9 TIPS TO HELP YOU FOCUS WHEN STUDYING

1. Get Rid of Distractions 

This should be pretty obvious right? But actually, it’s not. We often get distracted without realizing that we already are. Once distracted, we engage in the new task and we don’t pay attention to what we were originally supposed to do. 

Instead, to get rid of distractions, identify what distract you and then take proactive measures to not let them distract you again. For example, if it’s the internet, television or people, then you might want to consider studying at the library. 

However, sometimes distractions can be thoughts that are intrusive. For instance, thoughts stemming from anxieties or worries. If this is the case, there is only so much you can do about them. You can try seeking professional help, dealing with the cause of anxiety or worries, or doing your best to distract yourself from those thoughts. 

2. Avoid Procrastinating 

Sometimes, we don’t begin on the task because we are already distracted. If this happens, put the distractions away and tell yourself that you will start the task for 5 minutes straight. Generally, you should find that the 5 minutes is enough to motivate you to continue, but if it doesn’t, then you may want to consider re-evaluating what’s important to you or what’s really keeping you from starting. 

3. Rewarding Yourself 

This helps sometimes if you can be diligent at it. For example, you might say I will do 30 minutes of homework today then I will reward myself by playing 30 minutes of video game or television. Then over time, you build up a habit of doing the task that you actually no longer need the reward. 

4. Find A Good Time To Study 

It helps if you pay attention to when you study the best or when you’re most productive. For some people, this might be when you first wake up and you don’t have anything distracting you yet. Throughout the day, we’re more likely to become distracted so it’s better to study when our mind is still fresh. Furthermore, studying when you first wake up is really productive too, because you are less tired and generally already more focused. 

5. Finding A Good Place to Study

I wish we all had a perfect studying place that’s designed for optimal studying, but usually almost all locations have problems. For example, even the library can be inconvenient when we have to look or wait for space. However, if you’re able to decorate a room that’s perfect for studying, then do that. You will find yourself motivated by studying in the room. 

6. Set Up A Timer 

We are generally really poor at estimating how much time we need to get something done. We overestimate the amount of time we have and we end up procrastinating. If instead, we just set up a timer to like work for an hour, we are more likely to want to hold true to our words and see what we can accomplish. A part of achieving our goals is to set up a deadline for when certain tasks are needed to be done. 

7. Break Larger Task Into Smaller Ones 

Sometimes, we feel like we have so much to do that we procrastinate, because we dread. Instead, we can avoid this by doing what we’re able to do first and slowly build our way up. Furthermore, it helps if you seek help for the tasks you can not accomplish so you don’t get stuck on one place and becoming frustrated. 

8. Achieve Flow 

When you are in a state of flow, you are so focused on the task that you lose awareness of surroundings. In this case, when you studying, flow is when you can not be distracted by anything anymore. When this happens to you, take note of it, and keep doing what you are doing.  

9. Listen to Music or do Something That Helps You Get Focused

Some people find it easier to focus when they listen to music. Find the music that helps you get in the mood and use it to help you focus. Once you are focused, turn off the music if it begins to get distracting. Also, try to figure out what helps you focus. For example, nap to recover your mental energy or take a walk outside to help clear your mind. 

How Much Do Doctors in Other Countries Make?

In response to Uwe Reinhardt’s recent post on “rationing” doctors’ salaries, a number of readers wrote in asking about physician compensation in other countries.

Doing a direct comparison of remuneration across different countries is tricky because the same salary may allow for different standards of living in different places.

But here are two possible ways to think about these comparisons, taken from a 2007 Congressional Research Service report entitled “U.S. Health Care Spending: Comparison with Other OECD Countries.”

One way to compare cross-country data is to adjust the salaries for purchasing-power parity — that is, adjusting the numbers so that $1,000 of salary buys the same amount of goods and services in every country, providing a general sense of a physician’s standard of living in each nation.

These numbers are in the second, fourth and sixth columns of the chart below.

