4 Biggest Mistakes I Made in Medical School

Recently, I got to thinking about all the mistakes I made in medical school, and what I would do differently if I could start over.

And then I realized… perhaps one of my biggest mistakes was going to medical school in the first place.

I’m just kidding. (or am I?)

Jokes aside, after writing about the things I wish someone had told me before they about all the things I wish someone had told me before starting medical school, it naturally led me to reflect on all the things I did wrong along the way.

4 Biggest Mistakes I Made in Medical School

thinking grades didn’t matter…but also caring too much

It sounds a little contradictory, I know. But after working so hard in high school to maintain my grades, I genuinely believed that once I got into medical school, grades wouldn’t matter anymore. I thought to myself, “I’m in, and I’ll become a doctor either way. That’s it.”

So when I finally entered medical school, I let myself relax…a little too much. As naive as we were, no one really thought grades would play such an important role in determining what specialties we could eventually apply to.

At the same time, I would still find myself staying up until 4am cramming for exams.

If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be: grades do matter! They play a huge role in applying for specialties later on. If you’re aiming for more competitive fields like dermatology, ophthalmology, or plastic surgery, then you really should care about your grades a little more.

But at the same time, you should always choose your health over your GPA. Those extra five points are never worth pulling all-nighters for.

not taking time to develop more skills

I remember once having a discussion with a friend about whether university was the time “to have fun” or “to master different skills”. I was firmly on team have as much fun as you can.

I still think university should be a time to enjoy your life. But now, I lean just as much toward the idea of using that time to build yourself.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in medical school is not starting earlier; writing, building projects, learning to speak and express myself more eloquently, training discipline, and to explore other interests outside of medicine. University is truly one of the very rare times you’ll find all this free time. When else in life are you ever going to have that much unstructured free time again?

letting friendships fade because I was “too busy”

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.

Anyone who knows me knows that I take forever to reply to messages. Sometimes it’s a few days. Sometimes a few weeks. And sometimes… a few years. (Unfortunately, that is not an exaggeration.)

And yes, I’ve lost a few friendships because of this. But I’m also incredibly lucky to have such understanding friends who still want to talk to me after all the accidental ghosting. But only in the past few months did I really stop and look at the people in my life and realize, wow, my world is fuller than I thought.

Reconnecting with old friends and catching up properly has filled up so much more space in my heart. It’s made me realize that having deep, personal relationships with family and friends, is one of the most important and beautiful aspects of our human existence.

So this year, I’m making it a priority to do better and show up for the people I care about. Whether that means planning a coffee date once a month or scheduling an uninterrupted video call every couple of months with long distance friends. I want to be more intentional about holding onto the people I care about.

cramming instead of understanding

For most of medical school, my default study method was… panic.

I would procrastinate, tell myself I still had time, then suddenly find myself cramming everything into my brain a few hours before the exam. Sometimes, it worked.

But the problem is, passing is not the same as understanding. One day, your gap in knowledge will catch up with you and you’ll wish you had spent more time actually understanding the topic.

Medicine is not a subject you can truly brute-force with short term memory. Everything builds on top of everything else. When your foundation is shaky, everything that comes after will feel ten times harder.

And this was one of the biggest mistakes I made in medical school because it is a problem I do struggle with even after I’ve graduated and passed all my board exams.

So, if I could start over, I would study earlier, slower, and with the intention of actually understanding the topic instead of just striving to pass the exam.

I hope this helps some of you avoid the mistakes I made while I was still in medical school.

medical students and graduates: what are some of the biggest mistakes you made in medical school?

Until next time,

Emily