the official COMAT shelf thread

[sunshinefl]

How’d you do on step 2?

238

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[ohmanwaddup]

anyone know if the Neuro deck in Dorian IM is necessary? Its all I have left and Id love to be done lol

 

[fldoctorgirl]

anyone know if the Neuro deck in Dorian IM is necessary? Its all I have left and Id love to be done lol

I'm planning on doing the whole deck. Honestly, you might as well, that subdeck isn't that big if I recall correctly and then you don't have to wonder about it. But that's just me.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Y'all.......if there was any doubt before, I'm 100% applying IM. In 6 months!!!!! which is crazy. Loved outpatient month, loving inpatient month overall. I found my place. My OCD brain wants me to think about every other possibility, but everything else I liked had downfalls that ruined it for me. IM downfalls I can deal with.

This has been a PSA. Carry on.

 

[Steve_Zissou]

Y'all.......if there was any doubt before, I'm 100% applying IM. In 6 months!!!!! which is crazy. Loved outpatient month, loving inpatient month overall. I found my place. My OCD brain wants me to think about every other possibility, but everything else I liked had downfalls that ruined it for me. IM downfalls I can deal with.

This has been a PSA. Carry on.

It is a great feeling when you get to a rotation and you think "Oh yeah, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

 

[ohmanwaddup]

It is a great feeling when you get to a rotation and you think "Oh yeah, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

This is how I felt with outpatient peds. I think I still want Med/Peds but I've had a lot of introspection and concern of if its what I actually want/my calling. There are other fields I like, looking at you ortho, but I don't have the score or love of research to realistically apply to them, and I don't really want a residency longer than medical school. I also wonder if any of my holdups are just from being a student.

Do all my mixed feelings about IM stem from having 650 anki reviews plus 30 Uworld to do a day, after completing a 13 hour IM inpatient shift? I don't seem to mind the 13 hour shift, I seem to enjoy the day as it goes on and I definitely enjoyed outpatient IM.

Do my misgiving comes from my rotation site not being bad per say, but its still not the best teaching wise and I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out what to do on my own?

I really do like the broad breadth of IM and feel like at even just a base level I want to do med/peds just to have the knowledge and ability to treat any age group. I don't want to be a doc thats always consulting, but I'm not sure if that is possible anymore.

I think I would be most happy practicing in the 60s or 70s in some middle of nowhere place as a general practitioner. Doing it all with the occasional appy or setting a broken bone. To bad those days don't exist anymore, and I don't want EM with where the field is heading.

Idk I'm just rambling at this point. been doing a lot of sleep deprived introspection lately.

 

[Steve_Zissou]

This is how I felt with outpatient peds. I think I still want Med/Peds but I've had a lot of introspection and concern of if its what I actually want/my calling. There are other fields I like, looking at you ortho, but I don't have the score or love of research to realistically apply to them, and I don't really want a residency longer than medical school. I also wonder if any of my holdups are just from being a student.

Do all my mixed feelings about IM stem from having 650 anki reviews plus 30 Uworld to do a day, after completing a 13 hour IM inpatient shift? I don't seem to mind the 13 hour shift, I seem to enjoy the day as it goes on and I definitely enjoyed outpatient IM.

Do my misgiving comes from my rotation site not being bad per say, but its still not the best teaching wise and I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out what to do on my own?

I really do like the broad breadth of IM and feel like at even just a base level I want to do med/peds just to have the knowledge and ability to treat any age group. I don't want to be a doc thats always consulting, but I'm not sure if that is possible anymore.

I think I would be most happy practicing in the 60s or 70s in some middle of nowhere place as a general practitioner. Doing it all with the occasional appy or setting a broken bone. To bad those days don't exist anymore, and I don't want EM with where the field is heading.

Idk I'm just rambling at this point. been doing a lot of sleep deprived introspection lately.

