DIP Episode 43 - The HY Medical Student (A Guide For MS1’s)

Hey, welcome. My name is Devine. I'm a PGOI-1 resident. This is the 43rd episode of the Divine Intervention Podcasts. And we're going to be talking about the high-yield medical student. This is essentially a guide for MS1s. So congratulations for starters. Welcome to Med School. It's not an easy task. Everyone, I mean, of course, a ton of people have liked to Med School, not everyone gets in. So consider yourself a unique person, but although they don't let you get it to your head, just put in the work and now sort of give you some advice on how to approach Med School to increase your chances of success as much as possible. And really, there are seven steps to graduation. Sort of depends on the school you're going to. But for the most part, you do like pre-clinicals and then you get your summer after first year, right? Basically, most of you already know this. The summer after first year is when you should try to do research and actually try to like have a life like see your family, sleep, relax, enjoy, because really one second of your hits, things, I mean, you still get breaks like no question, but things sort of get little intense from second year going forward. And then most schools sort of do some kind of doctor in course before you start M3, like teaching you how to intubate and how to please I Vs and all that fun stuff. And then you take step one, right? That big exam that determines huge chunk of what you can do in the future.

And then you have third year and then you do your step two's, right? So step two's there's two step two's, there's step two CK step two CS. You do your residence applications and then you get into the honeymoon phase of Med School, basically your fourth year, fourth year is great. So basically in this podcast, I'm just going to give a bunch of tips that I feel would help any incoming MS1. And so this advice probably applies to your MS2 years and stuff like that, but mostly for MS1. So tip number one is too many resources, right? So this is a common problem among incoming first years, right? So you see them weeks before the start school, they start spending a ton of money buying this resource, buying that resource, buying this and that. No, like don't splurge. Remember, the thing is all this money you're spending, you don't know how much money you need later. And many of the things you ultimately buy, you end up never using. I remember when I started med school, I literally bought like a, I bought like a dissecter for anatomy. I bought a, I bought a flashcard set for anatomy. I ended up essentially never using it. Thankfully, I didn't buy any other thing besides that like scrubs and stuff, but don't spend money on resources, right? So the thing is you don't really know what works for you just yet. So it doesn't make any sense to start spending tons and tons of money.

And really for the most part, and at least in my experience with knowing people from many Med schools, this seems to work pretty well. If you just focus on the slides and the lecture material that you're getting class, you should be able to pass most of your exams pretty well. So I would encourage you just don't splurge on resources. And this is a rule that applies not just to your first year, or to your second year, it even applies in your 30, you don't need to buy everything known to men. Just buy a few very important things. There are some absolutes, I feel like I like, okay, these things are very necessary. And I'll talk about them as we go along. But again, don't burn your money buying too many resources. Use as little as possible to get to the destination you want to ultimately arrive at. Now, the second tip is, they'll shall not compare, okay? So one thing you need to remember is that you are your only unique person, okay? There is no other copy of you, right? You're the only copy of yourself. You're different from every other person. You're your own person. So don't copy other people because this is one thing that sort of crops up in Med school, where med students, they see like, oh, this friend of mine is doing a million Anki cards, is using this textbook, is using this special resource, and then you feel the need to have to do those things, do not do those things. Don't compare yourself with other people. Do what works for you.

If you're on the ground, you spend your time like going to lecture, writing notes with your by hand, reading those notes and crushing your exams. Of course, trying to the same in Med school, you don't have to say, oh, because I saw this friend of mine doing an Anki deck, I need to start Anki, I need to start doing this, I need to start listening to lectures while I'm working out of the gym and all that stuff. No, if something has worked for you in the past, while why change course? So again, I'll encourage you, do what works for you. You're your only unique person. There are many roads to success in Med school. So do what works for you. Because the thing is when you begin to compare yourself with other people, right? It begins to raise anxiety, right? You begin to like, where are like, ah, am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? I know that stuff and there is just absolutely no need for that. And you may begin to worry like, oh, am I doing enough? The thing is, again, as long as you're doing what works for you to get to your goals, that's all you need to do. You don't need to do what every other person is doing, okay? Trust me, those are the people that you're watching with you're doing them. You're not be absolutely sure of what they're even doing themselves. So focus on what works best for you. Now, tip number three is anatomy, right? So most people sort of start with anatomy. Again, seriously, save your money for anatomy.

You don't need to buy the grants textbook and all that crap. No, don't do any of those things. Save your money. For the most part, what will work in most anatomy courses is your slides, your lecture videos, maybe a dissector. So you can use that in lab, right? And I mean, all this advice is kind of school dependent. But one thing I'll encourage you to do and this is one principle I feel like helped me a lot in med school. Whenever I wanted to do something, I just always look for an upper class man that had already done that thing, right? So, upper class man at your school probably tell you like, oh, this is what you should focus on. This is what is tested on exams. It's just a very useful principle to follow. But again, anatomy is in for dense, right? So the slide and lecture material is probably too much already. It's already a lot. So why do you want to supplant yourself with extra sources of worry and stress? So again, I'll encourage you to just focus on your slides, focus on your lecture videos. The thing is one thing I found helpful for anatomy before going for dissection was to actually watch video dissections online, right? So University of Wisconsin, I'm pretty sure they have a website where they go through dissections for most parts of the body and they're a pretty short video. So those are things I feel I useful to watch before you go for a lab or even lecture. It's sort of immediate easy for me to follow along with lecture. And then University of Michigan, right?

