‘HOW TO CRUSH MEDICAL SCHOOL’
By- Trishtha Agarwal
I found this book while going through some of the medical study gram pages on Instagram and I came across this page by Dr. Gareth Jones called itsmedicalway. There something really attractive about his account, it was so full of motivation and tips for medical school that I found very intriguing and looked deeper. That is when I found this eBook written and composed by him called “HOW TO CRUSH MEDICAL SCHOOL”. The tittle does sound very mundane and not promising but as it is said don’t judge a book by its cover.
As medical students we all know how vast our fields is and we have innumerable amount of syndromes/ clinical conditions / drugs to memorize and all this is not possible by just studying as the proportion of material to the time we have ratio is somewhere around 50:1. Dr.Gareth went through failure inspite of working day and night , that is when he searched to improve his style of technique and discovered 21 study techniques to crush medical school. He firstly describes how to learn and what an ideal learner should possess, he describes how after entering medical school or even after finishing a master degree we fail to develop the fundamental skills of learning. Then he goes about describing strategies to survive medical school based on his own experiences and what’s most remarkable about this his experiences are so relatable that you tend to connect with him and his book. I am someone who is a visual learner and I have a hard time understanding by just reading the text, till I am not able to visualize it’s hard to remember and it’s not the same for everyone as each individual has a different way of comprehending, Dr. Gareth taking that into consideration has described and the different types of learning styles we tend to possess and strategies for each of those. What is really commendable about this book is everything is explained from the root and how accurately and precisely he has broken down each aspect of medical school and concepts and devised strategies which are not at all difficult to adapt, only thing which is required from our side is motivation to follow. He also talks about how time management and discipline is very important in a profession like medicine.
As a medical student I struggle with maintaining a balance between studying and maintaining a social life and I believe most of the other medical students also do. We tend to believe that studying all day is the key to success and sacrificing friends, family etc.
This book is a guide to the path we want to lead to, it’s not a solution to our obstacles but a guide to how to deal with them in a more sophisticated way and lead a happy life at the same time.
Lastly I would like to quote 2 lines from the book
Forget the old saying that you can’t excel in medical school and have a social life at the same time. You can!
It’s time to study smarter, save countless hours, crush your exams, – Trishtha Agarwal
