any medical students here?

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snowolf17

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i'll be applying to med school next years and was just wondering if there are any med students on this forum who train while in med school, if so how often do you find your able to train? i'd love to continue training through med school but if i can't i won't, priorities and such, i think BJJ will help me keep my sanity through med school if im able to work it in.
 
Hillary Williams is a med student, blackbelt and world champion. The black belt and world champ came before the white coat though. Might wanna check her out on Facebook and such.
 
i train with an ER surgeon, i dont know what type of doctor he technically is, i dont wanna be rude and ask him "hey what kinda crazy stuff u see" but he deals with life and death stuff because i heard him yelling at someone on the phone in the dressing room...he was giving out orders to people super quick like "he needs 500ccs of type a blood now!!"

i was kinda eavesdropping, but i wasnt trying to, and i was just thinking like "holy shit this guy standing next to me is crazy!"

anyways i went off on a tangent there but the point i was trying to make is that if that guy can train then u will be fine
 
Hillary... she hasn't posted in a while, cause she's also in med school. Just search for her and she could probably help ya out.
 
There's a few med students on here - maybe more than you'd expect, really.

I'm a 4th-year med student right now (actually have to leave to go work overnight in the Emergency Department shortly haha), but I will say that there is definitely time to train. The first 2 years you will probably have more time to train because it is mostly studying and that comes down to how well you manage your time. The last 2 years it's definitely harder because you have clinical responsibilities where you have to be at certain places and certain times, and then get your studying done on your own free time. First 2 years I probably trained an average of 2-3x/week (and probably could've trained more if I was super dedicated, not going to lie). The last 2 years my training has entirely depended on my current rotation. On surgery, I think I rolled once the entire 6 weeks. Other rotations are more 9-5 and you can get on the mats 4-5x/week if you wanted.

Cliff notes - definitely time to train, but almost assuredly not as much as you'd like.

Good luck getting into school, keep the faith.
 
I know someone who was a year away from being a surgeon and he went ahead and fought MMA. Really crazy that he risked his entire career for it, one hand injury and it could have been all over.
 
There are three med students at my gym, and they all come in two or three times a week, unless they're really swamped with homework and such which doesn't seem to be the case. They show up more often than not by a long shot.
 
Pretty sure Hillary said she's retiring so she can finish up school.
 
snowolf17 said:
i'll be applying to med school next years and was just wondering if there are any med students on this forum who train while in med school, if so how often do you find your able to train? i'd love to continue training through med school but if i can't i won't, priorities and such, i think BJJ will help me keep my sanity through med school if im able to work it in.
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I am a fourth year medical student.

In a typical 4 year medical school education, the first two years are didactics and minimal clinical introduction, and the last two years are heavy in clinical experience in the form of 1-2 month rotations (at least for the core ones - IM, surgery, peds, OBGYN, family med, psychiatry, neurology, EM, rads).

How much time you have to train in the first two years depends on your goals and your medical school. If you have no desire to become junior Alpha Omega Alpha (med school honors society), and if your school has lax attendance requirements (most do), then you can train alot. My med school does not really require attendance for first two years' lectures, so I was training about 4-5 nights a week and competing every 3-4 months. Sometimes I doubled up on training sessions in a given day lol.

In the clinical years, you have rotations like Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynecology, which will kick your ass. You will generally have crappy hours, i.e. 5 am to 7pm, and will most likely have zero time to train. On rotations like Internal Medicine or Peds, the hours can run long enough that they cut into training time or make you horribly late to practice.

I lucked out and got sites with relatively easy hours and was able to train 2-3 times per week on average. Surgery I trained 2 times per week, OBGYN i was doing around 3. This is not typical roflmao.

During 4th year, I have been able to do 4 times a week. Depending on what you want to do, your results may vary. Obviously someone going into CT Surgery is going to have rough senior electives, vs. someone going into Radiology or Derm or Psych.

Alot of it also has to do with time management, I really don't watch much TV, didn't really socialize with my class, and so on.

