Dr. Tracye Lawyer: Hello everybody and welcome to the Med Mentor podcast. This is Dr. Lawyer. I’m a really good episode for you today. This is episode 3 and… So I am sitting here with Chris. Hi, Chris. How are you? Doing well. Good. I’m doing great. It’s a good Friday morning. So I’m going to start out…
Chris: With some good questions, this is going to be a really awesome episode. Chris has a lot of good tips and pearls for audience. And so we’ll kind of get right into it and we’ll start with the… First question, what year are you in medical school? I’m a third year. Third year. Okay. So now we’re getting real here. So tell me, how is it going with third year? I’m really… I’m enjoying it. You know, it’s a lot. It’s a really steep learning curve this year because it’s a first year clinicals, but it’s been so much fun. I’ve had great preceptors. Nice. And so for the audience… Most of the people that are listening are either like first, second year medical students or they’re pre-medical, whether they’re young in high school or whether they’re in college. Or taking a break and thinking about medical school. So tell everybody kind of what is third year look like now.
Chris: Yeah, third year is our first year of clinicals. So we… Kind of rotate around in different specialties. We do four weeks in each and they’re kind of the core required specialties for us. Family med, pediatrics, internal medicine, general… surgery. And yeah, we just kind of bounce around and try to learn as much as we can in those four weeks. Nice.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so it’s completely different than the second year like in class.
Chris: We still have like an hour or two of didactics. They call it every week. And so we… just sit on an online meeting and before in general surgery. There’s the general surgeon from our school. You know, giving us a little lecture or having us present cases from what we’ve seen. But that’s really it. That’s all the classroom time. And usually, you know, if it is a surgical rotation, I am right next to the operating room doing it. Nice. And then hopping back into the operating. Perfect. Yeah. So it’s like the fun year. Like for me, third year was… it’s just so different. Like it’s like you’re actually… interacting with patients and using the stuff that you learned in the first two years. And you’re actually like not in a classroom. It’s not boring. And you’ve kind of gone through your first maybe boards as well. There’s kind of a deep breath. And then you’re kind of like, okay, I’m in it now. This is kind of why I wanted to be a doctor.
Chris: Sort of. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So as far as the rotation is… go like, I know they’re kind of set rotations. Do you get to pick any of those rotations? So say if it is like a surgical rotation, you get to pick… or are you doing general surgery? Yeah. So there is a set amount of freedom that we have in our third year. It’s not as much as we get in our fourth year. But we do get a general surgery subspecialty where we can pick what we want to do for four weeks. I just came off a four week in our surgery rotation. Nice. And it was amazing. But if… you know, students don’t want to be scrubbed in on our feet all day, every single day of the week, they can do like an anesthesia rotation or a dermatology rotation to fill that surgical subspecialty.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And you also get an internal medicine subspecialty. I’m doing a hematology oncology one coming up. Nice. And you can do anything, you know, the world is your oyster for internal medicine. You can do like cardiology.
Chris: Gastroenterology, all that sort of thing. That’s great. We also have an elective block and I’m doing an orthopedic surgery rotation for that one. Nice. And we also do get a four week vacation. Block which I’m on right now. Okay. Perfect. And so what are you doing for your vacation block? Is it just kind of hanging out? Are you studying? Are you doing research? Or what are you doing there? Yeah, right now. It’s winter and I’m a skier. So I’m in between some ski trips right now. Yeah. But still doing things to build my resume like this interview. And right now… It’s the start of our spring semester. So we are starting to apply for audition rotations. So still being productive, but give myself a little bit of a break. Nice. Perfect.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then what are you thinking about going into? Orthopedic surgery. Orthopedic surgery. And so is that what you thought of when you were a first year or is…
Chris: that developed or do you have a background where you’ve been working with orthopedic surgeons or how has that worked for you? No, yeah. So I started my first semester.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And I really had no clue. I thought I’d go into pediatrics. I shot out of pediatrician before I went to med school and I loved it. I loved hanging out with kids. And then our first semester we were in the anatomy lab in our hands dirty and I was like, this is fun. This is cool. And I did really well in anatomy. I understood it.
Chris: I was like, well maybe. Like what about surgery? And so that seed was just kind of planted right there and it just kept growing. And I just kept… thinking about it and got involved with some research pretty early on in medical school. And yeah, it just kind of hung out in the back of my mind. It’s like something that would be really cool to do.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And it hasn’t been like my number one I’ve had other things that I would be that I can see myself happy doing. Yeah. Like emergency medicine. I like the adrenaline rush.
Chris: Saving lives. I like that idea. So it hasn’t been like the only thing but pretty early on it was what I set my sights high on.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then you’re in your pre-medical journey. Like, did you take time off? Did you kind of go straight through? Where did you go undergrad? And kind of your process. And then you went into a kid in medical school that you picked? Oh yeah. I went to undergrad at Gonzaga University, Hopkins Spokane, and I majored in biology and minored in Spanish. So I was definitely on a pre-med track. I decided that pretty early is that that’s what I wanted to do. And so I got all my prerequisites in and actually really enjoyed the courses. Like Barney. And also like having the arts side of studying studying Spanish. And so then once I graduated, I had taken the MCAT in between my junior. And then I was like, oh, you’re in senior year. That’s just a box you have to check. Yeah. Did you take a course for that? Or did you just kind of just based off your courses? You’re like normal.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And we were wanting to have a lot of fun. So it was hard making myself sit down and study for it when I didn’t have anything else to do. And had a bunch of friends wanting to go have a good time. So I would definitely say that something I would have changed is go somewhere that people are expecting me to be there to study for the MCAT. But I still did fine. And then I was happy with my squire. I didn’t want to retake it. And so then once I had that and then my senior year was really just finishing up my prerequisites and enjoying.
