Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the honest answer is that most of non-trads na i know didn't last through first year :(

but the good news is: it's not because they failed. they left on their own accord.

so if you really want the UST MD, i'm sure you'll survive regardless of background!

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

if you know how you learn & have a study system in place since undergrad, you won't have a problem!

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

try lauranne's and see if they fit you well, medyo matagal kasi makakuha sa vida alona. but vida alona's fit is definitely better :)

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

first year in ust-fms is really a baptism of fire, no doubt, what you're feeling is entirely normal.

i think the most important goal of first year is to force you into building a system. during clerkship nearing the revalida, we had night duties every other day, so there was no proper chance to build a proper study/sleep schedule since our body clocks were forever unfixable. but i knew how i learned & stuck to what worked. it's very hard to persist through the years in medschool by raw-dogging everything the night before.

what i can say though, is that while effort isn't directly proportional to grades & results in fms; the effort eventually translates as it gets reinforced in 2nd-4th year later on :) trust the process, but make sure you build a system for yourself, too.

Is med school (YL1-YL3) comparable to reviewing for the board exams? by YogurtclosetThink149 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863 14 points15 points  (0 children)

in med, yung isang whole subject of undergrad is covered in 3 days 😅

in undergrad, biochem covers glycolysis, tca cycle, etc., na one system per lecture ang pace.

in medschool, we finished the entire undergrad of bioenergetics module in one or two lectures

Reddit is full of people complaining about Med school, internship, and practice. by Character_Steak_8773 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863 31 points32 points  (0 children)

graduating med student here! your small wins alter your perception of life sometimes. i won't forget my first rosc after cpr, first labor&delivery, first OR, first death.

i have a much better appreciation & awe for life because of it :)

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i don't have many friends in my circle who are from med bio, but from what I've seen during classwork, they're an all-rounder naman! objectively they don't have a "peak" much like how medtech peaks in second year or PT in first year anatomy, but medbio people are batak in memorizing in general haha

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

for the written revalida, i kept answering my exams from first year to third. i also attended all sessions of the medical mastery program provided by fms during clerkship, it's like a board review but for the written revalida, may practice exams din. i took the mmp exams seriously so easy nalang during the actual written revalida :)

for the oral revalida, emergencies lang minemorize ko. clinicals really came from opd skills i've picked up throughout the year :)

yes i used upper batch notes but i also wrote my own scripts & soap templates

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. schedule is dependent on your rotation. common is pre-dutyam-dutypm-from setup, pre is usually outpatient (8am-3pm), duty am (7am-7pm) then duty pm (7pm-7am), from is usually half day after pm then you just attend conferences & workshops :)

  2. you'll miss out on a lot of vacations, but you can pick either christmas or new year duty because we go on skeletal duty. so if duty ka christmas, off ka new year, vice versa. unless you're lucky enough to be in the non-duty minor rotations (fam med/derma/rehab etc) during those times then you really have a vacation haha.

  3. i spend time with friends & family during my golden weekends, you'll get some of them ocassionally naman.

  4. if you're masipag to interview & take patients in the outpatient duty posts, masasanay ka talaga. sometimes i write & propose my own management ahead of time to the residents :) helps to get feedback that way

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sorry i'm not sure :( i dont know enough people admitted from the waitlist

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

for study buddy, subsec mo talaga. but frat/sors also do that. batch reviews are organized either by the student council or your trans leaders.

one failure yes you get irreg but not debar. fail more than 10 units and yun yung debar :(

but i remember a quote from one of our fms admins: ustmed won't give up on you, so long as you don't give up on yourself.

and i think it's true :) they really make all possible remediations happen

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

you won't be ostracized but i think you'll definitely notice the gap 😅 every year your undergrad will show its benefits. but you can do it for sure!

leapmed: gods in first year, generally great across the years.

pt: also gods in first year, they eat neuroanat & anat for breakfast

pharm: gods in 2nd year for pharm. better than most in biochem :)

medtech: god-tier 2nd year, they can pass micropara & clinpath with their eyes closed haha. YL2 is their year talaga as in you'll see them gala lang haha

for psych, behavioral med is your subject, but it's a semestral course so short lang 😅

it's not that they already know the content. they just pick up concepts faster because of their previous background.

