Mondaze Everyday

Time no longer has any meaning to me.  Daytime, nighttime, weekday, weekend.  They're all the same.  Dedicated Step 1 study period is here; every day feels like Monday.  Finished up my last final on Friday, and god willing, I passed it.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, I can't imagine having to retake that exam.  I barely have enough time to get through everything for Step 1, let alone study for a class I should have already passed.  Ok, enough catastrophizing.  

Last week's goal

1. Do not drop below 50% and aim for 65% every day. 

I dropped below 50% (to 45%) yesterday so that kind of ruined this. I did manage a 65% one day and a 75% another day, so overall I went up to 51% cumulative correct, so not too bad overall in terms of progress.  

This week's goals

1. Take a practice exam.  I think my goal is to be near-passing and hopefully I can start tackling tough subjects after I get my score and start DIT. 

2.  Do not drop below 50% and aim for 65% every day (this one carries over from last week).

3. Finish going through a rough first pass of First Aid to familiarize myself with the book before starting DIT.  

4. Finish going through Pathoma along with First Aid before beginning DIT so that the pathophysiology is fresh in my mind.  

5.  Complete all the DIT problem sets that I ignored while studying for finals.  I caught up a lot this weekend, so I only have 4 left (I think they only put out 34 sets)

6.  Complete the DIT primer series to "prime" my brain for DIT.  I also caught up on these this weekend, but I still have 7 to go, which is about 3 hours of video. 

Woo, ok.  That list looks a bit longer than I was anticipating, but it's always better to be overly ambitious so that I don't slack off.  Happy Monday.  

HMOs and PPOs

I was at my very first medical school interview and I had really gotten along well with my interviewer, the Dean of Admissions.  I could tell she liked me and that it was going really well.  I was going to get into medical school!  The interview was over, when suddenly she says, "Oh, you know, we decided we're going to ask these new questions.  I completely forgot.  You know how the health care system is changing and all."  Oh sure, sure.  I nodded.  Of course.  "What do you think of HMOs and PPOs?" In my mind, I'm thinking ummmm…wut? And Ohmigod, this is going to keep my out of medical school. 

With as much confidence as I could fake, I conceded, "You know what? I haven't heard a good thing about 'em."

"Ugh! They are just terrible!" She agreed.

A few weeks later, I received an acceptance letter from that school.  Maybe if I'd gone there, I would have learned what HMOs and PPOs are, because going through the DIT healthcare primer, I realized I still have no idea…

Mundane Monday

Last week, I was really frustrated by the fact that I hadn't  been able to improve from 49% cumulative correct or 29th percentile, and then on Tuesday, I finally broke 49% and moved up to 50% cumulative correct!!  It was really exciting for all of one day before I realized how much work I still had to do.  I did manage to move up to 51% and 34th percentile today so hopefully this is the start of an upward trend!
I have my (hopefully) last final this week on Friday. It's a biggie.  My school does an overview block at the end of the year, and the exam is on Friday.  It's supposed to set us up for Step 1, but I'm kind of nervous about it because there's a lot of material and a lot of it is new: SO NOT AN OVERVIEW!  Last week I was studying for two exams (keep your fingers crossed I passed, that genetics test was a doozy), so my one goal was: 

1. Do not drop below 50% on any UWorld blocks and aim for 55% on most days.

I'm excited about having met this goal.  My low last week was 50% and most days I got a 65%!  This week is going to be another single-goal week because of my test on Friday, but I'm going to aim high: 

1. Do not drop below 50% and aim for 65% every day. (So far so good!) 

I'm going to be starting DIT soon, so there won't be as many posts, but when it's all over, I'll write a little DIT review for those of you who will be looking into exam prep.  I cannot wait for this week, and Step 1, and M2 year to be overrrrrr.  Happy Monday, and if you're reading this, please send me good luck and prayers that I pass all of my Spring courses.  :-/

Mondaze: Worst Subjects

I decided to update the blog; I hope you like it!  It's a cleaner, crisper look and I thought it was time for a change.

Part of studying for Step 1 has been a lot of adjusting.  I am trying to zone in on my worst subjects because they obviously need more of my time than the subjects I'm doing well in.

