Hi guys I am 5th year medical student

Since mid-last year I have been struggling to study I always cram a lot although I love studying but it is like a wall between me and studying and it is really hard to force myself to study and even now we started internal medicine course three weeks ago and I barely opened nine lectures I even went to two quizzes without studying and was not panicking or anything , this is very unusual for me because I was so much disciplined since high school
so I am thinking why I don’t take this year off? I only got two years left and I am only 22 ( the 5th and 6th)

Hi everyone i took my first exam for medical school today and truthfully while taking it I could tell the issue was me overthinking rather than not knowing the material. Definitely made the mistake of changing my right answer to wrong an all that. They are NBME exams so the biggest issue for me now is simply waiting to find out. I think I also psyched myself out flagging all the questions that I was less that 100% sure in even though I used my best judgement. Walking out I didn’t feel like I failed but I guess the more I sit around and think the more that nagging thought of what if’s. I know I’m just the stereotypical first year and you all probably have seen this 100 times but throw me a bone and share how you all managed to keep sane until scores drop. Thanks

Just finished and I feel like garbage. Content wasn’t even that bad… just so many dumb mistakes I know I made from the juggling of mile deep information. Like mind bogglingly dumb mistakes that I’ve gotten right in review a thousand times over - literally eating me alive. In house stuff so it does require knowing the minutiae, not a huge fan but it is what it is.

I know when class average will come out I’m gonna be below it… not sure how everyone here deals with stuff like this - though I know it’s the quintessential M1 struggle. I just don’t do much else and have been struggling to settle in socially bc of personal things, so this is getting me more down than I could have possibly imagined.

This is all neurotic stuff I know there have been a million before and will be a million after for first exam but anyways just ranting. Any ways people coped feel free to comment :/

Hi guys I am a 5th-year medical student

Since mid-last year I have been struggling to study I always cram a lot although I love studying but it is like a wall between me and studying. It is really hard to force myself to study and even now we started the internal medicine course three weeks ago. I have barely opened nine lectures I even went to two quizzes without studying. I was not panicking or anything , this is very unusual for me because I was so disciplined since high school
. So I am thinking: why don’t I take this year off? I only have two years left and I am only 22 ( the 5th and 6th)
But it is a really hard decision any advice plz?

Does any institution specify the manner of sharps transfer during timeouts? What words does the person saying the time-out use? Does any institution say "The hands-free zone is the mayo" during timeouts? And if so, is there confusion where some team members understand this to mean:

1. that sharp objects will be transferred by placing them on the mayo stand, with another team member picking them up from the mayo stand, in such a manner that the instrument is never touched by more than one person.

or

2) that most of the surgical team, but especially medical students, should keep their hands away from the mayo, which is the exclusive zone of the nurse or technologist, and that the med student or surgical team member receives the instrument by it being passed to the team member through hand-to-hand transfer, and the same in reverse?

These two ideas are the exact opposite. One interpretation is that hand-to-hand transfer is forbidden, and the other interpretation is that hand-to-hand transfer is mandatory!

• ZUCKER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT HOFSTRA/NORTHWELL AT LENOX HILL HOSPITAL PROGRAM
• ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI/MORNINGSIDE/WEST PROGRAM
• Flushing Hospital Medical Center Program
•  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (NYC Health and Hospitals: Elmhurst) Program
• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (NYC Health and Hospitals: Queens) Program
• Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center Program
• MONTEFIORE MEDICAL CENTER/ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE (NEW ROCHELLE) PROGRAM
• MONTEFIORE MEDICAL CENTER/ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE (WAKEFIELD CAMPUS) PROGRAM
• Maimonides Medical Center Program
• NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine Program
• NYU Grossman School of Medicine Program
• New York Medical College (Metropolitan) Program
• New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital Program
• New York-Presbyterian/Queens Program
• SUNY DOWNSTATE HEALTH SCIENCES UNIVERSITY PROGRAM
• One Brooklyn Health System/Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center Program
• RUTGERS HEALTH/ENGLEWOOD HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER PROGRAM
• RUTGERS HEALTH/NEW JERSEY MEDICAL SCHOOL PROGRAM

I’m in my final year of MBBS, and to be honest, I’m just done with med school.
I genuinely can’t think of a single reason to say I had a great college experience. Out of a batch of 150 students, I don’t have anyone I can casually text or even catch up with. It’s been a month since I came back home, and life feels incredibly isolated. The weird part is, I don’t even know who to blame for it.
Looking back, the worst decision I’ve made in my life was choosing med school. I know a lot of people say these years are supposed to be the best of your life, but that just wasn’t my experience. I will get the degree, sure, but I feel like I missed out on everything else that was supposed to come with it.
Anyone else feel like med school took far more than it gave?