They show that American general practitioners and nurses earn more than their counterparts in other developed countries, and American specialists are close to the top of the pack.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) analysis of Remuneration of Health Professions, OECD Health Data 2006 (October 2006), available at [http://www.ecosante.fr/OCDEENG/70.html]. Sorted by specialists’ compensation. Amounts are adjusted using U.S. dollar purchasing power

parities. Amounts from previous years are trended up to 2004 dollars using the annualized Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Cost Index for wages and salaries of health services workers in private industry. 

Another way is look at how a doctor’s salary compares to the average national income in that doctor’s country — that is, gross domestic product per capita. These numbers are in the third column, fifth and seventh columns of the chart.

As a country’s wealth rises, so should doctors’ pay. But even accounting for this trend, the United States pays doctors more than its wealth would predict:

According to this model, the 2007 report says, “The U.S. position above the trendline indicates that specialists are paid approximately $50,000 more than would be predicted by the high U.S. GDP. General practitioners are paid roughly $30,000 more than the U.S. GDP would predict, and nurses are paid $8,000 more.”

But it’s important to keep in mind, the report notes, that health care professionals in other O.E.C.D. countries pay much less (if anything) for their medical educations than do their American counterparts. In other words, doctors and nurses in the rest of the industrialized world start their medical careers with much less student loan debt compared to medical graduates in the United States.

Lowest Paid Doctors In The World

According to the 2015 Medscape Physician Compensation Report, many U.S. physicians believe they are not fairly compensated for their work.  Less than half of the American ophthalmologists and general surgeons surveyed believe they are fairly compensated for their work and sacrifice.

One of the most common questions from medical professionals concerned about their compensation is, “What do medical jobs pay in other parts of the world?”  It is a simple question on the surface, but calculating real incomes can be complex.

There are many factors that must be included when calculating physicians’ real incomes all around the world including:

• Varying cost of living between countries
• Differences in tax rates between countries
• Differences in overhead for various medical field jobs
• Different medical field jobs have different pay rates in each country
• Different demand for medical jobs in each country
• Different forms of remuneration for different specialties and medical practices

OECD Countries

It’s worth examining the pay rates of physicians within the OECD countries separately because these countries all have advanced medical systems.   OECD stands for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.  It is an international economic organization that has 34 member countries, including the United States.

It should come as no surprise that the highest paid physicians in the world are from the Netherlands and the United States.  The relatively high cost of medical services in the United States drives physician salaries.  Be forewarned: if you are from the United States or the Netherlands, the lowest rates of pay that doctors receive may come as a shock to you!

Physicians with the Lowest Incomes — Relative Remuneration

One useful comparison when evaluating physicians’ incomes is looking at how much they are paid relative to other people in the economy.  In the OECD, general practitioners are paid the least in the following countries:

• Hungary (1.4 times the average wage)
• Estonia (1.7 times the average wage)
• Australia (1.7 times the average wage)
• Netherlands (1.7 times the average wage)
• Finland (1.8 times the average wage)
• Slovakia (1.9 times the average wage)

Source: http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/48832370.pdf P9. 2011 Figures.

Specialists in the OECD are paid the least in the following countries:

• Hungary (1.6 times the average wage)
• Norway (1.8 times the average wage)
• Slovakia (1.8 times the average wage)
• Estonia (2.1 times the average wage)
• Finland/United Kingdom (2.6 times the average wage)

Source: http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/48832370.pdf P9. 2011 Figures.

The OECD report points out that even this form of comparison may not be entirely accurate because of different forms of bonuses, practice expenses, and other informal payments.

Physicians in Hungary can earn 10 times less than doctors in other OECD countries.  It is common for well trained physicians to receive only 270,000 HUF or $1,000 per month in Hungary(Lestyánszky, 2015).

Other medical jobs in Hungary also have a relatively low salary including nurses and health administrators.  Health workers can earn as little as 141,000 HUF or $520 per month (Lestyánszky, 2015).