I decided my worst subjects were those that fell at or below my current percentile (29th).  It feels like I've been stuck at 29th percentile FOREVER!!! Anything at or below the 29th percentile is something I really need to focus on:

Subjects

Anatomy

Embryology

Genetics

Immunology
Microbiology

Systems

Cardiology

Gastrointestinal

Genitourinary

Neurology

Pulmonary

Renal

This list is kind of surprising.  I loved and excelled at anatomy. I did better than the average on every practical I took, including neuro, which has historically been my worst subject.  I would also consider myself above average at genetics (it was one of my best subjects when I took the MCAT).  Embryo and Immuno are no huge shock to me.  Embryo is glossed over at my school and I've already discussed Immunology. 

Cardiology, Pulmonary, and Neurology have always  been tough classes for me…it's a lot of math/physics and I was an English major.   Neuro is just neuro, it confuses me.  

Gastrointestinal, Genitourinary, and Renal were my jam this year and last year, not sure what's going on here...maybe I just need to do more questions in these subjects.  

In terms of goals.  Last week my goals were:

1. Do not drop below 40% on any UWorld blocks and aim for at least 50% on most days.  Wahoo!  I totally met this.  My lowest score last week was 50%. 
2. Really try to learn from the UWorld questions.  I was a lot better about this because I broke up reviewing my exam into two blocks so I didn't feel desperate to just "get it over with" by the time I was on question 15. 
3. Get through 3 Pathoma chapters this week. So, two of these were for class, but I'm still counting it because 3 chapters is 3 chapters. 

This week I have two exams so I will mostly be studying for those two exams, so my only goal is:

1. Do not drop below 50% on any UWorld blocks and aim for 55% on most days.  I just need to get more questions right than I do wrong and then I can get past 49% cumulative.  

Just Another Manic Monday

Last week was crazy.  I was scheduled to volunteer on multiple days so I felt like there wasn't too much time for studying.  That said, I mostly met all of my goals from last week:

1. Do not drop below 40% on any UWorld blocks: I mostly met this.  There was one day where I got a 35%, but because of #3 I just focused on #2. ;) 
2. Spend my time really understanding the questions: right and wrong: I definitely could have been better about this.  Like I said, last week was crazy and I there were immediate events/issues to deal with, BUT, I did go through all the questions and annotated First Aid, so I'm counting it, I just have to be better about it. 
3. Breathe: I didn't have any panic attacks last week.  Even on the day that I was late to my volunteer clinic because of the traffic

This week's goals:

1. Do not drop below 40% on any UWorld blocks and aim for at least 50% on most days: So far, so good.  Today's block was 50% exactly. 
2. Really try to learn from the UWorld questions.  Upperclassmen tell me these explanations are crucial, so try to stick them into my brain. 
3. Get through 3 Pathoma chapters this week. 

Monday: New Week, New Goals

I've been frustrated had a near break down/panic attack about Step 1 this weekend. See, I was doing really well, upwards of 50% on my UWorld blocks and then suddenly...a string of scores below 40.  I'm trying not to focus on the cumulative % correct, this is a learning process, I get that, but it doesn't stop me from freaking out at 3 am on Sunday.  Three goals for this week:

1. Do not drop below 40% on any UWorld blocks (So far, so good.  45% today.)

2. Spend my time really understanding the questions: right and wrong (I'm going to reduce the number of questions I'm doing from 26 to 20). 

3.  Breathe. Remember this is a learning process.  Forgive myself for making mistakes.  Every wrong answer is an opportunity. 

I never took Immunology

Ok, I did take immunology, but that doesn't mean I learned it!  Immunology was a struggle for me.  I just looked up my grade: 86%  This does not compute.  I knew when I took immunology that I didn't understand it.  I knew what I had to memorize and what I had to do to pass, but I also knew that I barely, and I mean barely grasped even the basics of immunology.  I am reminded of this when I see that immunology is my lowest scoring subject in UWorld with 25% correct and 8th percentile.  Ouch.  I'm trying to go over my notes from immunology, but I don't have any.  Let this be a lesson to those of you who have not yet taken immunology, TAKE NOTES.  To anyone who understands immunology, send some knowledge or suggestions on review books my way; first aid is rather sparse in this subject area as well. :-/