I LOVED spine surgery. It was cool AF and the surgeon who I was with was just an awesome mentor. I considered it for a minute then I remembered how many hours that dude works weekly and how awful his residency was. I don't mind working hard during residency, and I don't mind working hard as an attending but I have no interest in 65+ hour weeks after I am completely done with training. I love diagnosis and don't love long term care, which led me to rads. I did my rads rotation and thought, this seems like a really enjoyable life and I could do this work until the day I die as long as my brain stays healthy. There are lots of specialties I think I could enjoy in medicine but I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck when it comes to longevity and family time.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I LOVED spine surgery. It was cool AF and the surgeon who I was with was just an awesome mentor. I considered it for a minute then I remembered how many hours that dude works weekly and how awful his residency was. I don't mind working hard during residency, and I don't mind working hard as an attending but I have no interest in 65+ hour weeks after I am completely done with training. I love diagnosis and don't love long term care, which led me to rads. I did my rads rotation and thought, this seems like a really enjoyable life and I could do this work until the day I die as long as my brain stays healthy. There are lots of specialties I think I could enjoy in medicine but I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck when it comes to longevity and family time.

Yeah I feel the same. Maybe I'll end up just doing peds, Or maybe just outpatient med/peds. Can't seem to find a peds away rotations right now though and I have zero inpatient peds experience.

Wild because coming into medical school I really thought I would want to do mostly inpatient. hopefully 4th year since I'll be done with anki will provide a more clear picture but who knows.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

This is how I felt with outpatient peds. I think I still want Med/Peds but I've had a lot of introspection and concern of if its what I actually want/my calling. There are other fields I like, looking at you ortho, but I don't have the score or love of research to realistically apply to them, and I don't really want a residency longer than medical school. I also wonder if any of my holdups are just from being a student.

Do all my mixed feelings about IM stem from having 650 anki reviews plus 30 Uworld to do a day, after completing a 13 hour IM inpatient shift? I don't seem to mind the 13 hour shift, I seem to enjoy the day as it goes on and I definitely enjoyed outpatient IM.

Do my misgiving comes from my rotation site not being bad per say, but its still not the best teaching wise and I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out what to do on my own?

I really do like the broad breadth of IM and feel like at even just a base level I want to do med/peds just to have the knowledge and ability to treat any age group. I don't want to be a doc thats always consulting, but I'm not sure if that is possible anymore.

I think I would be most happy practicing in the 60s or 70s in some middle of nowhere place as a general practitioner. Doing it all with the occasional appy or setting a broken bone. To bad those days don't exist anymore, and I don't want EM with where the field is heading.

Idk I'm just rambling at this point. been doing a lot of sleep deprived introspection lately.

I'll take a stab at this. Personally, I don't really understand med/peds as a field. I remember you explained to me once awhile back why you are interested in the field, and totally don't take this the wrong way....but I don't get why it exists. I browse the IM forums a lot, and any doc I see on there that's med/peds says most everyone in their residency class ended up just practicing one or the other. Also, if you want to treat kids and adults and are thinking about outpatient, then there's FM. So the field as a whole just doesn't make sense to me, but I could be totally off base and forgive me if I am.

I had a hot moment where I was like "huh, peds could be fun". I honestly love babies ha. Then I realized I only enjoyed the newborn to ~2 y/o visits and didn't care after that for every elementary school aged kid who was just a wellness visit. For me, at least in outpatient IM when you have your annual physical or whatever, there are actual problems and things to address, labs to interpret, meds to adjust and/or change. I just felt like peds was missing all of that for me, and I couldn't handle another visit where you basically make sure the kid is doing well in school and sign off. This is kind of what I was alluding to in my post when I mentioned the downfalls that ruined other fields for me. I honestly liked most of my rotations besides surgery and could conceivably be happy with aspects of most of them, but IM is the one where the downfalls are the least bothersome for me. Anyways, for outpatient peds the downfall was that it was lacking actual medicine for me. Also, I realized I really just like babies but didn't care so much about school-aged kids or teens. Also, in order to feel like I was doing medicine in peds I would have to do inpatient, which to me is depressing and just....meh. Kids blow my mind with how resilient they are and the things they are able to bounce back from, but the low lows just ruined the field for me. Match that with dealing with anti-vax parents and other parental issues where I just was like "you really shouldn't be a parent" and yeah...I just couldn't do it. Power to those pediatricians who put on a smiling face and can support any type of parent, because families deserve that, but that person wasn't me. I write all this just so you can see if any of it resonates with you. I feel like the people who truly love peds really know it when they have the rotation, so if you read everything I wrote and felt like none of that bothered you....peds may be for you.