An you have a lot of awesome quizzes on anatomy. They're very helpful, very high for tests. So I'll encourage you to consider using those as well. And then the thing for anatomy is anatomy is in for dense. It's a lot of material. So I'll encourage you to study every day, right? You don't want to fall behind, right? Because I can almost promise you, you'll become profoundly overwhelmed if you're like three days behind or something like that. So I will encourage you to spend your time study every day. It's better to study three, four hours a day than to have to study like two, four days straight before an exam, right? There's no need to go through all that stress. And you'll see what I mean by that in a later slide because the thing is some of the stressors that met students go through some sources of anxiety for met students are largely created by the met students themselves. So I'll talk about that in a bit and help your course mates in lab. Don't let one person be doing the dissection and just stand in watch and write medicine is a team is a is a team exercise, right? So again, help others as much as you can. And if you want to gauge exam difficulty, usually the exam relating to like the thorax and abdomen is usually relatively straightforward. MSK, that's where memorization aplenty begins to come into gear. And then head and neck is just over the top in terms of content.

The head and neck are relatively small part of the body, but there's a lot of stuff crammed into those things, right? So sort of keep those things in mind as you as you study for your tests. And then how to do well on met school exams in general, right? So the thing is for me, this was essentially the algorithm I always followed. Well, not always, but for the most part followed. And I feel like it helped me a lot, right? So whenever I was looking at material for the first time, my goal was not to memorize on that first pass. My first pass was primarily for purposes of understanding, right? So spend the time sit down, try to understand what you're reading, try to make sense of it, try to explain to yourself in your own words. And then after that understanding has been settled, spend time going through multiple passes of the material. Because the thing is at the end of the day, met school, you do need to memorize stuff, right? So what have you understanding first when you understand something is a lot easier to memorize down the line. So understand first, make multiple passes. Don't say, oh, I just look at something once and boom, I'll remember it now. It doesn't work that way in met school. I will encourage you spend time making multiple passes, at least I know for me most exams in met school, I probably looked at the material like four or five times. You may say, wait, divine, that's a lot. How do you, how did you have the time to make four or five passes through material?

Well, I have the time for two reasons. One, I studied early, okay? So I was the kind of person that studied every day for a consistent amount of time. And two, I did not spend my time belaboring myself with low yield resources, buying a thousand and one resources. I didn't do any of those things. So the material I had to study was relatively reasonable. And the thing is when you're studying, try to learn trends, don't just memorize things blindly, try to learn trends in certain things like, oh, like how does this work, how does that work? Or is there a trend or is there a rule or something that would help me like predict like, oh, for this new scenario, I've never seen this is how it potentially works. I mean, even in anatomy, believe it or not, there are trends. And if you learn those trends, it can make your life supremely easy. And one thing I feel that really helps with anatomy is trying to understand the embryology. I think of embryology as being anatomy pathophysiology. If you really know your embryology, many times the findings you're finding the things you see clinically in gross anatomy make a lot of sense, right? Like the brachial plexus, you see people just blindly memorizing all the nerves and this innovates this and that and this and that. Don't get me wrong, you need to memorize those things. But the thing is the brachial plexus, right? If you really sat down and thought about it, right?

If you go from C5 to T1, there's like a proximal to distal gradient of innovation. And all those like those nerves kind of will be certain rules to wear. If you got an exam question and you completely blanked out, you should still be able to reason through like, oh, with this nerve, should not be able to do anything at this point, right? So for example, if something is at T1 B's nerve, it probably works only in the hand compared to working at the arm. So just rules like that, that you can sort of keep in mind that could make your life very easy. Now, some pitfalls with doing well on exams, right? So you see some people, they buy first aid first day and their first exposure to material is through first aid. That is not a good strategy, right? So first aid for a first pass lifestyle is just not something I would recommend, right? Because first aid is a review book for reason. It just contains a lot of facts, has no context, okay? So your first pass through material should not be first aid. First aid should probably be your last pass through material. If you want to review through that medium, you need to get a foundation first. I mean, there's the biblical story of the person that built his house on sand and the person that built his house rocks, right? We know whose house held up when the winds blew, right? So you don't want to build your learning foundation on first aid. That is just not a good life strategy.

Now, also you see this common complaint amongst my students like, oh, this is too low yield. I'd rather spend my time on the high yield stuff. The thing is, I'll encourage you to try to learn as much as possible within reason, okay? Because at the end of the day, you may be surprised that it may just be that one loyal thing that just out of the blue shows up on some tests and you're like, wait, wow, this thing showed up. So learn as much as is possible. You really don't have as a first aid, even as a first or a second or even 30 years. You really don't know what is low yield and what is high yield. So whatever you thought in class, just try to learn it as well as possible. The people that learn things well and the people that will ultimately do well on tests. And again, the last minute lifestyle, you kind of know about this already, don't leave things till the last minute. And I promise you, out of every med school class, there are always those people that you see the night before a test, they're studying at three, right? You just don't need to do that. In fact, some people at my med school can bear witness to this. The night before an exam is probably the night you see me like watching TV, watching stuff on Netflix because again, you don't need to go through any of those stressors. If you just plan ahead and just study for like three, four good hours every day, you really do not need to kill yourself in med school.

