USMLE Looking for advice/motivation

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Premedstudent2020

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I am sorry in advance for the long post. I am a 2nd-year medical student who was supposed to start rotations in May and become a 3rd year. During dedicated. I had pretty bad anxiety and discovered I had Graves disease. My anxiety was so bad I couldn't study for STEP 1 and kept delaying it. On top of everything else, I was also getting married in September. I eventually decided to take a medical leave and take care of myself, get my Graves disease controlled, and get married.

I am now married and have gotten most of my Graves symptoms under control. I am trying to study again after taking such a long break from studying (almost 2 months). I feel like I am starting all over. I am planning to join the class below me and graduate a year later. My school has informed me I have to take STEP 1 and have a score back before rotations start in February. I am not really sure how to study now or what to do. I have been incredibly unmotivated and started questioning my career path. When I studied for STEP 1 before my score was 43% and all my NBMEs were in the 40s% range. Any helpful advice or words of encouragement are greatly appreciated. Or if anyone has been in my shoes in some way or another.

I've been thinking if this medical leave on my application for residency in the future will hurt me. So I wonder if anyone else has been in a similar situation and how that played out.

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Sorry about all this OP.

Honestly there's enough personal stuff in here (the medical leave of absence) you should probably ask for advice about that in the confidential expert advice thread. Or the general med student forums. The attendings you need to talk to might not see this post.

As far as your step 1 study question-

Do pathoma, sketchy micro, sketchy pharm, the associated anki, and 1 pass of uworld. If you do this you're basically guaranteed to pass, so I've been told by lots of different sources.

That's a LOT of work before February. I'm in the same boat as you in the sense of being behind studying. But I think that's the right game plan.

Don't do all of AnKing, that's crazy
 
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