Anyways, TLDR: I would continue this introspective process you've been doing. Try not to focus too much on your actual rotations but rather what a life in that field would look like. Sure, peds residency is mostly inpatient, but most pediatricians work outpatient. Do you get bummed at the thought of never seeing a kid again, or never seeing an adult again? Do you actually realistically see yourself practicing both adult internal medicine and peds in the future? Again, from my admittedly limited experience with meds/peds people, it seems like most pick one. I also feel like you're limiting yourself more geographically etc. by going meds/peds, so I would make sure you're really set on it vs. just picking either adults or kids (or FM).

 

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I LOVED spine surgery. It was cool AF and the surgeon who I was with was just an awesome mentor. I considered it for a minute then I remembered how many hours that dude works weekly and how awful his residency was. I don't mind working hard during residency, and I don't mind working hard as an attending but I have no interest in 65+ hour weeks after I am completely done with training. I love diagnosis and don't love long term care, which led me to rads. I did my rads rotation and thought, this seems like a really enjoyable life and I could do this work until the day I die as long as my brain stays healthy. There are lots of specialties I think I could enjoy in medicine but I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck when it comes to longevity and family time.

Its so hard not to think of pursuing a specialty because your mentor was cool haha like I loved the ER docs I was with and for a second pictured what it'd be like to go into ER and work with them, but then I remembered I disliked almost everything about ER

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I'll take a stab at this. Personally, I don't really understand med/peds as a field. I remember you explained to me once awhile back why you are interested in the field, and totally don't take this the wrong way....but I don't get why it exists. I browse the IM forums a lot, and any doc I see on there that's med/peds says most everyone in their residency class ended up just practicing one or the other. Also, if you want to treat kids and adults and are thinking about outpatient, then there's FM. So the field as a whole just doesn't make sense to me, but I could be totally off base and forgive me if I am.

I had a hot moment where I was like "huh, peds could be fun". I honestly love babies ha. Then I realized I only enjoyed the newborn to ~2 y/o visits and didn't care after that for every elementary school aged kid who was just a wellness visit. For me, at least in outpatient IM when you have your annual physical or whatever, there are actual problems and things to address, labs to interpret, meds to adjust and/or change. I just felt like peds was missing all of that for me, and I couldn't handle another visit where you basically make sure the kid is doing well in school and sign off. This is kind of what I was alluding to in my post when I mentioned the downfalls that ruined other fields for me. I honestly liked most of my rotations besides surgery and could conceivably be happy with aspects of most of them, but IM is the one where the downfalls are the least bothersome for me. Anyways, for outpatient peds the downfall was that it was lacking actual medicine for me. Also, I realized I really just like babies but didn't care so much about school-aged kids or teens. Also, in order to feel like I was doing medicine in peds I would have to do inpatient, which to me is depressing and just....meh. Kids blow my mind with how resilient they are and the things they are able to bounce back from, but the low lows just ruined the field for me. Match that with dealing with anti-vax parents and other parental issues where I just was like "you really shouldn't be a parent" and yeah...I just couldn't do it. Power to those pediatricians who put on a smiling face and can support any type of parent, because families deserve that, but that person wasn't me. I write all this just so you can see if any of it resonates with you. I feel like the people who truly love peds really know it when they have the rotation, so if you read everything I wrote and felt like none of that bothered you....peds may be for you.

Anyways, TLDR: I would continue this introspective process you've been doing. Try not to focus too much on your actual rotations but rather what a life in that field would look like. Sure, peds residency is mostly inpatient, but most pediatricians work outpatient. Do you get bummed at the thought of never seeing a kid again, or never seeing an adult again? Do you actually realistically see yourself practicing both adult internal medicine and peds in the future? Again, from my admittedly limited experience with meds/peds people, it seems like most pick one. I also feel like you're limiting yourself more geographically etc. by going meds/peds, so I would make sure you're really set on it vs. just picking either adults or kids (or FM).