And another thing with regards to doing well in exams, right? So avoiding inefficiency, right? So again, it only make like 500 on key flashcards per lecture. That just makes no sense. There is no time you ultimately have to make multiple passes through that material. And then you see people making like very liberal yields of highlighters. Again, if you're, if you're, you know, you're already going to highlight the entire thing. Wait, you just read and memorize the entire thing. Those minutes you spend highlighting, probably minutes you could spend like memorizing the information and understanding it even better. And again, you probably shouldn't be spending like six hours on one lecture, right? I feel like spending like two hours, two and a half hours on a lecture is probably a reasonable amount of time, right? Or even one hour. I mean, initially you probably start off slow, but again, don't have five lectures in a day. And by 8 p.m., you've only gone through one lecture. That is just not a prevent thing to do. And again, anatomy, do not leave things till the last minute. Okay? You will be profoundly overwhelmed. I can promise you this. I've seen people go through that. And those people are the ones that left things till the last minute. Anatomy, even keeping up is overwhelming. And then imagine being behind, I would not let you, I just will encourage you to not go through, go through that, right? And again, tip number five, being too big to run again.

There's nothing that's really low yield. Learn your basics well. Okay, remember ultimately, you're going to be a physician. They're trying to build your knowledge base not just for your USMLE exams, which I'll talk about in a bit, but ultimately your career, right? You're going to be taking care of patients in the future. You don't think about it, right? If put yourself in your patient's shoes, right? Your patients expect you to be the best doctor you can be, right? They don't expect you to be the doctor that said, oh, this is too low yield. I'm not going to worry about it. No, you want to have a good knowledge base because at the end of the day, again, never discount the importance of a good foundation, a good foundation can really set you up well for the future. Now, the next tip, resource overload, right? Again, sort of talked about this already. You're doing of many, again, don't pay up. Okay? Before you jumping to buy a resource, evaluate the resource in a free manner, if you can, and then ask questions of people like, wait, have you used this thing? Does it work? Check on SDN, right? The thing is, if many people have used the resource and found it to be helpful, it is probably a good resource to use. Okay? So I'll talk about some resources that I feel like these are probably absolutes. They are pretty useful, pretty helpful, but again, do not pay up for resources. I can almost promise you, you end up not using most of them. Okay?

And the thing is, just having those resources around you will, in and of itself, create anxiety for you. So there's no need to go through any of that. Now, the last thing I say is, again, is pick one or two, try to ensure resources, okay? And just follow through long term, right? And again, I will give you like a suggested plan as we go along, right? But again, just pick one or two things that work, use them long term if you're trying to like, okay, let me prepare for the USM at least down the line, right? Just pick one or two resources, pick one good review resource, pick one question bank and just work on it long term. That's literally all you need to do and you'll probably be able to get to your destination. And I'll talk about some resources in a bit. So next tip, right? So you hear this fancy story about people saying that once you start med school, you say goodbye to your family and you essentially have no time for a life. Really? This is just not true, okay? The thing is, with the writer approach, you may actually have more time in med school than you do in undergrad, right? Because think about it in undergrad, you have to like shadow, you have to volunteer, you have to do this and that. Many of those things you don't need to do in med school. And for the most part, at least for your first two years, you have major control over your schedule.

As long as you're the kind of person that plans your life well and doesn't fall behind, you may be surprised that most days at six or seven pm you're done for the day and you can essentially like mess around for like four or five hours before you go to bed. So again, if you plan your life, if you're disciplined, if you're consistent, if you go through your lecture material for the day before the end of the day and on the weekends, review the material you've learned that week, you'll notice that med school is it is stressful, don't get me wrong, but it is not as evil as people make it out to be. Let me just put it that way. Now the next tip, right? In terms of again, cracking the med school code, right? So again, focus early, right? So have a plan going into med school, okay? Focus on the right things. Again, don't leave a low your life, leave a high your life. Don't burden yourself with too many resources. Focus on what you need to do, okay? Again, learn well the first time. Be consistent. Don't be the person that follows up on lectures today and then for two days, you're like, uh, let me just sleep in and all that stuff. It'll come up to burn you in the end, okay? And the thing is once you start a habit, you do it for a while, it becomes a part and parcel of your daily life, right?

So if you're the kind of person that you follow up on lectures like studying out med school for weeks on end, you'll notice after a while, it doesn't feel weird to you to just be consistent every day. So just build these good habits early, they'll pay off in the future. And again, make multiple passes of succinct and high-yield resources and again, don't use strategies, others are using that don't work for you, already talked about that. Now anxiety, right? So anxiety is probably one of the biggest problems that affects mid students in this country. And I guess all over the world. So the thing is, they're preventable causes of anxiety and they're non-preventable causes of anxiety, right? So preventable causes, they probably fall into the realm of like the last minute lifestyle. If you leave things for the last minute, of course you're going to be overwhelmed. If you're overwhelmed, you'll be anxious. You're the one that put yourself through that trouble because if you had plant early and again, just follow the simple plan D by D, you would not need to be in that trouble, right? Or you see people that throughout their first two years, they don't even look at any like step one related material and then they get to the dedicated period and start planning. Again, that is just a result of living a last minute kind of lifestyle. Next thing is over commitment, right?

So you see these people, they're in med school, but they're involved in this group, this group, this group, this group, and then they're doing like 10 different research projects, right? That is just not necessary. Even if you're going into dermatology, you do not need to do 10 research projects. The thing is our encourage most people is for the first three, four months of med school, just focus primarily on your schoolwork. As time goes on, begin to slowly bring in added commitments and really you really don't need to involve yourself in more than like one or two student groups and then spend time doing research, good research, and again, I'll talk about research and the leaders like, but don't over commit yourself, right? Because the thing is many upper class mainly love to see like, oh, first years, right? They will begin to offer it like, oh, there's this student group, come and sign up, this student group, come and sign up. Now, don't sign up. Sign up for as few things as possible. Just speak one or two meaningful activities that give you joy, involve yourself in them, but remember ultimately your primary focus is to do well on your USMM Es and to do research that gets published.