In terms of all European countries (including those not in the OECD), the only countries that may have a lower wage for doctors are Romania and Bulgaria (MEDLINES – Medical Headlines, 2013).

Lowest Paid Doctors in the World

In many countries, physicians earn less than people in occupations that require less training and qualifications.  In those countries, physicians are often regarded as public servants who do not need require high levels of compensation.

It should be no surprise that developing nations pay their physicians the least.  In many areas of China, for example, doctors are paid about 2,524 Yuan–$406 a month (China.org.cn, 2015).  To give that some perspective, a hotel receptionist in China can earn 2,507 Yuan, or about $403 USD per month.

Another country with extremely low salaries for doctors is Egypt.  When physicians went on strike in 2011, they were earning $46 a month when working in a public hospital (Yahoo News, 2015).  Doctors in Egypt have made some ground since then, but are still paid very poorly compared to physicians in the rest of the world.

Cuba pays physicians even less.  The country also has one of the highest numbers of physicians (per capita) in the world (Data.worldbank.org, 2015).  Cuba has been training thousands of doctors every year for many decades and leads the world with the lowest patient to doctor ratio, 155:1, while the U.S. trails way behind at 396:1 (Souers, 2012).  With a surplus of Cuban doctors, Cuba may feel less incentive or ability to pay physicians too much.  Just a few years ago, Cuban doctors received an estimated wage of between $30 and $50 per month (Newman, 2012)—arguably the lowest paid doctors in the world.  However, the climate in Cuba is changing for doctors.   A year ago, the most qualified Cuban physicians (with two specialties) were able to earn up to $67 per month (Associated Press, 2014).

It is always eye-opening and humbling to look at these figures.  What could you ever afford with an income of $67 per month in the United States?

Pablo Horteg–Staff Writer for DoctorCPR.com–America’s #1 Site for Medical Jobs + Practice Resources

Sources

Associated Press (2014). Cuba hikes salaries for doctors, nurses to as much as $67 a month. Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/21/cuba-hikes-salaries-for-doctors-nurses-to-as-much-as-67-month/

Bennetts, R. (2011). Remuneration of doctors and nurses: Progress and next steps (1st ed.). OECD. Retrieved 5 July 2015, from oecd.org/health/health-systems/48832370.pdf

China.org.cn,. (2015). Top 10 lowest paying jobs for Chinese graduates 2013 – China.org.cn. China.org.cn. Retrieved 5 July 2015, from china.org.cn/top10/2013-06/21/content_29190537.htm

Data.worldbank.org,. (2015). Physicians (per 1,000 people) | Data | Table. Retrieved 10 July 2015, from data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?order=wbapi_data_value_2010+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-first&sort=desc

Lestyánszky, Á. (2015). Hungarian health care workers earn 1/10th that of their western counterparts – The Budapest Beacon. The Budapest Beacon. Retrieved 5 July 2015, from budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/hungarian-health-care-workers-earn-110th-that-of-their-western-counterparts/20371

MEDLINES – Medical Headlines,. (2013). Medical salaries in Europe. Retrieved 5 July 2015, from medlines.org/they-pay-less-for-a-hungarian-doctors-than-other-workers-medical-salaries-europe/

Newman, L. (2012). The truths and tales of Cuban healthcare. Aljazeera.com. Retrieved 5 July 2015, from aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/201265115527622647.html

Souers, J.M. (2012).  Cuba leads the world in lowest patient per doctor ratio; How do they do it? Retrieved 12 July 2015, from http://www.socialmedicine.org/2012/07/30/about/cuba-leads-the-world-in-lowest-patient-per-doctor-ratio-how-do-they-do-it/

Yahoo News,. (2015). Egypt doctors strike for better wages, services. Retrieved 5 July 2015, from news.yahoo.com/egypt-doctors-strike-better-wages-services-172738842.html

Why Doctors Marry Doctors: Exploring Medical Marriages

Nearly 40 percent of physicians are likely to marry another physician or health care professional, according to the 2014 Work/Life Profiles of Today’s Physician released last year by AMA Insurance. Many physicians marry other health care workers because of life timing and availability, said Steve Sherick, MD, an emergency medicine doctor who lives with his wife, a pediatric oncologist, in Colorado.