I think I would be 100% bummed to choose one age group over the other, which is a big reason why I'm still planning on it at this point. I've heard that most (74%) people will still do both IM and peds (though rarely is it a 50/50 split between them), but if you go for fellowship that's when the big drop off occurs, and the numbers I've seen posted by various organization support that.

Geographic plays a role, but the city I plan to apply to has two med peds programs and IM and peds rotations in the surrounding area, all DO friendly, so that is not as much of an issue.

As for FM instead, I think I want the training on more complex patients, the options for fellowship if I fall in love with one, and just a protected peds patient population. FM also only has 4 months of peds education while med/peds has 24. If I do FM and realize, nah I think I only want peds, or just inpatient well that really isn't possible for where I will most likely be living. if I do Med/peds and decide to do one over the other at least I can. Waste of a year sure, but at least I will have the option.

You have a lot of good points though and I appreciate another person's view. its a bit lonely at my site lol I am the only 3rd year here for the next 2 months. I think as application season gets closer we are all getting back into more and more of a corner to make a decision and I personally hate that and it stresses me out. I'm a person that likes to be as broad as possible. I

 

[Hippocrates II]

Y'all.......if there was any doubt before, I'm 100% applying IM. In 6 months!!!!! which is crazy. Loved outpatient month, loving inpatient month overall. I found my place. My OCD brain wants me to think about every other possibility, but everything else I liked had downfalls that ruined it for me. IM downfalls I can deal with.

This has been a PSA. Carry on.

I hope to find the find same soon. I went to school thinking IM, but both of my rotations were so bad that I'm totally turned off to the field. One of my preceptors literally avoided seeing or talking to any of his patients and just consulted specialists/ot/pt on everyone. We would round and he wouldn't even see the patient, just took our history and wrote up consults. I wish bad doctors like that would stop taking students because they can really impact your view of a field when they're one of the only docs you get to experience their field through. I'm going to do a subI in it just to give it one more shot before moving on.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I think I would be 100% bummed to choose one age group over the other, which is a big reason why I'm still planning on it at this point. I've heard that most (74%) people will still do both IM and peds (though rarely is it a 50/50 split between them), but if you go for fellowship that's when the big drop off occurs, and the numbers I've seen posted by various organization support that.

Geographic plays a role, but the city I plan to apply to has two med peds programs and IM and peds rotations in the surrounding area, all DO friendly, so that is not as much of an issue.

As for FM instead, I think I want the training on more complex patients, the options for fellowship if I fall in love with one, and just a protected peds patient population. FM also only has 4 months of peds education while med/peds has 24. If I do FM and realize, nah I think I only want peds, or just inpatient well that really isn't possible for where I will most likely be living. if I do Med/peds and decide to do one over the other at least I can. Waste of a year sure, but at least I will have the option.

You have a lot of good points though and I appreciate another person's view. its a bit lonely at my site lol I am the only 3rd year here for the next 2 months. I think as application season gets closer we are all getting back into more and more of a corner to make a decision and I personally hate that and it stresses me out. I'm a person that likes to be as broad as possible. I

That makes a lot of sense! It may just be perfect for you then. I'm always interested to hear why others are picking a certain field.

Get you on the lonely aspect. I had a couple of rotations back-to-back where I was the only med student around and it sucked.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I hope to find the find same soon. I went to school thinking IM, but both of my rotations were so bad that I'm totally turned off to the field. One of my preceptors literally avoided seeing or talking to any of his patients and just consulted specialists/ot/pt on everyone. We would round and he wouldn't even see the patient, just took our history and wrote up consults. I wish bad doctors like that would stop taking students because they can really impact your view of a field when they're one of the only docs you get to experience their field through. I'm going to do a subI in it just to give it one more shot before moving on.

Agree 100%. Preceptors have really impacted how I feel about a field. Luckily I've had good ones for IM. What other specialties are you thinking of?

 

[Hippocrates II]

Agree 100%. Preceptors have really impacted how I feel about a field. Luckily I've had good ones for IM. What other specialties are you thinking of?

I liked OB way more than I thought I would, but I'm not totally sold on wanting to spend my life doing that. FM wasn't bad, but I would rather just do IM at that point to leave onc/cards/pulm on the table. Might do a rads elective just to see what it's like, but I can't really say reading images is very interesting to me. So I guess I have no idea what I want to do, hah. I'm hoping my IM subI changes my opinion on things because IM does seem to offer most of what I want.