So any other thing, I'm not saying don't get involved, get involved because you'll need to talk about those on the residency trail, but don't kill yourself, don't be involved in 15 different groups, don't be sure of this group, sure of this group, sure of this group, sure of that group, to where you're probably spending like 20, 30 hours a week on extra curriculists. That is just not smart and you burn yourself out very quickly. And again, we're also overload in efficient practices like doing like millions and millions of unkey cards or rewriting, transcribing everything, the instructor says that is just not smart. All those things, the things you can prevent, the things that can cause a lot of anxiety. Now, non-preventable causes of anxiety, right? So big exams are definitely one. You're going to take big exams pretty much for the rest of your life if you're involved in medicine. So just kind of learn to live with it, okay? But the thing is if you have the right approach, you can reduce the anxiety associated with big exams, right? So if you don't leave things till the last minute, if you study consistently, if you understand the content, if mid-multiple passes through material, now give you the confidence to approach things that could be potentially anxiety inducing, right? And again, the future, there's a lot of stuff in your future, but remember this process of med school works. Essentially everyone that gets into med school ultimately graduates and becomes a doctor.

So the process works. So don't worry about the future. Just trust God, do your best, work hard on the things you can control and the things you can not control ultimately work themselves out. Now, again, control the preventable causes, right? I already talked about those. Overall, try to relax, right? It's easier said than done, right? But the thing is don't be the workout. I mean, you need to work hard as a med student, but you also need to work smart, right? So you don't want to be the med student that starts at 6 a.m. in the morning and studies till midnight. Again, that is not prudent. You can keep that going for a while, but at some point, you'll ultimately crash, right? So take some time off every day. Don't say, oh, because I'm in med school, I'm never going to watch TV again. I'm never going to engage in any hobbies, right? You're just setting up yourself for burnout, right? So ultimately, again, for me, I will give you my own personal experience, right? So my motor sorper Andy was, I get a very early in the morning, right? So I'm an early morning kind of person around 4.35 a.m. in the morning, I'm up, right? I pray, I read my Bible, I work out, and then around 6 a.m. I start on the material for the day, right? So I was the kind of person that podcasted lectures from home. Watch the lectures for the day, go for a small group around 10 in the morning, and then around noon, we're done with small group.

And then from noon to like four or five, I studied with a classmate of mine, that was this person I studied with for essentially my first two years of med school. And then after that, I would probably spend like 12 hours in the like one or 12 hours in the evening, like either working on like step one stuff, we're extracurricular stuff. And really for the most part, around like 6 p.m. I essentially just went home, distressed, decompressed, and just watched a ton on Netflix, right? So I sort of had a Netflix addiction. So I just did that till like 10 11 p.m. and then I went straight to bed. And then I just repeated it the next day. And then usually on the weekends, I'll spend like six hours on Saturday, probably about an equal amount of time on Sunday, like studying the material for the week, okay? And again, just keeping up with my longitudinal long term step one study plan. So again, you don't need to kill yourself. If you're if you're consistent every day, you probably never get to a situation where you're just completely overwhelmed, completely anxious, you feel like powerless and you've lost control over everything, okay? And the thing is, if you ever get to that situation, try to speak to somebody, okay? Don't try to go with a lot. But one thing I will say is, when you're speaking to people, just be careful, right? So it's not everyone you share your story with, okay?

There will be the good thing about Met School is there is usually a pretty robust support system in place. Find those one or two people that you feel like can keep things confidential, you can speak with, you can bear your heart out to, right? Find those people and you probably meet your conversation like your deep conversations on things that are bothering you to those people. You don't need to share your story with the whole school, your story does not need to be like on the front page of your school newspaper, anything like that. So just be prudent in the way you share information, but you should still be willing to talk to someone. And one thing I will leave you with for this slide is be focused, work hard, okay? But the thing is, don't do things like your life depends on it. So I tell people that, right? So as a pep talk, I give people before they take like step one or step two CK. I tell them, when you get to the prometric room, sit down, be focused, don't let your mind go to sleep. But don't take the exam like shaking and agitated like, oh, I'm completely screwed. This exam, I mean, to be honest with you, this exam determines a huge portion of your life in the future. But be focused, but don't feel, I don't know how to put this in words. Just before you do anything high sticks work hard, while you're doing that high stick thing, be focused.

But while you're doing that high sticks thing, don't be agitated, don't do that high stick thing like, this is a make or a mark sort of thing. No, it's not, okay? There is usually a way out at the end of the day. So just sort of keep that mindset as you are approaching things that are high sticks, because trust me, medical school and just your future in medicine will have a lot of high sticks moments. But if you prepare for that high sticks moment by being disciplined and consistent and working hard ahead of that event, you have the confidence to approach that event. Now, next step is knowing your classmates. So again, your classmates essentially, you're home away from home. They're your support system in whatever new city you're in. And many of these relationships you build with your classmates end up being lifelong friendships. One of some things I found that really helped with building like good relationships with your classmates is just doing stuff together. So like going for dinners or going to branches or having like like pot locks for like, oh, there's probably like five or six people in your class, you know, really well. I just have like pot locks every now and then just do things together or like watch a movie together. I remember like in fourth year, there was like literally like this one week where my friends and myself, we just came to my apartment and we just binge watched Bollywood movies. So again, just do things together. It fosters friendships.

