4 Greatest that Obstacles Students Face in Medical Schools and How to Overcome Them
The life of a medical student is strife with challenges. They face a series of encounters and psychological hurdles during the course of their Caribbean medical school. It requires proper planning, developing the right study skills and cultivating a positive attitude to meet the demands of a fast-paced curriculum. Not to mention the copious amounts of information every medical student has to commit to memory. They have to labor at it day in and day out to accomplish their daily goals, complete their assignments on time, and prepare for exams. With hard work, proper planning, and the right preparation, you can get through the experience in one piece.
Here are some easy and effective tips to overcome the biggest trials many medical students have to face during medical school.
- Memorizing and Recalling Information
Memorizing and being able to reminisce that information when a need arises is one of the biggest challenge that many students have to contend with during the course of their Caribbean medical schools. The volume of information that most students are obliged to learn and memorize is mountainous, especially in the first two years. Being a medical student, it is quite difficult to learn and memorize all the complex and hard-to-pronounce medical terminologies and vernaculars. Learning by rote all the procedural and factual information of human anatomy, pathophysiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, and microbiology is an intimidating task to say the least. Preparing for clinical exams, and a plethora of presentations, quizzes, and assignments on a day-to-day basis may leave you biting your nails in apprehension, struggling to comply with a calendar full of deadlines.
There are a lot of effective learning and memorization techniques that students can follow to memorize the massive amount of facts and procedures that they encounter every breathing second of their medical school life. Spaced repetition, self-testing products, and interleaving are a few stellar memorization techniques that medical students can capitalize on to store and recall information while honing in on their study skills.
- Stress and Burnout
Many students find it a tough nut to crack to stay emotionally healthy during medical school. Most medical students suffer from anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns when caught up in the throes of a seemingly impossible to cope with schedule. In fact, angst, depression, and sleep deprivation when combined together, can wreak havoc on a student’s mental health and wellness. Study burn out is a common challenge that medical students usually face, which greatly affects their academic performance down the road.
It is highly advised to maintain a perfect healthy routine in addition to following up on some relaxation techniques to overcome stress and fretfulness in medical school. Try to get plenty of sleep, exercise regularly, eat a healthy and balanced diet, stay hydrated, go out with your friends, indulge in extracurricular activities, and most importantly, stay organized and strive meet all your deadlines, so that you don’t find yourself pacing nervously at nights before an important commitment.
- Time Management and Workload
Another biggest issue faced by many medical students is time management. They compromise on their diet, sleep, exercise and other important activities in order to complete their assignments or fulfill their daily tasks. Remember, as a medical student, time is of an essence. In fact, to succeed in a Caribbean medical school, managing time and achieving a balanced work-life is the key to success. To stay on top of things, medical students have to do a lot of work. Therefore, developing strong time management skills can lead you towards academic success.
Create a schedule and stick to it. Figure out how long your academic activities take and how much time you can set aside for your personal activities such as relaxing, exercising or binging on your favorite TV shows. Between rigorous academics and stimulating undertakings, it is totally up to you to choose the things that matter most. Developing a schedule can help you get all your homework and assignments done ahead of time while allowing you to organize, prioritize and succeed in your studies. In short, devising a schedule makes it a lot easier to learn more in less time.
- Financial Hurdles
Exorbitant costs of college tuition, especially when you factor in daily meals, supplies, textbooks and other educational expenses, can leave a lot of students despairing endlessly, struggling to make ends meet. Many students also fuss about how they are going to support themselves before enrolling in a medical college. This is why most students utilize student loans to pay their academic expenses and meet other requirements. These financial issues eventually affect their academic performance, since they constantly find themselves fretting over making good on payments and outstanding bills.
A study suggests that more than 94% of students are in need of external funding such as student loans, bursaries, and scholarships to support their medical school life. You can ease your financial burdens by enrolling in a financial aid program or finding a part-time job to address your financial issues and manage your accommodation, food and living expenses.
Over to You
Medical school is a challenging and busy time. Between studying hard, getting acclimated to a new place, and preparing for a successful medical career, it is easy to get overwhelmed and feel emotionally drained. With a little planning and careful approach, students can find a comfortable and healthy work-life balance that will ease the transition and prepare them for a brilliant medical career ahead.