 

[Dr. USMLE]

Might do a rads elective just to see what it's like, but I can't really say reading images is very interesting to me.

Good idea doing an elective.

My job feels like playing a video game. The problem with the diagnostic radiology elective is it’s like watching someone else play a video game so you don’t get a sense for how interesting it really is.

Try to do some interventional radiology during it since it is more active for students.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

IM UWorld is kicking my buttttttt.

 

[Steve_Zissou]

IM UWorld is kicking my buttttttt.

IM is ****ing rough. I know I’m gonna have to spend the majority of my study time for boards going over IM

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I Swear Uworld and Comquest have adaptive difficulty built in. I just got the most 10 BS comquest questions in a row after getting 10/10 on the block before that.

Its absurdly rude

 

[calivianya]

I’m having the opposite experience - I’m becoming less and less sure I want to do any of this at all.

My first IM rotation had a lighter workload (2-3 patients) and I enjoyed it. My second was more like what I imagine residency will be like, with four patients every day... and I low key hated it by the end. Hated spending so much dang time on paperwork. Hated leaving so late and really working all 12 of those hours... not just finishing my notes and having some downtime like my first rotation. Only my awesome attending made it bearable. I’m pretty much sold on the concept that I don’t need to be doing a residency that’s 70-80 hours a week where I’m actually working for most of those hours because I’m a nightmare when I get home when I’m irritable and tired, and I learned from my divorce in 2019 that no job is worth ruining my home life over.

OB has completely put me off of the OR because my preceptor is one of those that just rapid fires questions until you fail, about whatever random structure, and then just other minutiae about suturing, whatever, that makes me have deep existential dread about ever stepping a foot in the OR again. I was completely unprepared for this level of grilling about surgery in OB (probably my own fault, idk). Just looked at the surgery schedule for tomorrow and saw my preceptor has a couple of surgeries and it has ruined my whole day thinking about having to go into the OR. The only good thing about this rotation is I missed an entire week of it due to snow. Saved by the crappy roads and this town not having any road salt or a single snow plow lmfao.

I hated the two seconds my outpatient preceptors spent with their patients. It was not unusual on my FM rotation for my preceptor to knock out 35 patients a day, and I just don’t feel like that’s good care. We addressed one small problem at a time but I really feel like there wasn’t time for a decent work up of the whole patient, and I don’t want to work an assembly line.

I don’t like being damp, and I feel like I was constantly getting sneezed on and drooled on during peds... no thanks. No thanks on psych, too.

At this point I don’t like anything and I don’t know why I’m still here. Thinking about doing all of my electives in interventional radiology because I do like procedures, but don’t think I could sit and just read studies all day in DR. But I’ve still got the DO letters after my name and IR is tough to match, so, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll float a few rotations in anesthesia in there too and see how that feels. Sorry to word vomit here but it’s sort of related to what’s being said and I am feeling discouraged.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I hated the two seconds my outpatient preceptors spent with their patients. It was not unusual on my FM rotation for my preceptor to knock out 35 patients a day, and I just don’t feel like that’s good care. We addressed one small problem at a time but I really feel like there wasn’t time for a decent work up of the whole patient, and I don’t want to work an assembly line.

So, kind of to echo what was said above: it sucks how much your specific preceptor influences your perception of a field. My FM preceptor saw ~20-25 patients per day. There were times where it felt a bit rushed and I wasn't crazy about it. On the flip side, my outpatient IM preceptor routinely spent 45 minutes-1 hour with his patients. Seriously, we saw like 10 patients a day. I think my own personal happy spot would be somewhere in between the 2, but point being I know it's hard but try to remove what you're seeing your specific preceptor do from the equation. Focus on whether you like the pathology, the thought processes, can envision a career setup in that field that would work for you. I feel similarly to you in that I don't want to give up my life for this career. My SO and my family will always come first. That's actually one of the things that led me to choose IM-- so much flexibility in the job! If I can think of a job I can probably find it. So I would maybe try and think about things that way if you're not having that aha moment. I had a radiologist talk to me about how he got paid while on vacation in Hawaii for 2 weeks reading scans. Sounds pretty rad to me (pun intended ha).