“The times in your life when you’re seeking a partner happen to coincide very nicely with the time you’re in medical school and training,” he said. “It’s a huge chunk of life, and your social circles revolve around that.” Working long hours with friends at the hospital, especially during residency, may also stoke the flames for a new romance. As a resident, Krista Bott, MD, a surgeon at Moses Taylor Hospital, said she worked nearly 80 hours a week at the hospital and when she wasn’t there, she’d study for hours at home. “All of my friends in the area were from work,” she said. “So it came as no surprise to me that most of the people who worked there, dated there.” During her residency, Bott followed suit and began dating a nurse, who is now her husband. 

Benefits of medical marriages 

Some physicians report that they enjoy having a companion who shares their perspective and passion for medicine. “As doctors, your lives are so incredibly busy that it’s hard to meet people outside medicine and when you do, it’s hard to explain why you really need to work on Christmas or go in at 2 a.m. for a delivery, “said Kavita Shah Arora, MD, an assistant professor of reproductive biology and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University and a gynecologist at Metro Health Medical Center.

 Dr. Arora married a urology resident. “When you’re with someone in medicine, you have that shared language and experience. You share the same set of values when it comes to helping others and putting your responsibility as a physician above your relationship’s needs.” Dr. Sherick said there’s also a psychological and emotional benefit to marrying someone who understands the challenges unique to doctors, such as losing patients or critical life events. “Most people see someone dying once or twice in life, but for us, it’s not an uncommon thing,” he said. “It can be tough on you if you’re with someone who doesn’t understand.” Plus, there’s an added bonus to having a medical partner at home. “We can speak the same medical jargon,” Dr. Bott said, which eases communication in her relationship because explaining situations in lay-terms can become frustrating. 

Challenges for physicians to consider 

While many physicians have found love and compromise among their colleagues, entering a relationship with someone in the healthcare profession has its challenges. For one, if you and your partner have children, finding reliable childcare that accommodates the schedules of two busy physicians can be difficult. It’s also hard to strike work-life balance as a couple, Dr. Arora said, adding that having “your heart and soul wrapped up in your patients” can really strain a relationship. And while many doctors have found comfort in their shared traits, being too similar has its disadvantages too. 

“As a doctor, you’re taught that you’re the decision-maker. You’re the decider but then you go home and you’re with another decision-maker,” Dr. Sherick said. Still, despite the potential pitfalls of medical marriages, Dr. Bott said she’s happy to build a life with someone who shares her plans for the future. “We can really go anywhere we want and there will always be a hospital to work in,” she said. “We are comfortable in life, we can do the things we want, and our children will be well-cared for.”

Top 10 Reasons to Date a Doctor

Dating a doctor definitely has some major benefits. Let’s look at a few of the reasons to date a doctor!

1. They’re smart- They went through A LOT of schooling to get where they’re at. They had to take science and maths that would make the average head spin! 

2. Free doctor visits- If you’re feeling sick and need some expert advice on your tummy trouble or sprained ankle, you can always ask the doctor you’re dating! 

3. Financial stability- One of the fabulous perks of dating a doctor is their bank account. 

4. They listen well- Doctors are trained to listen very attentively to what you have to say and to process what you are telling them. Dating a female doctor will boost this benefit even more because of a female’s natural caring and attentive nature. 

5. They’re fixers- Doctors are trained to fix you. Their job is to problem solve and get everything working back to normal. 

6. Can’t gross them out- Doctors have seen the worst of the worst. Your funky skin rash isn’t going to send them running for the hills. With the gross things they deal with every day, it is very hard to surprise them. 