But it's certainly doable, and a big part of it is finding a medical school that is compatible with your interests, even those outside of medicine. There's a guy who is graduating with me who is going into Anesthesiology, and he worked as a part time air traffic controller at a nearby airport all 4 years of med school (obviously had to cut back on hours during clinicals, but still crazy achievement).
 
i am working as a psychiatric nurse and psychiatrist that I working with are in week end from friday noon to monday morning (except 1 who is on guard).
that plenty of time to train
 
snowolf17 said:
i'll be applying to med school next years and was just wondering if there are any med students on this forum who train while in med school
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When possible, try to keep some of your hobbies through medical school, helps keep you sane. Some rotations and times will be busier than others. I kept playing chess and weight lifting through med school and am glad I did.

Unfortunately I wasn't grappling at that time yet though, other than a very brief no-gi period where we didn't really have an instructor and didn't really learn all that much...started BJJ after residency/fellowship, maybe could have been a black belt by now if I'd started years back haha...currently going 3x/week as a practicing physician and loving it. You just have to be efficient with things and make time for things that are important to you. Church, family life, hobbies...it's a bit of a juggling act but it's worth it and makes you more refreshed for work which (I find) helps me be more task oriented at work and more efficient.

So anyway yes, keep doing BJJ if you find it rewarding.
 
I am also planning on applying for med school.

And just a note: Hillary did not retire from BJJ to finish school, she retired from competition. She still trains whenever she has time.
 
L0L said:
I am also planning on applying for med school.

And just a note: Hillary did not retire from BJJ to finish school, she retired from competition. She still trains whenever she has time.
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I figured most people would realize that.
 
Im a medical student at the last year and I train 4-5/week... Usually 20-22 because I usually finish at 19 in the uni.
When there is exam time I usually tran 1-2/week
 
applying next year too.. I dont expect to have much spare time to train :(

But a question for the doctors or doctors to be:

Im nervous about the injuries that comes with BJJ and how it will affect my doctor duties, think its going to be a problem for you / is it ?
 
gullis187 said:
applying next year too.. I dont expect to have much spare time to train :(

But a question for the doctors or doctors to be:

Im nervous about the injuries that comes with BJJ and how it will affect my doctor duties, think its going to be a problem for you / is it ?
Click to expand...

I didn't have any significant injuries in medical school.

I'm going into psychiatry, so I don't imagine most common injuries, even the more severe ones (i.e. fractures, ligament tears, etc) would significantly impair me in clinical responsibilities. I would assume the same for specialities like radiology, pathology, dermatology, anesthesiology, family medicine, etc. However, this obviously isn't the case with surgery, OBGYN, EM, etc.
 
gullis187 said:
applying next year too.. I dont expect to have much spare time to train :(

But a question for the doctors or doctors to be:

Im nervous about the injuries that comes with BJJ and how it will affect my doctor duties, think its going to be a problem for you / is it ?
Click to expand...

I am going to compete in MMA in the very near future and I am an attending physician. I train hard 5-6x/wk and have not sustained an injury which has affected my work. I am not a surgeon though; my approach would dramatically change in that case. If you take care of your body, BJJ will only strengthen it!
 
sb413197 said:
When possible, try to keep some of your hobbies through medical school, helps keep you sane. Some rotations and times will be busier than others. I kept playing chess and weight lifting through med school and am glad I did.

Unfortunately I wasn't grappling at that time yet though, other than a very brief no-gi period where we didn't really have an instructor and didn't really learn all that much...started BJJ after residency/fellowship, maybe could have been a black belt by now if I'd started years back haha...currently going 3x/week as a practicing physician and loving it. You just have to be efficient with things and make time for things that are important to you. Church, family life, hobbies...it's a bit of a juggling act but it's worth it and makes you more refreshed for work which (I find) helps me be more task oriented at work and more efficient.

So anyway yes, keep doing BJJ if you find it rewarding.
Click to expand...

Say man, Im guessing you know a fair bit about anatomy, you think you could drop by on my thread "myth of strangulation" and take a look at it? I feel terrible about doing this in someone else`s topic, but I would just like to hear the opinion of someone with a serious medical background...
 
I'm not in med school but I'm in law school, which is also very demanding. I have been able to keep training, but I'm going to be honest, it's been very hard. It's all about planning and getting into a routine. It can be done, but prepare to be very tired.
 
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