The STATMed Podcast STATMed Learning

Conversations About ADHD in Med School Part 1 Lectures in med school: you know they're essential. You know what's discussed will be on the exam. And, vitally, it may be something you need to save a life one day. But, if you're struggling, it might seem impossible to actually learn during lecture — especially if you're also navigating medical school with ADHD. 

In this new podcast miniseries, Conversations About ADHD in Med School, host Ryan Orwig and Mike, a former STATMed student, discuss the various ways learning in med school is complicated by ADHD. In this episode, they dig into the potential difficulties of learning in lecture. They discuss issues with impulsivity, distractibility, and inattention, as well as strategies to mitigate them.

"You feel guilty because you just wasted a whole day. You know you're going to have to get the information somehow, and you know how hard it is to catch up. You're tired because you've been fighting to pay attention for six or eight hours. You're angry and exhausted because everyone else just spent the same hours you did, but now they get to dinner, they get to go out and hang out with their friends. But you're trying to catch up and finish that eight hours. And you're not even close." - Dr. Mike 

“One of the lesser-known issues that the average person might not immediately associate with ADHD, working memory is the aspect of your memory that everything has to pass through on the way in and pass through on the way out. You can think of it as a workbench — or a chalkboard. There’s limited room, and that space will fill up. When more information comes in, it pushes out the old stuff.” -Ryan Orwig 

In episode two of our podcast miniseries, Conversations About ADHD in med school, host Ryan Orwig returns with Mike, a former STATMed class participant, to discuss issues with working memory and how this can impact med students with ADHD.

“I didn’t even know it [working memory] was a thing. You just kind of compensate through your life. You use sticky notes or write things down, or find ways to compensate without really knowing what working memory is, that it’s a problem, or that it can cause problems.” — Dr. Mike

Conversations About ADHD in Med School: Part 3In episode three of our podcast miniseries, Conversations About ADHD in Med School, host Ryan Orwig returns with Mike, a former STATMed class participant. They dig into how issues with executive function can negatively affect students with ADHD. During this conversation, they discuss what they term "executive dysfunction." Ryan and Mike also share strategies med students can use to mitigate these issues. 
"I think executive function issues are probably the widest and biggest of all the ADHD issues. With being a first-year student, even getting tasks completed, getting papers done, getting notes mapped out, and getting the lectures done [is extremely difficult]. Because your brain is always running and you always want to be focused on something else when you really have to stop and focus on one thing for an extended amount of time is probably the most difficult time. Trying to finish up whatever thing you're working on at that time because your brain always wants to skip to the next thing." Dr. Mike 

Conversations About ADHD in Med School: Part 4It's happened to the best of us. You've got a laundry list of things to do, but before getting started, you sit down for a second and glance at your phone. Then, suddenly, it's 3 hours later, you're hungry, you're confused, and you've inadvertently memorized three TikTok dances. (Maybe that last part is just us…) But, the point is, your day got away from you. When this happens occasionally, it's not that big of a deal. However, if you keep finding yourself 3-hours later and very little to show for it, you may have a problem. Issues with time management and ADHD can go hand-in-hand, and the strategies you've used previously may not be cutting it anymore. In the fourth episode of our podcast miniseries, Conversations About ADHD in Med School, host Ryan Orwig returns with Mike, a former STATMed class participant. They share how issues with time management and ADHD can derail medical students as they study or take boards. During this conversation, they share specific strategies med students can use to overcome these issues. "I think time management is probably one of the biggest problems [with having ADHD in med school]. You're fighting against time. You've got a set amount of hours between one test to the next. And so, you know you have a set amount of work that has to be put in, in that set amount of time. But that's the fight against time because your ADHD is making you want to do other things. So, when you should be studying, you're looking at your phone, watching videos, and doing anything else besides studying. And it's a constant fight against time that you're wasting and losing." - Dr. Mike 

Uncommon Pathways Episode 1Although the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, that’s not always the path that a career in medicine follows. Host Ryan Orwig speaks with STATMed alumni who share their uncommon pathways to their dream careers in our newest podcast miniseries. In this episode, Ryan and JT, an orthopedic surgeon, discuss challenges he faced in his journey to becoming a surgeon. JT recounts the issues he faced when struggling with boards. He also digs into the hurdles his relatively low scores caused when trying to get into a super competitive orthopedic surgery residency. "When I found out what my Step 1 score was, I was freaking out. And so, of course, I would ask people, it's like, man, you know, is this even worth it? Is this even worth doing? Should I just try something different altogether? And you know, almost universally, people told me, and this is what I tell people now, your step score shouldn't completely define you or dictate what you do. And so if this is something that you really, really want to do, and you know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, you should just go for it, and you should make every effort to make yourself a good applicant, despite the fact that you may not have the best test scores." - Dr. JT

 Uncommon Pathways Episode 2Host Ryan Orwig speaks with STATMed alumni who share their uncommon pathways to their dream careers in this podcast miniseries. In the first episode, Ryan and JT, a surgeon, discussed the challenges low boards scores could cause when pursuing a competitive field like orthopedic surgery. 

In this episode, Ryan is back with JT, an orthopedic surgeon, who shares how the STATMed Doctor Study Skills Course changed the way he prepared for exams. Here, JT shares the biggest takeaways from his quest to learn how to study more effectively. From the importance of frameworking to transforming his study sessions with retrieval practice and managing workflow while studying, JT shares his top three lessons learned.

How To Study Effectively In Med School and For Boards

"I would say the overarching thing was that I was very passive in how I would study. So that meant just reading or rereading material that I had read a thousand times over and just thinking, okay, well, maybe it'll stick this time. Or if I just keep reading this, it'll get imprinted into my subconscious. I realized it's not good because it's not intentional. And so what the study skills scores taught me was that you have to intentionally engage in the material, and the way you do that is by testing and retesting. So, instead of just reading through a passage, article, or review book, I had to framework this out. Like, I would have a blank, and it would be "name these three things associated with this fracture pattern." And instead of just rereading them, I would have to say, okay, I actually have to recall what these three things are." - Dr. JT