Chris: I have family up in North Idaho and in Spokane. So that was kind of close enough to home where I could travel back whenever I needed to and be close to family. Nice. And do you have any family members that are doctors or physicians or anything? I do, but I’m in the first generation of it. Both my parents are health care. My mom’s a nurse. She just retired. She had a 40 year career nursing. Wow. I’m a dad’s a physical therapist. So always around kind of like the healing process. Which was very influential in my decision. And then my older brother is a year doctor in Salt Lake City. And my brother in law actually went to the medical school. I’m at right now. Oh, okay. He’s in residency right now. Oh, sweet. So you got a whole crew. Nice. That’s very nice. And then tell me about how you went about like. Yeah. So I grew up in Boise and there happens to be a new D.O. school in Boise called the Idaho College of Bosto Path.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And when I was starting my application process for medical school, my brother in law was a student there icon. And I definitely
Chris: applied very broadly. I applied MD and D.O. I felt like I had a well-rounded application. So I was looking forward to hearing back from kind of both sides of that. I applied in the spring of 2023 for a spot in the fall of 24. That’s just how the application cycle works. It takes a long time. For you to get your secondaries in and to do interviews and then finally get accepted. And by then it’s months after you’ve submitted your applications. That’s good to know. Because I don’t think people will. I don’t think people will realize that. It’s not like normal school where you just apply and then you just kind of get in and you find out in a couple weeks or months. It takes a while. Yeah, it’s a process.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So I applied on day one when applications opened. And a week later I get a call from ICOM and they’re like, hey, we have a spot we can open up for you this fall.
Chris: I would be able to have my family supporting me going through this. My wife now is my girlfriend at the time. She had just moved to Boise. She’s a nurse.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So she was starting a new career path here. And so I just felt really supported in my decision and starting that early.
Chris: Yeah. I’m really glad I did. Yeah. Because the support system was invaluable and it still is. That’s awesome. That’s really good. It sounds like everything kind of aligned nicely. Yeah.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then kind of going. Going back to that rotation. So do you do all your rotations like in this area or do you have to go to different states to do your rotations?
Chris: Yeah. So I can speak for. My school and I’m pretty sure it’s quite similar at many other D.O. schools around the country, but not quite as similar as most of the M.D. schools.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So big picture. A lot of D.O. schools are more rural focused. And so that means they’re not in a big city with.
Chris: All of the specialties and a ton of doctors and all those specialties to take and teach all the medical students.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So for that, we only had a certain amount of seats. And so I was lucky enough to get a spot here, but not everybody was. So we have students in California doing a third year rotation.
Chris: We have students in Utah, students in North and South Dakota kind of spread out for our third year.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And that was really something.
Chris: I didn’t know and I don’t think a lot of people knew going into medical schools that they would have to move during their third year. Yeah. I think that’s a big one. I mean, I did an M.D. and to be honest, I didn’t know much about D.O. when I was going through my applications and everything.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so everything was, and I went to Ohio State, but everything was in Columbus. So we just did all the rotations within Columbus.
Chris: I didn’t have to move anywhere. And so a lot of the kids are students that I met.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And I would just say the kids were already in the neighborhood. And they were like, oh, they didn’t know what they were trying to do. And then they were like, oh, wow, that’s different.
Chris: Like I did it in a different state.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so, but I think that’s something to think about for folks that are like.
