Five truths about being a first year medical student and five rookie mistakes to avoid

Abstract

### You won’t be able to watch medical dramas on television without cringing You’ll never be able to watch Holby City again without noticing an inaccurate medical reference or irresponsible procedure. Whether it is doctors living in caravans in hospital car parks, medical staff performing operations on their parents, or clinicians being able to diagnose patients at first sight, real medicine simply isn’t like that. Likewise, don’t be fooled by the endless tracheostomies that screenwriters entertain viewers with—you’ll probably see more in one episode than in your entire time at medical school. ### Nobody knows the right way to use a stethoscope Whether it is which way to position the earpieces, or telling which side is the diaphragm or bell, at some point everyone gets flummoxed by this pesky medical essential. It might be the symbol of your medical student status, but that won’t prevent you being left prodding at a patient’s thorax, desperately trying to hear anything that resembles a heartbeat. ### Family and friends will ask you for medical advice Even though you’ll only have covered a term’s worth of material when you go home at Christmas, people will assume that you are …