Quick answer: No. There is absolutely no point in trying to prep during your fourth-year for residency. I’m sure most of you have caught on that months after learning a bunch of material, you quickly forget it given the new coursework. From what I have been told, you will learn what you need to know by doing in residency. All those years of medical school served as a nice foundation for you to draw upon. As you progress throughout medical school, you realize that learning something becomes easier the second, third, fourth, etc time you see it. You don’t have to pour over the books to understand things anymore because it’s there somewhere, but it’s vague.
Residency requires so much of you that you will have to learn on your feet! My word of advice is to make the most of your fourth-year. Take electives in things you’ll probably never do again. Take vacations. It’s fourth-year, you deserve to have some time off. I recently took a trip to Iceland, and it was amazing. I highly recommend a trip to Iceland at some point in your life. It’s beautiful. It feels incredible to not have to worry about patients or patient care. I did not do a SINGLE bit of medical reading on my trip.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: medicine requires a lot. Don’t let it consume your life. Have fun. Be a human!
Read more about Wasiq’s journey through med school.