Chris: looking at medical schools to see like if you’re like fine traveling for third year or maybe you do have a family or something like that is that gonna be more difficult so I think that’s that’s good to know what would you say when people ask you like do versus MD like how do you approach that yeah when I was applying I had no preference I wanted to go to medical school yeah and it was nice to have you know my brother who’s an MD he went to the University of Utah
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and then my brother-in-law
Chris: he’s the D.O. from ICOM so yeah I had both and they’re both doctors and I was like great I don’t care where I go I just want to go to medical school yeah now having gone through the process and the majority of our osteopathic training it was a lot it was really hard because we had to you know we started day one learning these osteopathic treatments which is to explain it to people who may not be familiar with it or for pre meds it’s kind of a mix between some physical therapy like hands-on therapy and chiropractor work joint popping yeah and there’s a lot to learn in both those fields absolutely we’re learning every single week on top of anatomy on top of all of our systems courses we had to take tests on it where we had to memorize you know every single step and the like bony structures that we’re working with but it really like I think it gave me a
Chris: really good advantage learning you know like hands-on anatomy like finding bony landmarks incredibly important for surgeons to be able to do it and being able to just like manipulate the body without hurting the patient it’s also a really important skill that we build pretty early on oh that’s that’s great and then so do you use that in your third year or how does that and a lot that is learned in the first and second so is that still incorporated in your third year yeah it is a little bit it’s much less time intensive now but it is focused on like treating real patients and so we have to find we have to have that conversation with our preceptor and hey you know this is a requirement for my school right now would you be okay if I did some hands-on OMM skills treatments with patients
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and usually you know we don’t go for the really sick patients sure sure if you
Chris: know they’re complaining of a headache you know and everything serious is ruled out it’s like okay let’s see if they have any like trigger points up here that we can like manipulate a little bit and then we have to you know write up a little presentation and present to the attending yeah okay nice well very cool and then tell me kind of because you’re probably getting close to the end of so you’re kind of middle probably yeah just starting the spring semester okay perfect tell me like like how is the transition from the classroom years and the third year like how’s that felt like is it more anxiety less anxiety is it like you’re like man this is fantastic or like I’m scared like I’m nervous you know like how is that transition been for you yeah as far as like anxiety levels go it’s probably about the same okay but it’s different yeah because you’re not taking
Chris: you know a handful of tests every couple weeks like you are it’s second year you’re only taking one test every four weeks your shelf exams are third year so it’s not so much test taking anxiety it’s for me at least it was learning hands-on skills like this in front of other people watching yes yes which is a completely different source of anxiety absolutely absolutely that’s definitely there yeah absolutely that’s great okay so if you can describe third year and three words or maybe less what would what would they be yeah it is challenging it’s unexpected
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and a lot of personal growth yeah I think that’s great that’s awesome so
Chris: we’re gonna kind of do a little kind of segment where we’re gonna look at kind of like your advice for pre meds whether they’re in high school whether they’re in college whether people people might be changing careers or anything kind of discuss what your major was you kind of did the biology and the minor in Spanish was a minor in Spanish a kind of a like just a fun thing or were you thinking about doing something with that or I took four years of Spanish in high school yeah and the teacher that I had for the majority of that she was like don’t waste this yeah and I really took that to heart I was like I know like you know five or two ten years if I’m able to speak Spanish well I’ll be so thankful oh yeah especially going into health care and so that’s kind of why I decided to do it I just really enjoyed studying it because it’s so much different studying
Chris: Spanish than like biology and biochemistry and equations yep just to help round out my education like that
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and yeah being able to use it in health care is invaluable nice and did you go
Chris: straight through as far as undergrad to medical school did you take a break I know you’ve got married kind of in somewhere in there so was there a break was there honeymoon or anything like that’s that two different things there I took one year off and between undergrad and medical school I did some outdoor guiding I was a white water guide and rock climbing guide and so like literally I slept one of the stars more than like more often than not I was in a house and I never touched a laptop or a computer for three months good and it was amazing yeah it was such a good reset and reminded me that I do want to go into more schooling yeah and not do that forever I had so much fun and I’m so glad I did it but I didn’t do something like that forever well that’s good you tried though I mean I tell people it’s nice to have the experience or some kind of experience
Chris: before going in medical school because it is a long road for you yeah for sure and it taught me a lot of like really unique skills yeah stress management when you’re like going through a huge rapid and you have like a boat full of five-year-olds you’re like okay we’re gonna do this no screaming we got it that’s awesome and then tell me about when because there’s a lot of people that probably thinking about getting married or how did how did you guys kind of fit that all into everything yeah so my partner my wife she is amazing and she is a planning goddess perfect and she loves to get everything organized and I told her you know it once we had the conversation that we were ready to do this it was in my second year just about a year ago and I’m like okay yeah we need to get married we’re doing this and I told her I was very clear I was like I’m not gonna have a lot of bandwidth
Chris: to help plan this thing yep and it there is a lot of planning yes goes into it absolutely a lot and she was totally fine I get take it over I was like great I will show up I’ll show up with my guys and we’ll be wearing suits and it’ll be great that’s how you make your wife there you go
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and yeah it was it was during a bit of a busy time it was my fall semester and
Chris: third year was in between internal medicine and general surgery rotation oh wow so there was a lot going on mm-hmm if I were to do it again I would have maybe scheduled a little bit of a vacation there sure but a didn’t yeah it was just fine mm-hmm I was able to still do well in my rotations
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and also be you know fully present for all the family that was coming into town
Chris: be present for the whole thing nice I know it’s it’s you know life happens while you’re in medical school and you’re gonna miss stuff and then there’s stuff that you just have to take the time to that prioritize the next big one for you guys would be your children right like how are you gonna plan those and where you know the specialty you go into so that’s super super important so
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: what habits or skills you think predict predict success in medical school like
Chris: beyond grades and MCAT scores yeah I thought about something pretty creative with this one I think if you’ve had success with something completely outside of school that you had to like teach yourself hmm for example like sports or like music if you are like good at something that is not related to school at all I think that predicts success in medical school quite a bit because you have to teach yourself
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: how to do medical school and it’s not like undergrad yep yeah that’s so good