It builds those long-term relationships. And you don't know where those will come to pay off in the future. Now tip number 11, how to not look bad, right? So first thing here is don't one-up others, right? Don't be the person that, oh, you're answering every question or you have the only person that is shining while you leave all your classmates in the door drums. That is not a good thing to do, right? Don't one-up others. Keep quiet. Let other people answer questions. If you're called on of it or if it's your turn, then offer to answer a question, right? So again, don't be the person that wants to shine at the expense of every other person. The thing is your upper classmate, physicians, residents, they see through that attitude pretty quickly and you really don't want to build a bad reputation. It is very hard to build a good reputation, but it's very easy to build a bad reputation. And once the bad reputation has been built, the thing is people's eyes sort of shine on you, right? Like people scrutinize you a lot more than they will scrutinize another person. So you don't want to build up a bad rep, right? So again, sort of fly under the radar. Don't be the person that has to be the ulster all day every day. That is just not a prudent thing to do. And I mean myself, I've certainly made that mistake in the past, but I have definitely learned from it. And again, it is just not a good thing to do. Medicine is a team sport. It's not an individual effort.

Now, help where possible, don't, again, don't leave everything for others to do, chip in your, like putting some effort, putting your face here of the work, right? And again, if you build up a reputation as a person that's a team player and people can sort of rely on, it builds a lot of goodwill with people. And trust me, goodwill pays off. You never know where you'll pay off, but I promise you goodwill certainly, certainly pays off. And the thing is work to make yourself and other people look good, right? So again, it looks counterintuitive, right? Because many, many students, I mean, we have this type of personality where like super competitive and we're like, no, it's, I want to be number one. And really, you should shoot to be number one. But the thing is, do as much as you can to make other people number one as well, right? So I mean, at the end of the day, life is just simpler and happier for everyone. If it's just not one person that is succeeding, if everyone is succeeding, right? It's like everyone is with the program. Everyone is heading in one good direction. There is no need being that one stand out. And then every other person is suffering. Now, try to make everyone look good. At the end of the day, everyone is happy. It's a win-win kind of scenario for everybody. And the thing is, there's this common thing in med school where if a person makes a mistake, you didn't say, oh, I went through this. So others must go through it.

No, that is not a good thing to do, right? If you make a mistake, put out something like put out like, oh, wait, this, this, this, and this, it just wasn't really helpful or, wait, if you got about it this way, you're probably going to run into trouble like one or this, right? So they don't make the same mistakes as you. Again, the thing is, by doing all these things, you begin to build up good will with people. Okay? And again, trust me, it pays off. You won't know where you will pay off, but you will pay off at some point. Now, tip number 12, right? So like basically this slide just think of it as when should I start studying for step one, right? So this is really controversial. People have a different take, but let me just give you my personality content, right? And again, take this with a huge grain of salt. Don't believe most of what I'm saying, right? Their trust, but very fine. Now, the thing is, if you're in a school that has like a one year preclinical curriculum, I would say to probably start something your first week of school to be perfectly honest with you. If you're the person that has like a two year preclinical curriculum, I will honestly say to start in your second semester first year. Just bring your first few weeks, your first semester, trying to figure things out like, okay, this is how I study. This is what I like using. These are the kinds of questions I gravitate towards and stuff like that.

So use your first semester to work on just figuring out what works best for you. And then I will say at least regardless of curriculum, by your second semester of first year, you really should kick start a plan that prepares you ultimately for step one, because whether you like it or not, step one is a very, very, very important exam, okay? And it's something that can, it determines a lot of your future. But the thing is, if you put in the work now, you will set yourself up for success to where you can get the score that prepares you for whatever goal you have going forward. And I will say some things about step one in the next slide. But the cornerstone of any successful step one, like review strategy, like in your preclinical years is just one. Pick a good long-term review resource, right? So you could say, oh, it's first aid or it's boards and beyond, or it's pathoma or whatever. Pick one good resource, stick with it. And then supplement yourself with practice problems. Just pick a Q bank, say for example, like USMLRX, probably has like 2400 questions in it. If you did like seven or eight questions every day, which is a very reasonable number, I feel, you could very easily complete a Q bank in a year, okay? So just pick one good review resource and then pick a source of practice problems.

And really, again, for most people, you probably don't want to just jump into studying for step one from your first day of med school, probably spend a few days or few weeks sort of figure out like how you adjust to the rigors of med school. And then you can begin to add new things as needed. Now, the academic absolute, right? So again, the first thing I tell you is learn things well the first time, right? Again, build your foundation on a rock, not on sand. Try to understand things as much as possible. Don't just blindly memorize. This is super important. I promise you, like, if you have a foundation that is built on understanding, that foundation holds up a lot better than one that is built on memorization. And the thing is when you encounter NV Me exams in the future, NV Me exams reward those that have understanding and memorization ability. But you suffer a lot if you're just a pure memorizer, you have no understanding. Many questions you'll be able to answer, right? You probably know these people that can just blow down facts at the, at the, like literally as a question is dropping for your mouth, they just tell you, oh, it's this, this, this, and this, right? But just sit down with them and ask them like, wait, how those those ones so work? And then you see them begin to like, uh, twiddle your thumbs and stuff like that. So again, keep this in mind. Try to understand. After understanding, then pursue memorization.

