Get out of jail free?

Last week we (my Smaller Half and I) were chatting to a friend who is also studying medicine at This Fine Institution. He is in his third year, so he's two years ahead of me. I find it really useful to talk to people in the years ahead from time to time because they can speak authoritatively about what I'm going through. They know what is hard, what's easy, what's important, what is not. In general they tend to say that first year is pretty cushy and not to get too worked up about it.

This is great because it really puts things in perspective and calms me down. It's unfortunate that the perspective is due to the enormous increase in work as you progress through the later years of the course. It's a bit like being told, "No, that headache you have now is nothing compared to how you'll feel by lunchtime tomorrow". Nevertheless, it is of some short-term benefit.

We were discussing the sheer vastness of the landscape of health and illness knowledge that we're expected to acquire and how overwhelming it can seem, when our friend said something like this:

Knowledgable Friend
My supervisor said that in the end, there are four things that will kill the patient in the next five minutes, and that's all you really have to know. Everything else gives you time to duck around the corner and look it up in a book or google it.

PTR
Wow, that's encouraging - makes it seem a lot more manageable. What are the four things that you do need to know?

Knowledgable Friend
He didn't say.

PTR
Oh.

I guess I don't get to go straight to third year after all...