Chris: yeah it’s a lot of it is independent right and then obviously the motivation is gonna be independent have your supportive students and friends and whatnot but it’s really you it’s all about you I remember when I was going through them through training before doing a track before I went to medical school but I knew like my heart wasn’t into the tracks I’ve been it for so long and then I got some injuries and then I knew like I’m ready for medical school like I was like mentally like prepared to get back into studying and whatnot and I think that’s what the breaks help you do like you for a year mine was a little bit longer but still I was just like you know and it’s all you like there’s nobody you know there’s people around you that are trying to succeed as well but yeah you got to have that motivation I think that’s great for that and then what’s one thing you wish you had done before starting medical
Chris: school I know you did kind of the outdoor stuff is there anything else that you wish you would have done not really like things unrelated to school I wish I would have shadowed a little bit more okay especially like in the operating room because I never considered myself like I’m gonna go be a surgeon yeah
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and I think just getting more or or time getting comfortable in that environment
Chris: would have helped me a lot for my third-year general surgery rotation yeah yeah
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and you guys get
Chris: hot right before like how to scrub like they kind of give you like yeah like the 101 that you know don’t touch this yeah but yeah it’s kind of nice when you when you’ve gone in there early on but it’s hard to find I will like I try to have students come in and shadow me but they can’t shadow me at some of the beer hospital systems they can and are like own like physician kind of owned hospitals so that’s the hard part but I do agree that shadowing is is really really important and then what do you think maybe for you as a pre-med and maybe pre-meds now what do they tend to overestimate maybe underestimate about medical school I think they overestimate like the time like you know it is like a fully encompassing thing that you have to do but like you can you still have a schedule and you still get some time off yeah it’s not like you’re going 24 hours a day seven days a week mm-hmm you do get
Chris: some time for yourself and so I think one thing maybe underestimating about it or something I didn’t really think about was like the emotional difficulty of it because there’s just so much stress yeah and people are like always there’s eyes on you making sure you’re doing like you’re supposed to be doing yeah just as draining yeah it’s draining yeah no I yeah I give you have all these like I guess I don’t know if it’s things you have to live up to like each month and whatnot and like and I was gonna ask you kind of on the previous tell me about the shelf exams because I think that’s different from maybe some of the second years that are you know they’re taking the boards are coming into the third year I think that’s a little bit different yeah I do have a great understanding of what the shelf exams were yeah my third year and it’s for you take a test called the shelf exam or for Dios it’s the COMAT exam that you
Chris: take at the end of all of your core required rotations like family medicine and medicine pediatric’s general surgery women’s health and psychiatry and all those may take it at the end of your four week rotation
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and it’s a two and a half hour exam with 120 questions it’s kind of a beast it’s
Chris: not an easy exam yeah and you get a score it’s not just a pass fail
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and so the hard thing about that is is preparing for it because you’re with
Chris: your preceptor 40 plus hours a week and then you have to study for the shelf exam outside yeah so that’s kind of like the gigantic’s a little bit just having to balance that do all the clinical stuff and and whatnot and then another big question I know that a lot of second years have is tell us about rounding like what is what is rounding
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: what is rounding mean in a surgical specialty and what is rounding more and
Chris: kind of a medicine type specialty yeah so for medicine it’s you kind of you show up and you’re assigned like one maybe two patients it’s pretty it was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be you show up you show up early and you do your pre-rounding which is really just chart review looking at their vitals overnight looking at what labs they had drawn overnight making sure you don’t need to go see them or tell the attending that they need to go see them right now and how early are you waking up to do this stuff free like yeah so that one for internal medicine the residents we worked expected us to be in the hospital by six or six thirty in the morning and I live in Boise and I did that rotation in Caldwell and so the 35 minute drive yep and so I was up really every day and then for for the rest of the day you know once you get like
Chris: your sheet written down of like your patient’s vitals and you go check in on them you go here physical exam ask them how their night was and then you can spend it as much time as you want with them because you and the other medical students are going doing the same thing on the floor the residents seeing their patients
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and then you all reconvene like
Chris: an hour or so later and so there’s really like I never felt time constrained yeah okay much thanks which was not something I expected to feel yeah and then you like go back up wherever you’re working and you compile your thoughts you write down what you got in physical exam and then once everybody has that done you do your presentations to the resident or the attending and they’ll give you some feedback sometimes they’ll do the actual rounding where you go outside the patient’s room and do the rounding most of the time we just did it in like the resident’s office and just sat down
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and just kind of go into the list of patients that you guys have mmm nice and
Chris: then after that you know it was after all the feet back and after all the medical students did their presentations and we had it was like 11 in the morning maybe so it took a lot of the morning to do that and you know if there was a sick patient you go see them again or if there wasn’t you go get lunch and so like the rounding if you needed to go see your patient again you would time that’s what the rounding entailed a lot of kind of sitting and pondering yeah yes exactly it’s a good way to put it I’m very good way to put it and then what about surgical for surgery you do all that before 7 30 in the morning
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and then you go to surgery at 7 30 and if you need to go see a patient you do
Chris: that after your surgery case before the next one mm-hmm so it’s a lot more you feel the time can straight quite a bit more on the surgery rotation yeah and a lot of times for me like the surgeon I worked with wasn’t expecting me to go individually round on the patients it was you know sometimes they would just like tell me to go get a snack and they would go see the patient or they would just be like come with me just like watch what I’m doing mm-hmm so it was pretty low stress from the medical student perspective but it was still it was quite busy it was a lot busier than the sedentary yeah absolutely and then I guess you know the concern is okay so are you given
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: what you’re supposed to be telling your attend
Chris: like in the matter are you giving him the whole thing because you can’t go through a whole history and physical with it because you don’t have enough time oh you’re not for surgeons yes you’re giving them you get in exact ten seconds great perfect yeah I think that’s the big thing is it’s literally like like how are they doing what is it are they stable
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and they not stable do they need to go to surgery it’s very to the point yeah
Chris: versus medicine is a little bit you spend ten minutes on a present exactly yeah that’s super important well good I think that’s really really helpful for first
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and second years mainly for second years just knowing okay this is what I’m
Chris: gonna expect and as far as first year kind of going back so coming and you know from undergrad or break coming in your first year medical school it’s kind of getting hit with a big just with a big whacked with a big 27 credits master exactly and pretty much what steady strategies strategies worked best for you during that first year I first and foremost is always analyze your study skills always try to make them a little bit better a little bit more efficient so you can fit more in your day because there’s never enough hours in the day your first year yeah that’s really good so I was a I was a tutor my second year so I like I tutor all the first years throughout all the systems course courses are really like I hammered in the study strategies I’m like this is what I broke it down into is like step one is grouping and it’s figuring out what you