And you pursue memorization by just making multiple passes through material, okay? Now in terms of your review material, um, first aid, obviously, right? Everyone uses first aid. Although if you're not a fan of a book, um, doctors in training is essentially for a state in view format. So it's just people like reading facts out to you. They don't necessarily explain all the time, but doctors in training is a good resource. If you're the person that hates reading books, but you love videos, doctors in training is great. Now, if you notice, I put boards and beyond here, um, certainly not paid by boards and beyond, but I will tell you this, boards and beyond is just one resource that I've evaluated for a long time years, even. And I will personally say it's probably one of the best resources on the market because it helps you accomplish two, three goals, actually, one. The guy helps with like, he just explains things so well too. A lot of the detailed in first aid is actually in boards and beyond. And three, he has practice questions for many of his videos that you can use to assess your understanding of the material you just learned. So I will strongly again, I can't force you to do anything, right? I'm just some guy. I need to be, I mean, who knows? I may be lying to you for all I care at this point, but I promise you, boards and beyond is a resource that if you've not heard of, you should take a close look at.

In fact, for most people, I will say that if you master boards and beyond and completely, like let go of first aid until you're dedicated period, that may not be a terrible strategy to pursue. And then in terms of a Q bank, I recommend Rx. Rx is a good resource. It follows first aid really well. It's like first aid in question format. So it's pretty helpful. You world, I wouldn't jump into you world from your first day of med school. That is just not smart. Okay? Because you world is an integrated resource. So I'll encourage you sort of take a step back. We'll tell you the complete that somewhat of a knowledge base before you then jump into your world. And then, Pathoma, I mean, everyone has heard about Pathoma. Pathoma is a great resource. You should use it. There's no, there's no, there's no arguing there. Some other people use Goliath. At least for me, personally, I love the Goliath audio tapes. If you look around, you can find them. They're really good tapes. Goliath is very good at explaining pathophysiology, but you really don't need any of that. If you have Pathoma. Pathoma is a great resource. That guy is, he's just amazing. I believe he embodies what good teaching should look like. And maybe sketchy for micro. A lot of people use it. They love it. So when you're doing your micro course, probably do sketchy. I never use sketchy and just found it easier to just memorize the content myself, but sketchy works for thousands of people.

So I would not say it's a bad resource. It's a good resource. So probably recall, especially if you're the kind of person that does not have a good memory, sketchy may help you in more ways than you realize. And really, that's it. If you notice, I really, you don't seem like recommending any other things. If you sort of keep yourself within these resources and your lecture slides, your lecture videos in school, you're probably good to go for step one for your lecture exams and all that stuff. And again, your best resources going on to the next slide, your upper class men. Okay. We've gone through what you're just about to go through. It doesn't make any sense to not ask them for advice. Right. And most med schools provide advisors for students. Right. So use those advisors. Don't be the person that sees your advisor once a year. Right. See your advisor like once every one or two months, if you can't. Just sort of use it as a way to perform like a self-check. Like, wait, okay, this is where I am right now. This is where I plan to be. How do I get there? Okay. I feel like just having someone you're regularly checking with is a good strategy that helps with sort of keeping you on task. At least that was something that certainly helped me as a med student. I had MS2s that were mentors that I looked up to. At MS3's, MS4's, I had physicians, I had advisors. And trust me, these people, I made them regular. And I just feel like that guidance just helped me do two things. Right.

When he kept me on task and two, he helped me avoid many of the mistakes that people make on their way to graduation. And again, you can also reach out to your deans again, just sort of do that with some wisdom. Okay. Again, what true you share things with. You should certainly talk to your deans, but again, just have a, let me just put it this way. Have appropriate conversations with people. Okay. If you have questions of that, shoot me a message and I'll be more than happy to elaborate on that. Now, next tip, do you need help? Ask for it early. Okay. Don't wait till the last minute. Don't think that by asking for help, people will think you're stupid. Right. The thing is, people will probably think you're stupid after you've made the mistake when you could have asked for help. Okay. So ask for help early. Even if a person downplays you for asking for help, those people that downplayed you are not good people, they're bad people. Okay. But ask for help. Ask for it early. There's no point jumping in on making a mistake when you could have just prevented it by just seeking help as early as possible. Now, some more specific stuff. Again, making thousands of flashcards a day does just not smart. The thing is, really, from this podcast, some people may be saying divine was really here on key. That is not really true. I do not hate on key in any way shape of form. Actually, think on key is phenomenal. It's a great resource. It's a great means of studying.

But in my experience, and I mean, my experience is little, but I will say that at least over the last like seven years, I have thought thousands of students have advised hundreds of students and have given hundreds of lectures over the last couple of years. So I feel like I kind of know a little about this. So the thing is, most students really don't need to use on key. Right. There's this on key thing going on now where it's like everybody uniformly. You must use on key. You don't need to use on key. For some people, it's a great study strategy. But for most people that I've spoken with and like spend time advising, it's not necessarily the most prudent thing to do. The thing is the concept behind on key is space repetition. The thing is, you can do space repetition with flashcards. You can do space repetition with videos. You can do space repetition with lecture slides. Okay. So whatever medium works best for you, just go over that medium on a scheduled basis. You don't necessarily have to make flashcards to feel like you're studying. So you just have to keep that in mind. And again, you see people making flashcards like literally converting everyone in the lecture to flashcards. Again, that is not smart, right. You're not putting any time to understand anything. You're just trying to like, oh, let me just create cards, burn through them a couple of times, and I know the material.