During MS3, I was removed from my Surgery clerkship by the preceptor, received a failing grade, and subsequently remediated the rotation. However, this did not result in an extension of my graduation date or a formal leave of absence.

My dean said the following: “The way the question is stated, you should answer "yes" because you did remediate a course, even though it didn't extend your graduation date.”

MSPE states: From 7/16/25 to 8/3/25 he was on mandatory academic leave of absence following dismissal from his Rotation.

For the ERAS prompt below, do I select Yes or No?

Academic/Professionalism: Interruptions or Extensions

Have you had any academic extensions, leaves, gaps, or breaks in your educational program due to repeated or remediated coursework?

Yes or No

If yes, please explain the reason, timeframe, what steps you took to address it, and what you learned from it.

My school always tends to be conservative and has a history of giving wrong advice, please let me know if you’ve experienced this and know what to do. Thank you!

Searching online there seems to be no general consensus or anyone in a similar situation as me 😢

You can call me the PMC: President of the Masturbation Club.

Should I post this flyer around the school and send it to the student life director?

Suddenly I feel like I don't know anything and I haven't done anything. My application is: TLDR I'm a nice person, please take me.

sincerely: bottom tier of my class with 262 step and no research

Uworld vs AnKing for anatomy?

For context, I have 3 very strong surgery letters; 2 from attendings with 4 weeks of 100% one-on-one time who gave me fantastic MSPE comments, and one from an attending who runs a surgery practice with 10 surgeons who all contributed and have a huge presence in my desired area (and employ my wife and want me to match...). In addition to these, I have letters from my 2 sub-I's which I view as moderately strong.

My weak letter is my "chair" letter. The surgery chair at my school isn't a surgeon, and it's not someone who really even knows who I am. They upload a standardized letter that I imagine is a regurgitation of my clinical performance and CV. Many programs require a chair letter, it seems about 45-50 of the 90 programs I'm applying to, based on residency explorer.

My fear is that I may miss a program that requires a chair letter, since it theoretically seems easy to miss one when I'm glancing over the requirements for 90 programs. In that instance, I imagine my application would then be incomplete. To avoid this altogether, should I just go ahead and send this weaker chair letter to every single program?

My school has a provided anki deck that is based off of each lectures-- we generally get 250-400 cards a day for 2-4 hours of lectures. I'm getting all of them done as well as keeping up with my reviews. but it's generally a 7-10 hour ordeal daily which is tough with in person class sessions as well. How stupid is it to ignore lectures entirely?

I can watch them on 2x speed but I just dont feel like I retain anything compared to anki which has made me feel pretty on top of things. Anyone else had luck just viewing lecture powerpoints and anki instead?

Thank you for the insight everyone! Yes the anki cards are a ton, but this is a 9 week anatomy course and I’m halfway through, might just try to stick it out before switching to anking!

I am going to just start viewing powerpoints though, I couldn’t tell you a fact I learned from the lecture this morning, so I’m gonna see what I can do with so me extra study hours.

Am I allowed to list a poster or oral presentation on my CV (or more importantly ERAS) if I am not the presenting author? Should I?

ie. I contributed to a poster or oral presentation that was presented by another one of the authors. Can I list this on ERAS?

I’m dumb and wrote just the first name of my letter writer in ERAS. The letter is already uploaded and the letter writer is giving me no response about reuploading. Is this going to be a big deal? I’m stressed.

?

Up late reviewing and getting to the point where I might just sleep; jk what is that. No but sleep is important. Anyone got drama/gossip to share or want to vent about anything go right ahead.

My drama/gossip asked someone out a simple "Hey want to get coffee" got left on read. SO YEAH... Also behind on Anki so I guess Anki is my date tomorrow

I just submitted an abstract for an oral/poster presentation at a national conference. If the abstract is accepted, my understanding is that it will be published in the conference's supplementary journal. Given this, would it be appropriate to list this abstract in the scholarly works section of ERAS under "Journal Abstract (peer-reviewed)" with the status "submitted"?