Chris: have to learn like what you just saw in the lecture all the different categories of things you have to learn and you have to learn what you’re going to learn before you learn it because it’s just so complicated yeah a million things and so you have to group it into you know I’m in a study you know this part of what I learned for the next hour and then next hour you go in and do like the space repetition flashcards and get the details in my analogy to this is like when you’re building a house you got to build the framework first you got to build the structure first
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and then put in the details and put the paintings on the wall oh that’s nice yeah
Chris: it’s like the grouping is the big structure a lot of details there’s the big picture ideas
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and then going in and hammering in the details now that’s really good that’s
Chris: super helpful how did you become a tutor your second year then it’s like it was technically you know a job I had on campus that I had for an interview for oh that’s really cool yeah one of the other students that I interviewed on here he’s a tutor so that’s kind of a cool thing helpful resource I don’t know if all schools do that but that’s really great it was you know as solid of a resource as it was for the first years that I tutored like it was amazing or me yeah I was studying for my board site here yeah oh my goodness that’s awesome
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and what’s the biggest mistake you see first years make early on
Chris: not keeping track of time when they’re studying and just going straight to the details because you can spend two hours studying like the branches of the subclavian artery yep and then realizing I haven’t even started looking at the break it looks and then your mind is blowing and then it’s yeah I mean you’re tired staying goodness that’s funny are you a more early morning or a more late night kind of a studier I don’t know it’s hard both are hard for me yeah both are hard yeah absolutely yeah I found that I was like I started doing the late night thing and then I would like it’s so tired and fall asleep on my books and then I would get up at like 4 a.m. and then I realized I was the morning person so I would just do that I just seemed like I had a spark so yeah I definitely I lean towards that early morning but yeah you I mean you just have to grind it out till 10 p.m. every once in a while yep
Chris: absolutely later yeah absolutely what advice would you give first years who feel like they’re behind they’re overwhelmed this is too much they’re maybe burning out or how would you go back I think the first thing is that everybody feels that as a point or another I think that’s very normal very common
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and the biggest thing you just got to like get back to the basics don’t get
Chris: sleep deprived make sure you’re sleeping like 70 hours every single night don’t work on an empty stomach you will not remember what you’re studying if you’re hungry yeah it’s true and then stay appropriately caffeinated not too much and then just limit distractions and get back to the basics of studying like I said grouping and then spaced repetition yeah that’s really really helpful and then if you had to redo first year which I’m sure you don’t want to but what would you do I’ve been thinking about this question for a couple days and I don’t think I would really do anything different yeah I was happy with you know how I studied
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: how I performed I
Chris: enjoyed my first year as busy as it was just cuz you learned so much yeah and I think it set me set myself up for second year doing really well
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: so the only thing I would change was if I had more hours in the day I would be
Chris: more involved with like clubs and that sort of thing on campus oh nice okay and what kind of clubs do you guys have or what sort of things you had we have a lot at iCom the community iCom is great actually we have like exercise clubs I started a bike club years ago really cool and so we can like organize non-bike rides or city rides together the fitness club does like lunchtime workouts together that’s cool but then there’s also all the academic clubs there’s the card cardiology club there’s the orthopedic surgery club there’s the neuro surgery club there’s the pediatrics club there’s something you can do to kind of get your mind you know there’s always a Chris speaker on campus doing something cool and there’s always a suture clinic going on that’s really nice oh that’s very very cool well good and then as we go into second year the big thing is the boards and tell tell the audience how how do you study
Chris: that or what was the approach was it similar to the first year was it completely different it’s a little bit different and I would say don’t worry about it your fall semester at all starting the spring because you take it in May or June or year end of your second year yeah which is yeah plenty of time to study for it you also have to focus on your systems courses in the spring semester too because that is board studying when you’re studying for those yeah you still have to do well in those courses but my study plan once I started spring semester was I would give myself you know like a weekly goal and honestly I didn’t even give myself that weekly goal our school made us do a set amount of questions every single week is a quiz nice and so I’d really just use that as my like my weekly studying for boards we’re going through the assistance course
Chris: is still and so that was really like it was easily attainable and like one or two evenings of studying a week okay
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and because any more than that like you just get busy and you won’t be able to
Chris: do that and also if you just have a super busy week or if it’s a test week
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and you just don’t have time to study like give yourself a little bit of grace
Chris: yeah and because you will have plenty more time to study nice nice and as far as study strategies strategies for you did you were you like a flashcard where you would take notes where you kind of a little bit of everything like what worked for you what worked for me is I just did practice questions yeah I used the school provided resources I didn’t buy like three different big test banks I just use the one that they provided which was plenty and then did it like two or three times yeah yeah it had everything we needed yeah I remember I figured out that practice questions that’s how I retained stuff and then how I became a little bit better test taker
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and we would get like old old exams from you know maybe like five years before and I would just be just going through it then the question repeat yeah because then
Chris: the questions we repeat that I didn’t realize and then there were some questions that were like on the five-year ones that were on mine I was like oh yes this is like I’ve seen this before one of the strategies for doing practice questions that I use was I would you answer the question of the best my ability and then go through and review it right great but I would still look at it and I would look at the other answer choices and I was like what would have to change in the question to make the other answers right yeah
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and so I basically made five questions out of one yeah that’s that’s awesome yeah
Chris: you kind of almost have to be the person who’s giving the test and then we need that you understand that kind of thought process so yeah I think that’s super super helpful and so when you’re a second year you take your boards and then you kind of have right that summer off before you go into your third year you do something during that time or you know it’s like two months or something or do you do research you take some time off what did you do and what do you think is helpful maybe for second years to do yeah okay
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So yeah, just like plan some time off, you know, if you are interested in a more competitive
Chris: specialty research is a great thing to do over that time. But I think… Don’t do it, take the hours a week. Just like give yourself a break.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So I think your third year is going to come at you like freight train.