I think you may find you enjoy DR or even anesthesia. What about path? I remember you saying you were leaning towards the less patient-interaction specialities. You have a good step score so I think you'll find what works best for you. I think people oversell the idea of falling in love with a specialty. Just pick what works best to allow you to have the life you want.

 

[calivianya]

So, kind of to echo what was said above: it sucks how much your specific preceptor influences your perception of a field. My FM preceptor saw ~20-25 patients per day. There were times where it felt a bit rushed and I wasn't crazy about it. On the flip side, my outpatient IM preceptor routinely spent 45 minutes-1 hour with his patients. Seriously, we saw like 10 patients a day. I think my own personal happy spot would be somewhere in between the 2, but point being I know it's hard but try to remove what you're seeing your specific preceptor do from the equation. Focus on whether you like the pathology, the thought processes, can envision a career setup in that field that would work for you. I feel similarly to you in that I don't want to give up my life for this career. My SO and my family will always come first. That's actually one of the things that led me to choose IM-- so much flexibility in the job! If I can think of a job I can probably find it. So I would maybe try and think about things that way if you're not having that aha moment. I had a radiologist talk to me about how he got paid while on vacation in Hawaii for 2 weeks reading scans. Sounds pretty rad to me (pun intended ha).

I think you may find you enjoy DR or even anesthesia. What about path? I remember you saying you were leaning towards the less patient-interaction specialities. You have a good step score so I think you'll find what works best for you. I think people oversell the idea of falling in love with a specialty. Just pick what works best to allow you to have the life you want.

It really does suck - I have become convinced that DO schools especially should have shorter rotations, say, two weeks with one preceptor each a rotation if you have to do preceptor-based instead of a rotation with residents. It really sucks how one person can sour a whole specialty.

The reading scans in Hawaii thing is really appealing. So is the lighter hours in residency. I know it’s only a few years of my life, but starting out slightly older, I swear I’m just too tired to even pull long hours in residency. Could have done that crap in my 20s but it’s way more difficult now IMO.

Cramming as many OB questions as I can right now! On topic, have the comat this Friday. Hopefully cramming in questions today will also make me appear less incompetent tomorrow.

 

[EMDoc22]

IM UWorld is kicking my buttttttt.

Surgery is kicking my butt. I’m getting 60ish on every block with an occasional 70/80 and occasional 50 (yikes). It’s already dropped my overall average by nearly 2%. I’m also not a huge fan of my rotation either and am mostly ignored by my residents and attendings even when I’m scrubbed in and holding stuff during the surgery. Not to mention I’m so over getting up at 4am everyday. 2 more weeks and it can’t end soon enough.

 

[Dr. USMLE]

At this point I don’t like anything and I don’t know why I’m still here. Thinking about doing all of my electives in interventional radiology because I do like procedures, but don’t think I could sit and just read studies all day in DR. But I’ve still got the DO letters after my name and IR is tough to match, so, I don’t know.

This dichotomy is a common misconception. Many (most?) diagnostic radiologists do procedures, including what’s typically considered “interventional” procedures.

Only the highly academic IR procedures like chemo-embolization are truly in the realm of IR-only.

Also, most IRs read diagnostics too, especially in private practice.

It’s worth noting that most people who go into radiology thinking they will do an IR fellowship end up switching to diagnostics (because of interest not competitiveness). It’s hard to appreciate how interesting diagnostics truly is until you’re doing it in residency.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

How long did yall study for the OMM Comat? I've been doing the step up deck on and off, still have like 200 cards left, since December.

My exam is not till April and I'm considering deleting the deck and starting from scratch on April 1st. because I've been so intermittent with it. Feels like a waste of studying at this point

 

[fldoctorgirl]

It really does suck - I have become convinced that DO schools especially should have shorter rotations, say, two weeks with one preceptor each a rotation if you have to do preceptor-based instead of a rotation with residents. It really sucks how one person can sour a whole specialty.

