Aishwarya Nair, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Every day is different but if you took a slice of my week in first year, here’s what it would look like. It’s a Friday morning in April. I wake up at 6:45am, make myself a smoothie, and get ready for the day. I am out the door at 7:20am and meet up with my group to head to Michael Garron Hospital (MGH) for our weekly clinical skills session. One of our amazing group members drives us there every Friday, so our mornings are always filled with music, stories from the week, and lots of laughter (aside from the few days when we are sleep deprived or stressed or both).
At MGH, we assemble in the Medical Education centre, and meet up with our physician tutor. We have a rotation of two tutors at MGH, so we get to know them quite well over the year. We quickly catch up on how our weeks were and share any fun stories, before jumping into weekly content. Friday mornings consist of learning physical exam maneuvers, building communication skills, and learning the art of taking a detailed but focused patient history. We also get the opportunity to go up to the wards and interact with patients, practicing our clinical skills.
Given that it is April, our year-end Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is coming up and as first-year students, we are STRESSED to say the least. We review patient scenarios, practice interacting with standardised patients, run through possible examiner questions, and discuss strategies to stay calm under a time crunch. After a busy morning reviewing the content, we head home at 12pm for lunch.
At 1:30pm I log into Zoom for our weekly Integrated Summary and Application Lecture (ISAL). Here we review the week’s content, go over important concepts, and prepare for the upcoming Mastery Exercise (i.e., the block exam that occurs approximately biweekly at 8am on Monday mornings). At approximately 4:30pm we wrap up for the week and I spend the rest of the evening napping, cooking, working out, and/or catching up with friends.
We have academic commitments from approximately 8:30am to 4:30pm, four days a week, leaving a significant amount of time for studying, extra-curriculars, and socialising (let me reassure you that there is room for a social life even in medical school). At the end of the day, we get what we put into it, and I can confidently say most of my peers are extremely happy with their medical school experience so far!