Chris: Yup, absolutely.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then how important do you think clinical…
Chris: It’s all the clinical knowledge. Yeah. Like if you can do a great physical exam and present it like that…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: Is your skill set that you should have third year?
Chris: That’s really good. That’s awesome. They’re not going to ask you all these random pathology questions. Yeah. Yeah. That is very true. Very true. Sweet.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then we kind of talked about once you kind of get into your third year, we kind of talk about
Chris: the rounding and kind of what the rotations, how that works.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then what do you… What do you think that they care about?
Chris: I think the most important thing is how you take feedback. If you can sit there and maintain eye contact while they’re… They’re telling you what you need to do better. Yeah. You did this wrong. I think you’re like, yes. Really important. Because you just got to have humility as a third year. You got to know that… This is your first time doing this thing. Yeah.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And even if you feel like the attending is being a little bit rough, they’re coming from a place
Chris: where they want you to learn. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And that’s…
Chris: …
Chris: I see you.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And it was like the rest.
Chris: It was like the attending and the fellow and then the residents and the medical students.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then it was like the nurses and the social worker. And it was like this…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: What’s the most important thing that’s in the future?
Chris: That’s what you’re understanding. It’s like that you’re thinking about, you’re thinking about, you’re thinking about, you’re thinking about, you’re thinking about what you’re thinking about. It’s like, you’re like… You’re like, you’re like, I’m like, you’re like a little bit weird.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then you kind of figure out, I usually tell people, like, talk to your attending or preceptor before and say, what is it that you like? How have you like to be presented to?
Chris: Or what… Yeah for residency now, these are going to be looking at this, not only my boards, how
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: do you tell students to stand out without being kind of annoying, I guess?
Chris: I have like two simple things to say here and just show up eager on day one, no matter what specialty or anything. I recognize I have a lot to learn and I’m excited. Yeah. And I think just that positivity goes a long way. Yeah. And then that, you know, go home and like read about cases, whatever, show that you’re…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then on your fourth week, you should really be demonstrating that you have
Chris: worn some things. If you’re in a surgery, like show that you’ve worn a suture a little bit better.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And if you’re on medicine show that you can nail your presentations without looking at
Chris: your paper. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the two big things that I have. Yeah. That’s great. And yeah, when I was going through third year, I… I knew I wanted to do surgery. And so we actually had an opportunity to rotate through. I think our general surgery, we actually could have picked something. So I never did general surgery. I did neurosurgery, orthopedics, plastic surgery, and vascular surgery. It was kind of like my general surgery. So we got to… Yeah. I was just really lucky in that. In my… I got to pick mine, which was really nice. But I remember I was just horrible in surgery at knot tying and doing just and not only instruments, but with… With my hands. And so I would… And so one of the residents said, hey, just, you know, grab some kind of suture. And then every day, just tie it on like your pants.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And then just tie. Just do it all day and do one hand and ties and two hand and ties. And it was just so funny when I was done with medical school, all of my like scrubs and my
Chris: jeans had all these little ties.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And I was just hilarious. But it was just something that I knew I had to work on. I knew
Chris: I wanted to be a surgeon. I knew it was super super important. And I just did it. Now when I look back at it, like when I’m in surgery, I just do it with, you know, it’s just like eating food, right? I just kind of tie it. It’s so cool watching you guys just like throw a knot out. Yeah. What a deal. Yeah. But I think it goes back to taking that feedback, you know, just being like, hey, you’re not very good at this, but here are the steps to make it happen. And then just work on that.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so, but it was just so funny. I was like, bro, don’t you come to my pants. That’s so
Chris: funny. And then I don’t know if you had thought you’ve made any mistakes on rotation.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: Or felt that you made a big mistake. Or how do you like bounce back from that?