Well, the thing is, you see those people again, they're building some kind, I mean, everyone ultimately builds a foundation. But in the future, see whose foundation holds up well enough. And again, time syncs already talked about this. You see some people like, they say, oh, I rewrite the entire slides again. That helps me remember. Again, that's not prudent. If something is already written down, why waste your time writing it again? Think about it. The time you spend writing that whole thing, you could have used it to make like two one or two passes through the material. Okay. So again, these inefficient practices are some of the things that make me to then spend hours and hours and hours a day, just trying to even keep up with the material for the day. Right. So again, just keep these things in mind. Again, you don't need to believe anything I'm saying, but I'm just giving you some pointers based on my personal experience and based on the experiences of accumulated from advising tons and tons of people. So I guess take that for what you mean. And then practice questions. So the next step, use the material that's provided. Pre-test is like a company that makes books that for the most part have like 500 questions for like most specialties, most pretty, most pretty clinical subjects. I find many of them to be good, some are not. Right. So look up like Amazon reviews. But pre-test, that really found it to be pretty helpful for a lot of things in Met Scope.

Like pre-test medicine, I use it during my medicine rotation. I use pre-test neuroduring my neuro rotation. I use pre-test OB-GYN during my OB-GYN rotation. I use it during surgery, right. And for the most part, I found it to be pretty, to be pretty helpful. Like the neuroscience course I had in my pre-tank four years, I also use pre-test for that I found it to be to be pretty helpful. The QBANKI mostly recommend to people to use in their first like two years before jumping to the dedicated period in USMLRX. Kaplan is actually also quite good, especially for physiology, but don't do both. Pequan either use RX or use Kaplan. Either one will also surprise. And then again, you were all avoided until you've accumulated some more of a knowledge base, right. If you start your work on your first day, if you do a set of 10 questions, you'll probably get all of them wrong. Because again, you work integrates multiple disciplines. So the advice I usually give people is use RX, for example, first or Kaplan. And then when you're done with that QBANK, then jump into your work. And while you're doing these questions, review the explanations. The explanations is where reading the explanations is where a lot of the learning actually takes place. And one thing I will actually say here that's not in this slide, but I'll just say it out loud. You see some people say that I learn best from doing questions, right. So the thing is, in my experience, that is just generally not a...

I mean, I do practice questions. Practice questions help a lot. But personally, I feel like I gain more from questions when I have a knowledge base to approach those questions. Because personally, I think of questions as a means of assessing your understanding. But if the first time you're being exposed to them material is through questions, I just feel like ultimately as you're reading those explanations, you're memorizing those explanations, you don't have any basis at the back of your mind for approaching those questions. So I usually tell people like, read first and then do questions. Yes, your scores will artificially be inflated as a result of doing that. But I feel like your study process will just be richer and you will gain a lot more from it. Because now you're trying to work out errors in your thinking. As again, trying to like just learn every error from questions you get wrong. I just don't think that's a pretty strategy. So again, I advocate learning first and then testing yourself to assess your understanding. And then if you fail an exam, again, it's so dependent on schools, but seriously, it's not the end of the world. If you fail multiple exams, that's not a good thing. You probably should try to put measures in place to not fail multiple exams. But the thing I tell people is, speak to your advisor, speak to upper class men. Don't like fail one exam and then sort of give up on life and say, I'm going to quit med school. I'm not going out for this.

The thing is at the end of the day, there's a resume in med school. There's a reason and admission committee decided to get you into school. So don't give up. But if you notice you fail one exam, don't give yourself occasion to fail another exam. Seek help early. Get a tutor. Don't eat till it's too late. Speak to upper class men. Speak to people that you see are doing really well in class. Like what are you doing? Like what resources are you studying? How do you study? Right? Get tips from people that are successful. Okay? So that you don't make the same mistake again. And again, if you're living things till the last minute and you fail an exam, you somewhat plead yourself into the situation you're currently in. So it's not the end of the world to fill an exam. But again, after you fill an exam, try to put measures in place so you don't fall into the same rut anymore. And should you shadow? So the thing is, you should of course shadow. But the thing is there's a reason why you have 30 years. But the thing is you're not necessarily exposed to every special team year 30 years. So if there are fails, you're like, I may be interested in this like physical medicine and rehab or dermatology or occupational medicine. Those are things you probably will never see in your third year, right? Or ever, right? So those are reasonable things to shadow in. But the mainstream specialties, you're going to get exposed to those in your third year.

And this part tip number 20 is actually like, really high-yield and important, right? So the thing is research is super, super, super important for your future, right? So I mean, there's some specialties where without research, you can match no issue. But I'll say if you want to go to a good program, right? You need to have research on your resume. Simple as that, okay? And the thing is, you need to be aware of research pitfalls, right? So don't overload yourself with too many projects. It's better to be doing one project and take that project to completion and get a publication from it. By being involved, than being involved in 10 projects, you don't accomplish anything significant in anyone, right? Or you're like essentially being pulled in many directions, you cause yourself anxiety. And then you're not effective as a researcher, right? So the thing is, limit what you're doing, what put in maximum effort in those few things you're doing. Don't overload yourself. And don't pick up projects you don't like. The thing is, research, I mean, some people genuinely love research, but for a good number of people, research is not necessarily their cup of tea. We know it's something you just need to do to get to where you need to be as a physician in the future, as a med student. So the thing is, it just makes sense to pick up research in something you're actually interested in, okay?