7. They’re committed- All of the schooling, studying, training and practicing took a lot of effort and dedication to complete. Dating a physician has many pros and this is a big one. 

8. Interesting conversation- One of the things you can look forward to if you’re trying to figure out how to meet a doctor to date is the stimulating conversation.There’s no such thing as “just another day at the office” in the medical field. 

9. They’re Dependable- Doctors are often on-call and have to be available at any hour of the day. You can rest assured that your doctor will be there for you anytime you need them! 

10. Status- Love should have nothing to do with titles or salaries, but doctors do come with a prestigious status. Doctors are highly respected in society and dating one puts you right alongside them.

7 Things You Need To Give Up To Become A Doctor

1. Your desire to be wealthy 

Very few people in medicine ever become hugely wealthy, at least not in Europe. If riches are what you desire there are many many easier ways of getting that involve alot less heartache, money and stress. If you want to be a millionnaire before you’re 30, my advice would be to avoid university altogether. Most doctors are in the profession for genuinely altruistic reasons as well as the satisfaction that comes from knowing that you have the skills and knowledge to save lives and apply these every single day as a routine part of your work. 

2. Your desire to change the world 

Equally you must, eventually, give up on the idea of becoming some sort of medical superhero who can solve the worlds medical problems one by one. Yes doctors can do some impressive things when applying their skills to the right situation. But remember that however good your intentions, you will not be able to overcome the problems caused by poverty, war, government neglect or abuse, or coorporate profiteering at the expense of the sick. That doesn’t mean you can’t try to help people afflicted by any of these, you’ll just find that you are usually too small to make any real systemic difference. 

3. Your free weekends 

It starts at medical school when the work starts to pile up, and weekends are sacrificed to meet deadlines and for exam revision. Once you start working as a junior doctor, you’ll find yourself scanning each new doctors rota to work out where your on-call weekends have landed and who can swop with you so that you can still go on that holiday or get married or whatever. There will be sunny weekends when your non-medic friends will be having a barbecue whilst you sweat it out on a ward seeing yet another gastrointestinal bleed wondering why you chose this path. 

4. A good nights sleep 

Gone are the days where doctors would be on call for 48 or 72 hours and then do a clinic for the boss before retiring to bed. However, modern working arrangements have brought into existence the ‘week of nights’ where you work 4 or 5 and sometimes 7 night shifts in a row. As someone who has done these I can confirm that doing nights is pretty inhumane. The talk amongst doctors doing nights together often centres around changing specialty or leaving the profession. Don’t worry, it all gets forgotten once normal daytime duties are restored. 

5. Your desire to avoid feeling like a fool 

You will make mistakes from time to time in this job and your mistakes will all be potentially serious ones, simply because everything you do affects your patients’ lives directly. Furthermore, there will be times when you have to withstand an onslaught from senior doctors who feel that teaching by humiliation is the only way forward. You will feel like an idiot at times and if the thought of that frightens you you should promptly pick a different profession.

6. Your desire to always put friends and family first 

As a doctor your job usually takes priority and you simply cannot shirk your responsibilities simply because you have prior engagements of a personal nature. Over the years I’ve known many difficult situations including a colleague who had to turn down a role as best man for a close friend because nobody could swop his on-call weekend with him and the hospital refused to organise a locum to cover him. Apart from sickness or bereavement, your first priority will be to your profession. Your friends and family may find that difficult to understand at first. They’ll come round to it with time, especially once they delete your number. 

7. Your desire to please everyone 

Whether it’s your friends or family, as above, or your future patients you’d better get used to upsetting people from time to time. Telling your wife you need to postpone an evening engagement because you are still operating on a difficult case, or telling a patient you won’t be operating on them as they only have three months to live, are both likely to be met with upset. Each situation has it’s unique challenges and needs some communication skills, but the bottom line is that you will have times when you will have to make someone want to either hit you or cry in despair. 