Chris: Bouncing back. Yeah. I also have a good story about a mistake that I did make. Okay. Okay. Bouncing back. It’s something easy because you’re just going to have bad days. Yeah. And my strategy was, you know, as soon as I got home, I would put on my running shoes and my headphones and crank up the music and go exercise. Perfect. And then come home, make a good meal for dinner and then go to bed. Yeah. Not steady. Just go to bed. Yeah. That’s pretty good. Yeah. I think that big thing is just resetting because I think you can go down and rabbit hole if you’re just like, oh my god, this is, they’re gonna think I’m this and then it’s going to be hard to come back the next day. So I think we all make mistakes.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And we are humans and then even at the stage that I’m at eight years in.
Chris: Practice. We make mistakes and I think you have to give yourself a little bit of grace on knowing you’re human, but just coming back and being like, okay, I mean, they’re gonna make it better or I’m going to learn from this and then keep. moving forward because it’s going to happen throughout your whole career. Yeah. So but I think that’s good. Like I do the same thing. I love running and I just go and like, you know, I’m just gonna go work out, get a. Good sweat. Just kind of release everything. And I think you have to find that outlet in order to just kind of to reset. So I think that’s super, super great.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so for you, how has third year helps you better understand what you want and don’t want a specialty? I know you talk about worth PEDIX. Was there maybe another specialty that you realized?
Chris: Like kind of cheetering on or what do you think? Yeah. It’s helped a little bit, but I still haven’t seen, you know, everything out there. One thing I didn’t really understand about third year or expect is that you have to apply for your audition rotations, you know, at the start of your spring semester.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And at that point, you only seen five different specialties. Yeah. And I did not see emergency
Chris: medicine or orthopedic surgery before. You know, right now. Yeah. I was in neurosurgery, which gave me a lot of good inspiration. But you kind of have to make this big decision without a whole lot of experience.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so that’s kind of something that wasn’t talked a whole lot about. But the things that I have seen
Chris: in all this. I think it leaves open a lot of options for whatever you go into. You have options as a physician to kind of build your practice.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So you can go work for a big hospital system. You can work for a private practice. You can
Chris: see a lot more patients and make more money or you can have a little bit more time off. You can work with a bunch of other people who work in the same specialty as you or you can kind of be a lone wolf out there. Like you can really make no matter what specialty you go into, you can kind of make it tweak it.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: How do you want to? Right. Yeah. Which has been pretty valuable to learn.
Chris: Yeah. I think the first part you said is really important because you are expected to make these decisions and you haven’t. I also think that that’s where it comes into maybe shadowing or maybe I knew that I wanted to go into orthopedics. It was kind of between orthopedics and neurosurge.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And I would go, I didn’t see a lot of the orthopedics. I did see the neurosurgery quite a bit. But then
Chris: I would go to the orthopedics. I would go to the orthopedic conferences like their little conferences and just kind of just kind of sit there and be like, hey, is it okay? And then that’s how I realized I really was gravitating more towards.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So that’s another thing. If you just haven’t seen a specialty, maybe ask to go see some of the
Chris: conferences that they do or kind of just peek in and maybe say, oh, okay. Maybe I don’t like this at all or maybe I do. But I don’t think people realize that you do have to make decisions and stuff that you just quite know about it. 100%. So that’s just something to be prepared for. And then, yeah, we talked about handling feedback. That was amazing. And then I guess how do…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: lifestyle, personality, values, plan to your decision making in regards to choosing a specialty?
Chris: Kind of touched on this a little bit. Yeah, I think, you know, certain specialties definitely attract certain personalities. You know, the people that go into orthopedic surgery are just going to be a little bit different than the people that go into psychiatry. Yep, absolutely. And that being said, they can still… you know, they both like to do the same things outside of clinic, but they operate very different ways. And so, yeah, I think that’s a truth that a lot of people recognize.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And so, for me, I don’t know, I just, like I said earlier, I like seeing the results of my work. And I really loved anatomy.
Chris: Yeah. So, I’m like, it’s surgery. Yeah. Yep, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, and that’s what…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: when you look at surgery, like I think you really have to have an appreciation in a lot of…
Chris: respect for the anatomy of the human body. Even like, if I go into a surgery and maybe I haven’t done that particular surgery in a way… while I’m literally going back to my basics all the way back to anatomy and looking at maybe dissections and maybe saying, oh, okay, that nerve is there. I know I need to miss that. So, I think you always come full circle back to anatomy. And I think that’s super, super important. But yeah, as much as… so, if you really like anatomy, I think that that’s like… like that’s to me… like a clue. Like you probably should go into surgery, but most people who hate it usually go into medicine. That’s kind of how I look at it. Yeah, there is. That’s how the anatomy and the anatomy of the body. Yeah, I know. And then what do you think? What is medical school taught you about yourself so far, do you think? Yeah, that’s a good question. And so…
Chris: I really like seeing the results of my work. If I got like a really good dissection in anatomy, I was like, that was awesome. Perfect, yeah. Like getting the inner ear bones. You have to like get the chisel just right to like pop the bone off. And I got it. I was like, like not everybody got it. Yeah. People just like plowed right through them. And… I finally got it. I like ran right over to the professor. I was like, I got it. I got it. Come look. Excitement. I love it. And so another thing is that I hold myself accountable for my… learning and personal growth. That’s super important. Like nobody else is going to tell you to study for that test. Yeah. Nobody else is going to tell you to do the work on the weekend.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So that’s really important. And then another thing I was just thinking about is,
Chris: I don’t want to take the work of healing for granted because we’re going into a super cool field where we… are touching a lot of patients’ lives. And it’s pretty easy for it to beat you down and just be work
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: when we’re healing and doing amazing things. Yeah. Yeah. I…
Chris: That’s so… That’s such a good point. A lot of people say, oh, you’re a surgeon. That’s all you want to do. It’s just cut on people. And I say, you know what, there’s a lot… There’s a lot of people that I tell them that… Hey, you don’t need surgery. I can probably make you worse than you are. And you’re doing fantastic right now. Sometimes you just have to let the body do its things. The body is so… amazing and miraculous. And that’s what I kind of noticed in medical school, like the healing process of the body and what we can do to help. But sometimes we can do to harm. And so I think… that as a surgeon you have to recognize that and be like not surgery happy but just be like… allow the body to do… You want to make it better but also allow the body to do what it’s…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: supposed to do. So I think that’s super important. And then what’s been your hardest moment in medical school?