Now, another thing, and I mean, like many people can bear me with Nest, like this is something that many people fall into. It's the love at first meeting without investigating for their mistake, right? So the thing is, P Is, they're very good at selling their research to people, right? And you see people like they're talking so excited about it, and then you just boom, from that first meeting, you commit to doing research with them. That is not a pretty strategy. When someone tells you about their research, tell them, okay, let me go, let me do some checking, let me do some evaluation, and then I'll get back to you, okay? Usually one thing I do is I look up the papers that the person has written, see the productive, publishing-wise, that's usually like a good person to work with. If a person, you send them an email and they respond within a day or within a few minutes, a few hours, that is also probably a good person to work with, right? Another thing I also do is I speak with other people that have done research with that person. Is this person a helpful person? Are they responsive? Do they publish regularly? Just little common sense things you could do to increase your possibility, your probabilities of not being frustrated, okay? So again, for a first research meeting, don't commit. Set back, do your own investigating before you jump in, right?

Because the thing is, you don't want to get into a relationship with a PI, break that relationship, get into a new relationship with another PI, break that relationship. You don't want to need those people for recliders in the future, or if they will be on some residency selection committee that may affect the future. So don't burn bridges, right? So respectfully, don't commit yet, ask questions, do your due diligence before you sign up with someone, okay? And again, be very direct at your meetings with P Is. Like tell, before you start a project, like what are the chances of this project getting published? Okay? Don't commit yourself for many months, working on a project that the chances of success of getting published are like 20%. No, that is not prudent. At the end of the day, there are two things you really care about for your future, your USMLE scores, and your research, vis-a-vis your publications. So from the get-go, ask your PI, and the thing is P Is, I mean, there's a reason they're called principle investigators. They've been doing this for a while, so they probably know what works and what will not work. So again, ask them, what are the chances of this thing getting published? If they sort of say, I'm not sure, or this will take four years before we can put out a paper that is probably a project you should sort of call yourself back from, okay? Met School is four years. You don't want a project that rounds up in four years.

You need a project that gets published and shows up on your ERAS application. And again, use things that encompass your skill set, and in terms of sweet summer deals, I'm just going to throw this out here, right? So there are some really good like research fellowships for the summer that you can sign up for as a Met student. Most of some of them are very competitive, but a lot of them are not super competitive, right? So signing up for some of these programs may not be the worst thing in the world, right? So there's like NIH programs, there's programs at Johns Hopkins, which is where I went to Met School. Yeah, programs at Mayo Clinic, I actually did a research fellowship at Mayo, it was a phenomenal experience. And the thing is, many of these things appeared decent amount of money, maybe like 4,000, 5,000. So I will encourage you to see these things out. It is a nice way to get research on your resume, see people from other institutions, right? Build networks, build contacts, and also get paid. So it's not the worst deal in the world. And really, the final tip, right? So clinical skills prior to M3, right? So you're 30 of Met School. You want to know how to do a physical exam, and you want to know how to write it up efficiently, okay? You want to be good at interviewing patients, you want to be good at empathy, right? So like, oh, I'm sorry, you feel this way, right? You need to be empathetic as a physician, right?

And basically, you want to essentially know the skeleton of a good note, right? So you want to know like, oh, like HPI, pass medical, past surgical, family history, social history, allergies, assessment and plan. You want to at least know those basic parts. You don't necessarily need to worry about what goes into them. As time goes on, you begin to learn those things. And again, practice, practice visa skills, okay? Practice presenting. You can even present in front of a mirror. You can present to a classmate. These skills, as you build them up, they'll help you in third year, right? And they'll ultimately help you in the future when you become a physician. So I think that's all I'm going to talk about today. This has been a fairly long podcast, but I think it's something that'll be pretty helpful. I'm almost certain that lots of people have questions. So you can either put questions in the comments or email me, and I'll be more than happy to help out. So I wish you a wonderful day. And for those that invest your med school, I wish you a wonderful experience in med school. Med school is tough. It's a lot of work, but with the right approach, if you're sort of following the advice I talk, I'll do it in this podcast. I believe you can be very successful without killing yourself. So I wish you a wonderful time and God bless and enjoy med school and I'll see you on rounds at some point in the future. Thank you.

Understanding the concepts; trying to make sense of it and explaining it in your own words.

Embryology, which can be thought of as "anatomy pathophysiology."

Splurging money on too many different resources; focus on slides and lecture material first.

Trying to "one-up" others or being the person who constantly shines at the expense of classmates.

Do not commit immediately; perform due diligence by reviewing their publications and speaking with former collaborators.

Speak to my advisor or upperclassmen to seek help early and prevent future mistakes.

1) Understand (First Pass), then 2) Make multiple passes, then 3) Memorize.

Because it is a review book containing facts without context; it lacks the necessary foundation for initial learning.

Controlling preventable causes by planning ahead, studying consistently, and avoiding last-minute cramming or overcommitment.

Doing things together (e.g., potlucks, watching movies) to foster long-term friendships and support systems.

Always ask about the realistic chances of the project getting published before committing time or effort.

Understanding the underlying pathophysiology and learning trends (e.g., proximal to distal gradients in nerves).

1) Understand (First Pass), then 2) Make multiple passes, then 3) Memorize.

Because it is a review book containing facts without context; it lacks the necessary foundation for initial learning.

Controlling preventable causes by planning ahead, studying consistently, and avoiding last-minute cramming or overcommitment.

Doing things together (e.g., potlucks, watching movies) to foster long-term friendships and support systems.

Always ask about the realistic chances of the project getting published before committing time or effort.

Understanding the underlying pathophysiology and learning trends (e.g., proximal to distal gradients in nerves).