Tips for studying Internal Medicine

Internal Medicine (IM) is a big part of Medicine in general (the other two are surgery and laboratory medicine) which has it's own mentality and way of thinking. While studying IM, knowledge is not the only  goal you should have but approaching that kind of logic is something you should achieve, too. For that reason reading an IM textbook is less than enough. So these are some tips for approaching IM from an holistic point of view:

1. Spend time in the hospital. You have to get and keep in touch with the hospital experience to get an idea about it. In some med schools the time spent in hospital is not enough for that. Don't wait until you have read everything from the books (because that will never happen).
2. Take notes during or after at the end of the day of what you see in the hospital. each time.
3. Get a good textbook of IM and a smaller handbook or manual which you will carry with you the whole time, even in the bathroom :P. You should plan ahead each week and devote a couple of hours studying from the big textbook what you saw in clinics and make notes about it which you will compare with your notes from the hospital (2).
4. Have discussions with your supervisor or other doctors about everything, this will reveal to you what is more and what is less important in everything you read and will bring you closer to the real everyday practice.
5. Try to go through with as many patient cases as you can while you are at the hospital, because experience is what will make you a good doctor ("It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."-Earl Weaver)
6. Each time you learn something try to find the logic behind it (IM textbooks are huge and you can't know everything but there are patterns everywhere, try to find them and that will make your life much easier).
7. Never forget about physiology and anatomy (although these are basic and you had mastered them when a few years back, depending on yourself a certain amount will fade out). So when you feel unsure about something that came up while you 're doing rotations or studying IM go back and get that cleared out.
8. Don't stress yourself memorizing stuff, that's not what medicine is about.
9. Keep open minded! (a combination of open-mindness, logic and knowledge is needed to go through differential diagnosis pathways). Knowledge will be achieved eventually, the other two will not, unless you never stop chasing them!