This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

[lms9787]

Hello,
I am so excited to have found this site! I can't wait to talk to other people in this position. Let me start by saying thank you to everyone on here I can't imagine how many people you have helped by sharing your stories.

My boyfriend of 6.5 years is currently an MS1. I know I have a long road ahead of me. I'm concerned that he isnt handling the stress well... in fact i'm frankly concerned that he is going to have a break down. I need some advise. I like 30 mins away but I could live here if he wanted me to. How should I go about managing my time with him. I feel like if I let him decide when he does and doesnt want to see me its not really a healthy relationship. How do you get through the times when he needs to study every holiday or every important event that you used to share together. It's hard and in all honesty any guidance would be wonderful. You name the issue with med school I have it and there is so much more to come...

[Meenah]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

Welcome. It is great that you found this site so early in the training process. There are many here with similar stories and support. The east coast numbers are growing!!!!! I'm about 30 minutes from Philly in the Princeton area.

[ladymoreta]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

Hi!

You've definitely come to the right place! I'm sorry your boyfriend is having a hard time. It kind of hits them at different times. My husband didn't really freak out until he started studying for Step 1. It lasted a couple of months, and he got back to normal after that. Did your boyfriend struggle in college, or maybe this is the first time he's been this challenged? Doctor training really does (eventually) teach them to handle their stress, so just be patient with him for awhile.

That said, don't let him treat you poorly in the meantime. Just because his classes are tough doesn't give him the right to take it out on you! You will probably have to do more of the date planning, but he should still show you that he loves and respects you. Plan things pretty far in advance, so he can arrange his studying around them.

Post often - we are looking forward to hearing from you!

[Momo]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

:hey:

Welcome and stick around!!

[SuzySunshine]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

[GreyhoundsRUs]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

Welcome! Glad you found us!

[lms9787]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

Thanks for all of your welcomes! Thanks for the advise ladymoreta. This is probably the first time he has been challenged. He breezed through his Chem degree and then worked at a pharmacutical company for a year - which he claims was boring and unchallenging as well. I guess it just takes a lot of getting used to. Our life has definetly been turned upside down. Life revolves around med school!

[lastdefence]

Re: This is wonderful! Wish I found it sooner!!

Hi there, and welcome - I just joined a few days before you and I share your relief in having these great people to talk with!

Your post made me realize how fortunate I am that my dude studied his particular way in MS1 and 2. Like your boyfriend, he was never really challenged before now, but his way of studying is very focused and efficient. I think it's just the way his brain works, he's a very fast reader and worker. We approach studying totally differently, while I will stay up all night to get something done if I have to, he sets a time limit and goes to bed, takes a break, closes the books.

I think you have an opportunity to help your boyfriend here (and your relationship, too!). Obviously we are dealing with different schools, but I don't think there's any way that he is going to get *more* free time in the future, by which I mean, he has to understand that he has a lot more free time now than he will in MS3/4. Now is a really good time for him to adjust his studying so that he won't be in a bigger panic later on. (I have heard from lots of people that the first and third years are the hardest though, because you are adjusting to everything and you have yet to learn how to manage it all).

I know that everyone learns differently, and maybe your boyfriend's study method is similar to my own in that it takes time. But I'm sure he could learn to be more efficient/prioritize so that it takes a little less time. It's just my opinion but I feel like he could be setting aside some free weekend/holiday time with you, especially at the beginning of a new unit. How many units has he done so far - have his marks been good? His school probably offers different seminars on things like time management, sleep strategies, or maybe even how to speed up his reading. If you can convince him to maybe try some different approaches to studying, maybe he'll find one that results in the same retention and quality of studying but takes a little less time.

Anyway, I wish you luck and I hope I have been able to say anything helpful to you. In the end it is difficult because your experience is different than mine, the program is different, he is different, and everyone just tries to find something that works for them. If you get the feeling from him that he is genuinely trying his hardest and all of this studying is necessary, I guess all you can really do is hope that there's a unit coming that is easier or clicks with him better, or that he gets faster at studying and doesn't feel the stress as much. The thing that would really frustrate me would be if I felt he was wasting his time and then having to cram all the studying in on the weekend or whatnot.

Since the start of this semester my husband and I have had way less time together than we used to, and one of our simple solutions when we don't have much time in the evening is to just watch half a movie and then finish it some other night. Not the most exciting thing in the world but if we didn't do that, we just wouldn't have time for movies!