Lessons from my First Year of Medical School

Some of these will be more serious, others are very tongue-in-cheek.

1. It's okay to abide by the P=M.D. mentality (pass=M.D.) when first starting out or even for your entire medical school career.*
2. It's also okay to push yourself to achieve that Honors if that's what you want. Just don't let it stress you out and turn you into a gunner.**
3. Be confident and proud of where you are. You were chosen for a reason, own it.
4. With #3 being said, don't let your achievements and experience get to your head. You do still need to be humble.
5. The phrase "high-yield" will become a part of your daily vernacular.
6. The medical field has purposely tried to over-complicate things by creating new words for simple things like bruises and nose bleeds.
7. Every space, line, ridge, and bump in the human body has a name that you will have to learn in anatomy.
8. Your white coat and medical school I.D. can open many doors for you. You no longer have to beg doctors to let you shadow them.
• Subpoint: people outside of the medical field will mistake you for a doctor if you're wearing the socially accepted uniform of scrubs and white coat 
9. Your professors are great people and will do almost anything to help you succeed.
10. Your undergrad degree, if useful at all for medicine, sorry liberal arts majors, will probably only help you in certain classes for 1 lecture at best. . . the material is much more in-depth now.
11. You will encounter people who are really high-strung and stressful to you, don't feel like you have to associate with them. Choose to surround yourself with people that will encourage you and help you.
12. Don't feel like you have to follow the advice of the upperclassmen or even your classmates. If their study methods don't work for you, don't use them.
13. It's okay if you slip up in your grades a bit. There's a learning-curve and a big transition from undergrad to medical school. What's important is that you adapt and persevere. Also see #1.
14. Some people in your class will know 100% what they want to do when they grow up. It's awesome if you are one of those people. It's also completely fine if you're not.
15. Try to get along with your anatomy tankmates if you don't already. It'll make the 2-3 hours dissections that much more bearable.
16. Wash your anatomy scrubs at the end of every week. If you don't keep up with it, they will stink forever.
17. Try to desensitize yourself to your cadaver somewhat, especially when doing crazy things like cutting the body in half.
18. With #17 being said, do occasionally remember that your cadaver was a person with a life and a family who graciously donated their bodies for your education.
19. Don't worry about Step 1 just yet. Some of your classmates will talk about reading First Aid, but don't worry about them. Focus on completing your first year first.
20. Some members of your class will want to party and drink every weekend. If that's you, great, but don't forget about why you're here. If that's not you, don't feel like you have to become that person. Do the things that you love during your free time, because free time will be hard to come by.
21. Figure out what are the things you need in your life to keep you sane. Medical school is demanding and you're going to have to prioritize things in order to keep doing them.
22. You can get sucked into studying all day, every day. Don't feel like you have to to keep up with the work. It's important to still feel like a human being. See #21.
23. Keep up with your friends who aren't in medical school. You'll need to have some conversations that aren't about the brachial plexus and drug interactions.
24. Don't get upset if your friends and family who aren't in medicine don't think it's cool that you held and dissected a heart in anatomy lab. Everyone has their own criteria for what they consider cool.
25. Stay connected with the events that are going on in the world. There are things going on out there besides the Circle of Willis.
26. Never before has not having anything to do ever been so glorious
27. You might start freaking out now about rotations, Step, and match, but don't! You'll get there in your own time and when you do you will conquer them head on.

* My school still follows a Marginal Pass to Honor grading system. This won't fully apply to you if your school is on a Pass/Fail system.
**Gunner: a person who tends to sabotage peers in order to get ahead