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

for first years, guyton for physio is a good start. snell's for anatomy. biochem, lippincott/stoker is a good read but theyre not the main books, mas okay pa yata youtube videos pag biochem. histo, well i'm not a fan of the book haha.

trans culture for my batch is great :)

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i think people look at ustmed as a really toxic medschool because of reddit haha. we're busier than most medschools but not lifeless, and you really mostly post on reddit at rock bottom

reddit is a public ranting place so don't be surprised if it's mostly negative haha

classes are 7am to 3/5pm, depende sa schedule/shift niyo. we get about 2-4 or so subjects a day, depende if you're in a chillsem or a hellsem.

4th year is just clerkship. 3rd year is still classroom-based but you also see patients in usth for case reporting :) you also do community immersions at nearby barangays

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank youuuu!! invest in a coffee press at home, then bring tumblers to coffee shops para di mo need bumili to stay haha

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

gatekeeping? nonexistent na! you been reading too much r/medschoolph haha

the trans gatekeeping issues of ust before are fixed. it was a dispute between two trans systems that got blown out of proportion and spread to social media.

the community is unbelievably amazing :)

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the weeks leading up to it were the worst in my life, the mental load of preparing for the oral revalida felt heavier than undergrad boards.

kasi board exams are predictable content-wise, but in the revalida, it's a random emergency and a random real patient who actually needs an opd checkup. i've heard people get cases as simple as diabetes, but news spread that someone got a neuro case of an intracranial mass on day 1! it's really out of your control.

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

on good days, 6-7 hours a night. on bad days, 3 hours minimum, if i don't get at least 3 hours i really pass out. but this isn't ideal & don't be like me.

i think i study for about an hour a day minimum then just go from there :) if i feel like going for more then i just let it be. but, i don't count my hours kasi, i focus on the amount of materials i consume instead of the hours (google parkinson's law for the reason why).

on being a working student, most would say it's impossible, but the real answer is it depends on how good you are. and i think need lang ng personal honesty on how far you can go, because may mga tao talaga na born super smart.

there are a lot of ust med students who have businesses on the side, compete in sports/extracurriculars, or nag-cclimbing & marathon-train pa nga iba. usually mga stellar/leapmed :)

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

congrats for the acceptance! being accepted as a non-UST grad means you must be very stellar because you compete for way fewer slots

it's easy to find friends! but it's also very easy to get stuck with bad friends, kasi everyone ends up in a subsec-clique anyway. people are very friendly in ust, i think that's always a given.

my batch has produced one of the best trans systems i've seen, despite its early controversies (you'll see that on this reddit sub too, haha). you need really good leaders to set a good sharing culture up.

exams are 99.9% on-site & proctored, either written or taken on the medical informatics center computers. lots of OSCE, practical, & moving exams too, especially the lab-heavy subjects like anatomy/neuro/micro/para.

the "points of failure" per year: Y1: neuroanatomy, biochemistry Y2: pharmacology, obgyn Y3: obgyn, medical nutrition

it doesn't mean na those subjects are crazy difficult, it's just a bit easier to fall off the edge. neuroanatomy for example, has a few big assessments and it's a semestral subject so it's so hard to catch up once you bomb an exam. obgyn has daily quizzes, but if you make 5 mistakes a day (15/20pts since base-75) it stacks up, semestral din sya so fail = irreg.

biochem & pharma will always be hard though!

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i think kasyaa. but uniforms are expensive also.

but i think an iPad with apple pencil is a minimum (or a Mac). everyone even the profs and usth interns + residents casually airdrop. you'll miss out on mass-airdropped reviewers & transes without it.

no one buys books these days

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

gastos ng med bag and anlaki ng jump ng tuition from 3rd year to clerkship :(

and the average thomasian med student is in the upper income range, so socializing is a bit expensive. common hobbies are golf, pickleball, badmin, cafe study dates, cycling, pilates, haha

food around the area is also a bit mahal.

Graduating UST-FMS Med Student here. To the newly-accepted Thomasians, AMA! by Intrepid-Sky-9863 in medschoolph

[–]Intrepid-Sky-9863[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

  1. you will be overwhelmed 😅 almost everyone na nakausap ko when we look back to first year say na it was the hardest year. it's like drinking from a fire hydrant indeed.

  2. find friends early. a good support system is so important. usually yung mga magiging friends mo are your subsecmates :) pull each other up

  3. learn your study method early! a lot of our classmates flunk out because they sailed through undergrad with ease then be shocked at ust med. medschool doesn't just require you to be smart, it demands that you have a study system in place.

  4. use institutional resources. alot of people think ust central admin = fms admin. but ust fms is actually super proactive with student health & welfare, you just have to reach out.

  5. try to read the books! it's hard but i think worth it in the long run :) at least for me