so studied physiology and clinical medicine that summer while working full time as a medic in preparation for the upcoming term.