The Biggest Mistake I Made as a Medical Student — and How It Can Help YOU Become a More Productive Learner!
It took me a while to realise this mistake, but once I did, I became a genuinely productive learner!
My mistake: always wanting to be prepared
I always wanted to be prepared before being exposed to unknown territory.
Before starting my clinical years, where going to the hospital wasn’t an expectation, I wanted to read a couple of ECG books before shadowing a cardiology registrar and looking at real ECGs together. Likewise, I wanted to thoroughly study the cardiovascular examination before attempting one myself. And since these were tall mountains to climb, I did those things only a few times until my medical school “forced” me to go to the hospital.
I did less of what I wanted to do because “I wasn’t ready yet”.
Why I used to make that mistake
My fear of being perceived as incompetent by others got me closer to actually becoming incompetent.
The fear of being judged by the consultant, who asked me a question in a clinic that I didn’t know how to answer, or the medical registrar, to whom I said that I didn’t know anything about how to manage hyperkalaemia, made my experience particularly uncomfortable in my mind; something I wanted to avoid deeply. I always wanted to be ready and answer all the questions correctly. Subconsciously, showing off and being praised by others was more important to me than learning and growing.
Don’t let the fear of being perceived as someone you dislike get you closer to becoming that someone.
Why it’s important to share this mistake with you
Having worked for three years as a doctor, I now see bright medical students with fantastic potential making the same mistake I did.
I see them opting to do things they are already comfortable doing instead of proactively seeking to get out of their comfort zone. I can see the tendency to escape when things become difficult and go to the library to study instead — I mean, this was me a few years ago! And I see other doctors of my level sharing the same advice with medical students.
This is a mistake that most of us make, and it’s based on a timeless fear of being judged negatively.
Why should you listen to me?
Apart from having gone through six years of medical school and another three years of working as a doctor, I have invested more than a thousand hours teaching and learning how to become a better teacher.
For the past nine years, I’ve been gathering knowledge which can help you become a more productive learner. Here’s what you need to know and what you need to do:
What you need to know
- Learning is the goal
This is the only metric that matters: your learning. Everything else is vanity metrics. Don’t compare yourself to others, only to your past self.
Professional runners look forward when they run; those who look sideways to see where their competitors are, do not finish first.
2. Effective learning takes place outside of your comfort zone (specifically, in your Zone of Proximal Development)
This is the unfamiliar realm where the more you invest, the quicker you progress. Spending time there can be uncomfortable, as you often try new things. Use this discomfort to guide you in finding your Zone of Proximal Development.
3. You prime your mind to learning if you puzzle over a problem BEFORE being shown a solution (The Principle of Generation)
This is how you naturally learn.
When faced with a problem, you draw on your creative resources and prior knowledge to generate a solution. You puzzle over a problem without being restricted by biases you’d have if you’d already been taught about a solution. And this problematisation you go through trying to solve the problem might also generate something unique and valuable for humanity.
Generation is a powerful learning principle that you can leverage to take your learning to the next level; it makes the mind receptive to new learning (priming).
Unsuccessful attempts to solve a problem encourage deep processing of the answer when it is later supplied, creating fertile ground for its encoding, in a way that simply reading the answer cannot. — P. Brown, H. Roediger III, M. McDaniel; Make It Stick
4. “Perfect is the enemy of the good”.
This aphorism is explained numerically by the Pareto principle (the “80/20” rule — that 20% of the causes result in 80% of the outcomes).
Apart from not letting you utilise the principle of generation, perfection is a barrier you’ll frequently face in your life. Having the humility to admit that it’s impossible to know everything will allow you to accept that it’s ok not to know things; in fact, it is the fertile soil upon which you will grow.
You go out of your way to learn, not to prove yourself to others.
5. Be careful about whose opinion you value
Being unprepared in a learning environment will help you find people that matter.
The opinion of the person who embarrassed you in front of the whole team because you didn’t know something should be ignored without a second thought. Trying to connect with them is a waste of your time. In contrast, the person who commended you for pursuing knowledge outside your comfort zone is someone whose opinion is more valuable to you.
The pursuit of learning will help you find those who will help you grow.
6. As a medical student, you don’t take responsibility.
You don’t make decisions for the patients, so you don’t have to take liability.
While being a medical student, the hospital is generally a safe environment to practice. However, there may be instances where a student’s lack of knowledge could potentially harm a patient, such as when taking an arterial blood gas sample. In these situations, it is important to have a supervisor present to guide and oversee the procedure. In the worst-case scenario, the supervisor can take over while the student observes.
But in most cases, the only risk you have is opportunity risk (i.e. not being there and learning).
What you need to do
- Get out of your comfort zone (go to the hospital ASAP). Don’t wait to “be ready”. Get the exposure you need now and use it to guide your learning.
- Be mindful of the uncommon instances where lack of knowledge could harm a patient; have someone supervise you.
- Be humble and optimistic. Learning is the goal, and learning requires two basic mindsets:
- that we generally don’t know things (”I know that I know nothing” — Socrates)
- that we can learn new things, adapt, and grow (growth mindset)
Together, we learn better. So, I look forward to reading your thoughts!
My name is Ioannis, and I am a medical doctor working in the NHS. I’m passionate about learning and teaching, and I enjoy helping people invest in themselves: their health and knowledge.
If you liked this article and want to continue learning with me, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Have a great day!