Daunting

I'm back to doing random questions on UWorld.  I tried just doing one section at a time (i.e. Biochem or Cardio), but the UWorld questions are so integrated (this is a good thing) that I was still jumping around in First Aid.  The reason I went back to random questions is that I was worried that I was artificially inflating my UWorld score by reading from First Aid and then doing questions.  Ideally I guess I would learn a topic really well and then do UWorld to see how I am synthesizing the information and solidify my understanding, but I haven't figured out how to do that every day.  Each section of First Aid is only 30 or so pages, but it's all of the physiology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology of that organ system.  I could try to master each section and then do UWorld questions, but then I don't think that I'd be doing UWorld questions on a daily basis.  Right now I'm doing 23 UWorld questions per day and annotating my First Aid book.  Oddly enough, I like doing UWorld because it focuses me and it's a little reminder that I have to keep on studying (especially on days where I get less than my cumulative average...ouch).

I've started adding Pathoma to my study regimen.  I'm going through each of the Pathoma chapters along with my First Aid book; it's certainly more time consuming, but Dr. Sattar is just so amazing that whenever I do one of his lectures I feel like I've gained something.  I've been watching his lectures/reading his book all year so I'm already familiar with what he's saying and just adding stuff into First Aid.  I think having the book/video subscription all year has definitely helped because pathophysiology is one of the things I've scored the best on in UWorld.  Surprise, surprise, Pharm is among my worst subjects.  I want to care, but I can't.  I'm still doing the DIT question sets that they send out on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  I do feel like they're useful because they give me exposure to stuff, but I don't know if this is a good use of my time.  Like I said, I'm just trying to trust the process, put my faith in DIT and hope that when my dedicated study period rolls around, I can sit through the DIT lectures and do really well on the exam.  I'm hoping to have gone through all of UWorld once before the dedicated study period, annotated all of First Aid on my own so that I'm familiar with it, listened to Pathoma all the way through, and finish all the DIT primer videos.  Suddenly my to do list seems incredibly daunting...especially while I try to balance my normal schoolwork.   Fingers crossed.

Let's be really ambitious about tomorrow

I got very little on my to-do list done.  I just kind of felt like napping, even though I had a full night's sleep last night.  I skipped classes and just kind of ambivalently made my way through my UWorld questions.  Oh, and then I whined about how tired I was to anyone who would listen.  I finally started doing work around 10 pm.  Not my finest hour.  I'm going to be really ambitious about tomorrow.  It's going to suck, but I think the attitude I need to change my attitude.  Instead of approaching all my studying with this feeling of dread, I should just be really ambitious about what I want.

We don't choose our patients

I don't normally write about patients, but today I had a patient tell me that they were sure that I was a blessing.  This patient, like so many other patients, tugged at my heart strings.  Here's the thing: I have too many feelings, and sometimes patients, for one reason or another, hit too close to home.  When this happens, it throws me off my axis.  I know I have to learn to control it, but I haven't yet.  I've barely learned to deal with it, and sometimes the only way to deal is to shut it off.  Sometimes you have a tough patient and you just have to steel yourself.  Today's patient was the definition of a sweetheart, and that was part of the reason this patient hit home for me.  As I'm leaving, my patient says, "You've been such a blessing.  You've got a sweet face and I won't forget it.  I know you were sent to me as a blessing.  Make sure you keep your heart open."  This patient thought I was sent to them, but maybe it's the other way around, maybe they were sent to me.  To help me keep my heart open.  People think doctors are cold and unfeeling, and I get that, sometimes you just can't, but I've always had too many feelings, and maybe that's why I'm supposed to be a doctor.  We don't choose our patients, but maybe we get the ones we need.  Keeping a thought for this special patient; grateful I was able to learn today.  

It feels so good to be a gangster

I just got 90% correct on my UWorld block.  Now, I realize that this is an outlier; my cumulative performance is still only 45% right and 22nd percentile.  This means that I'm doing slightly worse than if I were just blind guessing and that 78% of people using UWorld are doing better than me.  Still, it's nice to take a UWorld block and not feel like I need to eat ALL of my feelings.  Maybe one of these days the thick blue line on the cumulative performance graph will approach the average test takers...sigh...dare to dream. 