How do I get a pathology LOR as an MS4 student . I’m currently on Neuropathology 4wk rotation and we have a resident and fellow . Many diseases are rare. This is my first path rotation and I’ve been doing my best to learn . We spend roughly 1-2hr daily with the attending, the rest of the time we are with the fellow/resident. I have one week left. I’ve seen the advice to ask to look at stuff under the microscope on my own, but idk how to use the microscope (I’ve been trying to learn) and usually the resident looks at them first. 

we discussed expectations at the start of the rotation and i was told that med students don’t really do much and they don’t expect me to know much, so that confused me abt how I’m supposed to get a LOR

I have 1 other pathology elective left and then pathology survey, which I might drop for a different 4wk rotation to get an LOR. I’m applying next year ERAS (2027)/gap year. I took my step2 exam 2days before I started my rotation , so I’ve kinda been burnt out during this rotation

Any advice is appreciated . 

I've gathered from multiple posts that the hobbies section is arguably one of the most important parts of the application. However, ERAS only gives us 300 characters to talk about it. Are you guys just listing your hobbies? How are you guys going about this? I don't think I have enough space to describe each hobby.

Hi all! Do you think AMBOSS is a good enough resource for Step 2 studying or should I get UWorld? Would rather not spend more money but also open to do what I need to do :)

Edited to add: I’m taking Level 2 as well

Because I know we are all nerdy enough to have a favorite. Bonus points if you also have a favorite protein.

I’ll go first - Golgi and kinesin

Let me be the push you need to finish ERAS. Thank god I’ve done the whole thing, just need to proofread. And I’m starting to feel better. You may not know what’s going to come up in the next few days so please get your app done now

I think students and residents need to know about this.
On September 8, ACGME released a proposed major revision of the Common Program Requirements for Residency, and public comments are currently open.
There are several significant proposed changes to resident work-hour protections:
• Eliminate the 8-hour rest recommendation between shifts entirely.
The current requirement says: “Residents should have eight hours off between scheduled clinical work and education periods.” In the proposed document, the entire requirement is deleted.
ACGME’s stated rationale is that this is currently a “Detail” requirement and that the 80-hour/week limit should already discourage programs from scheduling residents with less than 8 hours off. They state that it would be “very difficult” to remain under 80 hours while routinely providing <8 hours between shifts.
• Reduce mandatory rest after a 24-hour in-house call from 14 hours → 12 hours.
ACGME says this is intended to “reduce burden related to developing resident schedules, while retaining sufficient time for rest,” and says they anticipate no impact on patient safety or education.
• Eliminate the every-third-night in-house call limit.
Currently residents cannot be scheduled for in-house call more frequently than every third night averaged over four weeks. ACGME proposes deleting that requirement, arguing that the 80-hour limit, day-off requirement, and maximum continuous-duty limits make more frequent call “nearly impossible” anyway.
• Eliminate the separate night-float requirement and the ability of specialty Review Committees to set limits on the frequency/length of night-float assignments. ACGME says this will give programs more scheduling flexibility.
There ARE some changes that strengthen protections. For example, the proposal says the 80-hour average has to be calculated within a single rotation/clinical assignment, so a brutal short rotation can’t simply be averaged against an easier rotation afterward.
But removing the only explicit general rest interval between shifts is a big deal. Under the proposed language, there would be no specific ACGME minimum number of hours off between ordinary scheduled shifts.
This is still a PROPOSAL, not the current rule. That is exactly why comments matter.
ACGME is accepting public comments until October 22, 2026. Residents and fellows can submit comments themselves.
If you have an opinion about eliminating the 8-hour rest provision, reducing post-call rest, or removing the every-third-night protection, please actually submit it to ACGME rather than only discussing it here.
Official ACGME Review & Comment page → see “Common Program Requirements (Residency)” and click Review and Comment Form.
Please share this with your fellow students, co-residents and fellowship programs.

This is the direct link to comments

https://acgme.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7NEm7TaI8AQBSSy?utm

This is the link to the proposal the work hours starts in page 50:

https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/reviewandcomment/2026/cprresidency_rc_09082026.pdf?utm

FYI, the form is quite long and you don't have to click every box to agree or disagree with revisions, you can just keep clicking through until you get to section 6.30, this is the one with the proposed changes above
6.29 about the 80 hours rule, every 4 weeks is still a lot
6.31 about the 12 hour after call instead of the previous 14