Chris: General surgery rotation. No questions. No brainer. I just had a really tough time pressing my preceptor. And I just… you know, it was my first time in the OR. Like day one. Monday morning. First time being in the operating room. I was scrubbed in driving the scope on a lap.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And he was like, move here. Zoom in.
Chris: Zoom out. Move here. No. You’re way too close. No far. Back up. And I was like, well, that’s how it’s gonna go. This is… here we go. Here we go. Take a deep breath. Yeah, that is… oh man, I’m sorry. Yeah, that’s totally true. I think some surgery is special. I try to… when people come into my room, I try to make it very fun. We have like music going.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And you know, I try to. But you know, I’ve been in those moments too where I’m like, oh my gosh, I just want to leave this room right now.
Chris: That’s just like so strong.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: And you’re like, you know, you’re scrubbed in. You’re sterile. This is all new. You’re feeling claustrophobic. And you got to give the surgeon the view he wants. Yep. Yep. And that’s super super.
Chris: hard because that takes actually years to figure out what this is. Well, let’s talk a little bit about mentorship. I think mentorship is super important. Have you had…
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: like great mentor? Has it been maybe your family or your brothers or your parents? Has it been a teacher? Like who’s been most influential in your journey?
Chris: Yeah. I think right now with wanting to go into orthopedic surgery, it’s been the neurosurgeon I just rotated with. Nice. I had an amazing rotation with him. You know, we started at December 15th, which is the end of the calendar year. So everybody’s met their deductibles and everybody wants surgery. Yep. The first… three days I had with him were all OR days and we operated from 7 30 in the morning till 7 p.m. At night. That’s a good day. Well, hard. And he was just so calm and professional and nice. That’s us. Whole time. And his PA was amazing. His private… scrub tech, the ad in every single case was amazing. It definitely helped that I had my general surgery rotation before so I was comfortable in the OR. Yep. But those days were… super long. Yeah. And at the end of them, I was just still so excited about this. That’s cool. I saw the coolest stuff today. Like you won’t believe what I…
Chris: Yeah. That’s crazy. When you get a really good experience, it’s just amazing how much that exhilarates you. And it makes the bad experiences like, well, I mean, that was one time or maybe that person was having a bad day or… made me feel this way. When you have those really good days and you’re around people who love what they do, I think that really fuels you. Yeah. And a… I think part of what inspired me so much about him was that he was such a good surgeon, but he never talked about how good he was. Perfect. I love it. It was so humble and he’d be like suturing the dura and telling funny stories about residency. I’m like, dude, this looks like the hardest thing a human can do. Ever. And you’re just goofing around. I love that. I love that. I love that. Yeah. And you can tell like he’s worked years on that and he can do it and make people feel…
Chris: comfortable around him like that. That is a sign of a fantastic surgeon, a fantastic human being.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: That’s really, really good. Well, that’s awesome. What do you have? Advice for students that are maybe trying to find a mentor or maybe like, what would you say to them?
Chris: I think getting involved. With the clubs as a medical student is really important because they have Chris speakers come on
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: and just get talking to them. Talk to people who you may want to be.
Chris: In the future. They’re just people and they went through what we’re going through right now. Same thing what I’m doing right now. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. That’s awesome.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: Why?
Chris: We have our little rapid fire questions. So we just have a couple and then we’ll conclude.
Dr. Tracye Lawyer: So first one, one piece of advice you’d give every pre-med.
Chris: Try to like get good at something, like commit to something outside of school. It gives you like a unique skill that’s something you can talk about in an interview and maybe connect with somebody about. That’s a good one. One habit every first year student should build early. Study efficiently, not just all the time. Nice. One thing second year students need before board. A study plan and scheduled breaks. Yep. I mean like those scheduled breaks. One mindset. That makes 30 easier. That you are a beginner and everybody knows it. It’s okay. It’s okay and you’re always learning and you’re even learning when you get in practice. So it’s fine. You have no money. money you survival love it I get two paychecks a year one each semester that is fantastic yes and then when you go to residency you still you get paid but still I’m so excited for that result yes yeah but not enough but yes that is
Chris: absolutely fantastic well Chris is there anything else that you would want or anything this has been so good just enjoy the process yeah don’t feed into the negativity yeah yeah I love it well thank you so much for being on this this is gonna be so valuable for so many students yeah cool be alright thank you thank you