Beware of Social Media Celebrity Doctors

Too many of them offer advice outside their specialties, choose brand-boosting over integrity and tout dubious treatments. 

The celebrity doctor phenomenon is not new to Americans. With the release of his first baby-care book in the 1940s, Benjamin Spock became a household name by helping mothers across America feel more confident in their child-rearing skills, long before the age of social media and daytime television. Now, decades later, some of the most prominent players in the game of celebrity doctoring are integrative medicine expert Andrew Weil, a cardiothoracic surgeon turned daytime television health guru Mehmet Oz, and television’s go-to-psychologist, Phil McGraw. All of these men have come under fire in the past, usually due to questions regarding the medical safety and efficacy of their recommendations. 

But the controversies surrounding them have hardly made a dent in the profitability of their longstanding empires or in the dedication of their fans. Doctors and researchers have been so riled up by the lack of medical evidence for the recommendations handed down by medical television shows that a 2014 study looked specifically at this issue. Not too surprisingly, only 54 percent of the recommendations studied had even one piece of medical evidence to back them up. 

And less than 1 percent were accompanied by disclosures of potential conflicts of interest. But now, in the era of social media influencers, celebrity doctoring is no longer exclusively available through the handful of physicians writing books or starring in television shows; it can be found across just about every social media platform. Medical bloggers, doctor instagrammers, and physician twitterati are all reaching out to the American public, and this is a slippery slope to disaster. What started as a way to improve professional development for physicians and help disseminate credible information for patients has slowly started to devolve into a world of glamour shots, with physicians often exaggerating their credentials at the expense of a gullible social media audience. 

As a result, social media has created microcosms of celebrity doctoring that have started to expand unchecked and unfettered, usually at the expense of their target audience. Today’s self-promoting physicians have strayed far from the “no advertising rule” in the original American Medical Association (AMA) Code of Ethics that was in place from 1847 to 1975—mainly to prevent the practice of medicine from turning into a practice of solicitation. And while the rule ended to allow hospitals and medical practices to work on public relations efforts for the betterment of healthcare, we have to wonder about the significant potential for harm that stems from often misleading and misrepresentative healthcare information coming from these physician social media accounts. 

With 2.5 million Instagram followers, Dr. Mike Varshavski is one of the most popular young physicians on the social media playing field. His account can often be entertaining, albeit misleading: many of his followers likely do not realize that Dr. Mike’s experience is very different from the experiences of the average American physician-in-training, based on previous studies looking at resident quality of life. This is fairly harmless, but he also ventures into some dangerous territory, where the line between physician and social media maven begins to blur. 

Recently, Dr. Mike’s Instagram account has been a collection of promotional photo shoots for companies ranging from Charmin to Kenneth Cole to Braun, raising the question of how appropriate is it for a physician to be profiting from Instagram views of posts on the same platform that provides medical commentary? Unfortunately, my requests for comments from Varshavski went unanswered. 

Pop-star status for physicians has the potential for harm, simply because of the power wielded by physicians who have such wide access to the American public. Thankfully, in many instances, the Food and Drug Administration has cracked down on misinformation and false claims from such celebrity physicians as Oz and Weil. Oz’s claims regarding potentially unsafe arsenic levels in apple juice caused unnecessary hysteria, while Weil’s claims for his immune boosting supplements came with zero evidence that they could in fact “ward off” swine flu. 

When the practice of clinical medicine begins to be trumped by individual physician brand-building, patient safety and well being can become endangered. And while many of the mega-media physicians often do face scrutiny for their practices, physicians who are merely social media celebrities attract less, even though they might have just as large an audience. I am not advocating for a witch hunt, but physicians should be held to high clinical standards across every platform in which they practice—from their clinics to their Instagrams. 

Unfortunately, clinical standards seem to disappear in the realm of social media, where private practice physicians tout affiliations with academic institutions that they truly have no day-to-day dealings with; pediatric physicians branding themselves as integrative medicine experts for adults; internal medicine physicians branding themselves as skincare experts; and even non-endocrinologists branding themselves as thyroid and adrenal gland experts and pioneering “hormone revolutions.” 