Things I suck at (<22nd percentile): 

Anatomy

Embryology

Genetics

Histology

Immunology

Pharmacology

Things I suck less at (>22nd percentile)

Behavioral Science

Biochemistry

Biostatistics

Microbiology

Pathophysiology

Physiology

Putting in the time

Someone finally told me how to annotate First Aid.  I've been trying to find out how to do this for weeks.  Apparently, you're supposed to annotate from UWorld INTO First Aid.  Um, wut?  Someone recommended that I start by just filling in the educational objectives (provided by UWorld) from each question into its respective portion in First Aid.  So that's what I did today--this is useful, and by the end of my 20-question-annotation-into-First-Aid-Adventure I learned something: Your time is lost on the index.  Yesterday I read about Biochem.  Today, I did only Biochem questions.  Yo, biochem is everywhere (not just the first 40 pages of First Aid)  So I was flipping back and forth between the index trying to find out where I could fill in information about rheumatoid factor.  When I complained to the person who originally made this recommendation, she said: Yeah, that means you're not familiar with First Aid.  Once you've gone through it, you'll know where everything is, but you have to put in the time.

I'm at 42% Cumulative Correct.  It makes me want to vomit.

I forgot what it was like

I forgot.  I forgot what it was like to study for an exam like this.  Studying for school is completely different than studying for the MCAT or Boards.  When I'm studying for an exam for school, there's panic, I realize how little I know, I spend the day memorizing facts, doing practice problems, reviewing slides, etc.  I forgot that when you're studying for an exam like this, how you do on that day's practice exam will determine your mood for the rest of day.  I know it shouldn't, but when I was studying for the MCAT, I'd sit for 3 hours doing stupid physics problems and then I'd find out my score, if it was above 30, I was golden; my self-esteem was through the roof; I could do this!  When my score dipped below 30: I was never going to get into medical school, why was I so dumb?  It's not healthy, it's not true, but it's the truth, it's what I felt like.  This weekend I've been catching up on UWorld questions, doing 4 blocks of 46 questions, and after one 30% correct, I felt like finding my way to the bottom of a bottle of bourbon.  I opted for the bottom of a pint of froyo instead.  For another block, I managed a 60%.  I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm still starting out, that there's going to be variation and that I learn from each and every test I take; every wrong answer should be a concept I learn.  Onto DIT primer videos. I am all caught up on my UWorld Questions and my DIT questions though, so at least that's something.  

Step 1 of Step 1

Now that I've had some time to do the things I need to do for Step 1, I've had to make some adjustments.  I'm still trying to keep up with DIT questions and primers because I do think I learn from doing these.  People are rather critical of the DIT questions, but I find them useful.  I'm trying to do 20 questions from UWorld each day and my goal is to go through the QBank once before my dedicated study period.  I am also trying to read ~10 pages of First Aid per day so that when my dedicated study period rolls around and I start doing the DIT video series, I will already be familiar with it.  I haven't been sticking to my schedule because I'm finding that juggling classes with Step 1 studying is harder than I thought, but I've been using this weekend to catch up.  I'm averaging about a ~40% on my UWorld questions which is rather demoralizing, but I'm just starting out, so hopefully that will start going up.  As for First Aid, I don't even know how to annotate the darn thing!  Everyone is like, "annotate it from UWorld", but I'm jumping around so much that I don't find that it's useful to annotate after doing UWorld questions.  Maybe I should just do questions from whatever section I'm reading, but people tell me not to do that because then it gives me a false sense of knowledge.  That said, I think I'm going to try doing one subject at a time rather than all of them because that way I can focus in and see what I suck at and what I...suck less at. ;) Wish me luck and if you've already taken Step 1, I would love to hear some study tips, strategies, and well wishes (from everyone/anyone).  

Step 1: Is this real life?

