Tips for Medical Students

1. Learn to type - this will save you an immense amount of time over your medical career as you will have to make use of IT for a lot of your job
2. Similarly - become proficient in programmes like Micrososft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.   These are the minimum three you should know about.
3. Learn to be organised - when you become a house officer your role will be so much more easier if you are organised
   1. Keep lists of jobs and cross them off when you have done them
   2. Prioritise your work!!  Do the most important things first and leave the unimportant stuff.  Click here for an idea of how to assess the importance of tasks
   3. Use this algorithm, or this one, to help you to organise tasks (© www.davidco.com)
   4. This file contains a number of planning sheets that you might find helpful (© Douglas Johnston)
   5. use the Pareto principle, also known as the "80-20" rule. Stated simply focus 80 percent of your time and energy on the 20 percent of your work that is really important.
4. Make sure you hand over effectively to your colleagues.  This is particularly important now that shift working is more common for PRHOs.