The list goes on ad nauseam. Maybe we should have kept some form of the AMA’s original “no advertising rule” around. Ultimately, there is an almost complete lack of evidence about the long-term effects of social media on the practice of medicine, and right now, there are several accounts that could potentially be deceiving their followers. So what can be done in the meantime? Take everything you see, read, and hear from social media physicians with a grain of salt. Google their credentials—because for nearly all physicians with legitimate training, this information is readily available online. 

Lastly, take some time to scrutinize those credentials to understand if their current area of medical practice is consistent with their training. It's wise to remember that not everything “natural” is safe, and not all “expert” advice is sound.

This is How to Organize Your Medical Studying Successfully

No one ever said that it was a breeze getting through their medical studies and understandably so. It takes a lot of hard work and focus to get through any part of it. To be honest, I do not want medical studying to be easy, because it has to do with life and death. I take my hat off to the doctors, specialists, surgeons and nurses helping the world. Without them, we would be back to thousands of years ago and not have the development we are seeing in the medical field. We forget that there is so much that builds up to students being accepted into these fields of studies and before they can start studying; there is a process that takes place. Students decide early that they would like to go into the medical field and choose their subjects accordingly. Then there is the application process. When you have to write that personal statement nurse practitioner essay, it can feel like the challenge already starts. Do not fear though, as we have the tips to help you stay organized in your medical studies and rise to the top. 

Apply early 

Let’s assume you are still trying to get into a medical field and have to apply. Speak to students who have already been accepted and get some advice as soon as you decide that this is what you want to do. You need to write an attention grabbing statement that reflects who you are and what your goals are. This is the one paper that will decide your fate, so it very important that you try and pay as much attention to it as possible. You do not want to leave it till the last minute. A personal statement nursing essay is one of the most challenging pieces of writing you will have to do. Many aspiring nurses did not have the opportunity to choose their subjects accordingly as many decide after school that this is what they want to do. You have to show your passion for the field and win the committee over with the story of your life. 

You cannot fall behind 

There is a clear difference between high school studies and tertiary studies. You may have gotten away with cramming in high school, but it is going to become very challenging if you try to do that studying in this field. It is very easy to fall behind and it may take a long time to catch up. There are always new sections that you have to study and each day you fall behind sets you back a few days. You have to go home after school and revise all the work you learned in that day. There will come a time when you can enjoy your evenings again, but for now, your studies take priority. If you keep up with the rest of the class, you set yourself up for less pressure and less stress. 

One bite at a time 

I know many students become nervous when they receive their textbooks for the year. It is a lot of study material to get through, but you should not let it overwhelm you. Take it one day (or one bite) at a time if you want to keep your sanity and get good grades. Medical studies require good time management skills and you are going to have to learn this important skill. If you are unable to manage your time properly, you may find yourself always in a state of stress. Avoid this by focusing on the work you need to cover in that day and do not overwhelm yourself with the work of tomorrow. If you can manage to understand and apply what you have learned in one day, you are able to face tomorrow with the readiness and knowledge that is expected. 

Stay organized 

With the amount of material you are going to receive, it is important to stay organized at all times. There will be a ton of notes that might get mixed up and never found again. Try and keep your notes in a format that you will be able to use for your studying later. These notes will probably be your most valuable additions to your studies. Keep your stationery organized and readily available. Organize your study space at home or in your dorm room. You want to be able to go sit down and start working immediately. There should be no distractions trying to look for a missing pen. Enjoy the opportunity This is after all a great opportunity and you should not forget it in the moment when you feel absolutely defeated. You have been chosen to study this field because someone believed in you. There is no reason to doubt yourself and always remember that you are doing this for a reason. Trust the process and know that in the end, you will be a better person because you persevered. Make sure you enjoy your studies and make the most of this part of your journey to success.