Step 1 is upon us!   Failing a class this year has made me really nervous for Step 1.  I want to do really well on Step 1 to counteract that failed class.  I've heard that residency directors don't care about 1st and 2nd year grades, especially if you successfully remediate, but I don't quite believe that.  I've been perusing the internet trying to figure out how to study for Step 1, and it's been a little bit tough to find advice that I think is applicable to me.  I've also been hounding all my 3rd year friends with questions about how do balance studying for classes and study for Step 1, what should I do in terms of review courses, Kaplan, DIT, UWorld, First Aid, Review Books, etc.  I basically spent my weekend studying for my current class and figuring out how to study for Step 1.  I decided to post my plan on here because I know people find this blog looking for MCAT study advice, so hopefully I can do well enough that people want to take advice about Step 1 from me.

When I asked my friend for Step 1 advice, she asked, "well what score do you want?"  She didn't mean a vague "I want to crush Step 1" or "I want to pass", legit, "what.score.do.you.want?"  I don't know what I want to do yet, but I don't want to rule anything out (except neuro, and ob/gyn), but I'm interested in specialties like pediatrics (avg 221), emergency medicine (avg 223), , internal medicine (226), pathology (226), surgery (avg 227), and radiology (avg 240).  I know, it's a sundry list, but like I said, I just don't know yet.  The only thing these residencies have in common is that I need to break at least 220, in fact, I should be aiming more for 235-ish, and hope that when it's all over I want to go into pediatrics.  :)   So, goal is set: 235.  Now that I know what I want, I'm going to go out and get it.

I'm using 4 things to study for Step 1 based on everyone's advice/my online research:

1.) First Aid* (Duh)

2.) Pathoma* (I've been using it all year and I love love love it)

3.) UWorld*

4.) Doctors in Training* (heretofore referred to as DIT)

My plan before starting my dedicated study period is: Do ~30 UWorld Questions/Day and annotate the appropriate First Aid sections.  Additionally, DIT sends out 10-15 questions 3x/Week, and so far I've been keeping up with those.  Finally, I am watching the corresponding DIT primer videos for classes and trying to catch up on the ones from prior classes.  All the while, I am still going through Pathoma.

Wish me luck!**

*I have not been paid to advertise for any of these companies.
**For reference, a passing score on Step 1 is now 192.  :-/

New Year, New Me

I'm so excited to write this post because it means that I have passed all my classes (so far)!!  I had to re-take one of my classes, and thank goodness it's over!  It was rough.  I thought I would be able to study for my new class and my remediation exam simultaneously, but I couldn't do that.  So I gave everything I had to my new class, and then when I didn't have anything left, I had to study for my remediation exam.  It sucked, and I don't recommend it.  It's over now.  Now I have to focus on another new class and try to start studying for Step 1.

Failing a class in medical school.

I received notice from my school today. I failed a class. This is the first class I've ever failed in my life. When I got the email, I swore internally, but I wasn't surprised. I was unsure of 40 of my answers on a 90 question test. I hadn't slept the night before and was running on red bull. Truthfully, I got lazy. I got cocky.  Yes, I failed the MCAT, and yes it took me two tries to get into medical school, but I got cocky.  I felt like I could Netflix all I wanted, relax, drink with my friends, go out with the boyfriend and I'd still pass. I wasn't like *those* people. The people who failed, people who weren't smart enough or driven enough. What were they doing? How could they fail a class? This is med school.  Well, this is med school, and I did fail, and I deserved to fail.  I needed to get kicked off my high horse.  I'm in my second year of medical school and I am taking Step 1 this year.  A kick in the pants is what I needed.  Because I don't want to fail Step 1.

So what now?  I didn't wallow; I processed; life went on.  It is what it is.  As for my failure, I have to retake the exam.  

I'm not sure where to start, from the beginning I guess.  I know why I failed. I got lazy and cocky. So now I have to run on all 8 cylinders.  That means, blog hiatus.  It means leaving my phone at home.  It means staying at school for lunch instead of coming home and napping/netflixing. In fact, I'm canceling my Netflix subscription until 2014.  It means going to bed earlier, waking up earlier and doing work...all day.  Listening to pathoma while falling asleep instead of tv.  Listening to pathoma while cooking, getting ready, or eating. Flipping through notecards before bed and first thing in the morning.  Better get started. 

Wish me luck and Happy Thanksgiving!