The reading scans in Hawaii thing is really appealing. So is the lighter hours in residency. I know it’s only a few years of my life, but starting out slightly older, I swear I’m just too tired to even pull long hours in residency. Could have done that crap in my 20s but it’s way more difficult now IMO.

Cramming as many OB questions as I can right now! On topic, have the comat this Friday. Hopefully cramming in questions today will also make me appear less incompetent tomorrow.

I can seriously see you in DR. Good luck figuring it out friend.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Surgery is kicking my butt. I’m getting 60ish on every block with an occasional 70/80 and occasional 50 (yikes). It’s already dropped my overall average by nearly 2%. I’m also not a huge fan of my rotation either and am mostly ignored by my residents and attendings even when I’m scrubbed in and holding stuff during the surgery. Not to mention I’m so over getting up at 4am everyday. 2 more weeks and it can’t end soon enough.

This is me with IM. Went down 3%, dropping a bunch of 50s. A lot of really stupid mistakes because I'm doing questions while exhausted, but still.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

How long did yall study for the OMM Comat? I've been doing the step up deck on and off, still have like 200 cards left, since December.

My exam is not till April and I'm considering deleting the deck and starting from scratch on April 1st. because I've been so intermittent with it. Feels like a waste of studying at this point

I did TurnUp2OMT, just the whole deck and nothing else. You'll feel like crap taking it but you'll probably pass.

 

[ASGD1983]

I have a boring question about quality vs quantity in doing UW questions (only in scenario when I have time constraints, otherwise quality is the winner of course).
I'm a very slow reader and I'm spending too much time reading UW explanations. What if I try to "speedrun" UW questions by glancing over and only reading bolded text in explanations - basically understanding the concept they are testing, without reading every word in page long explanation, and moving on? I know I'll miss some details, but this will allow me to go through all questions, rather than cutting UW bank short due to time constraints.

For example: 14yo girl with cerebral palsy, asthma and migraines having heavy menses comes to office and you need to do "best next step...". They want you to know which meds to give in that scenario from 5-6 given as answer choices.

I thought ocp (estrogen with progesterone) is "bread and butter" medicine to help her pituitary-ovarian axis to mature and stabilize, plus ocp will decrease her menses amount. Of course I was wrong. Answer was to give her implantable progesterone capsule, because estrogen might cause stroke in patients with migraines. So lesson here was to know risk factors and contraindications.
Basically I could have just read that 1 sentence and got the idea, instead of reading a page long explanation. I glanced over wrong answers to get quick idea why they are wrong and I moved on.

Now by doing that, I will miss in text info about other things like: physiology of menses, axis maturation etc., but the thing is we kind of know that already after doing obgyn rotation. They also talked about convenience to give implantable device to cerebral palsy patient with heavy menses, because it'll last for 3 years and patients no longer feel embarrassed to ask for caregiver to change their pads every hour during heavy menses. While I understand that is a good information to know for rotations (especially outpatients), but will they ask that on exam? Probably not.

So what do you guys think? Is it ok to "speedrun" or I'm still better off reading every word, even if that means doing only like 50% of questions?

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I have a boring question about quality vs quantity in doing UW questions (only in scenario when I have time constraints, otherwise quality is the winner of course).
I'm a very slow reader and I'm spending too much time reading UW explanations. What if I try to "speedrun" UW questions by glancing over and only reading bolded text in explanations - basically understanding the concept they are testing, without reading every word in page long explanation, and moving on? I know I'll miss some details, but this will allow me to go through all questions, rather than cutting UW bank short due to time constraints.

For example: 14yo girl with cerebral palsy, asthma and migraines having heavy menses comes to office and you need to do "best next step...". They want you to know which meds to give in that scenario from 5-6 given as answer choices.

I thought ocp (estrogen with progesterone) is "bread and butter" medicine to help her pituitary-ovarian axis to mature and stabilize, plus ocp will decrease her menses amount. Of course I was wrong. Answer was to give her implantable progesterone capsule, because estrogen might cause stroke in patients with migraines. So lesson here was to know risk factors and contraindications.
Basically I could have just read that 1 sentence and got the idea, instead of reading a page long explanation. I glanced over wrong answers to get quick idea why they are wrong and I moved on.

Now by doing that, I will miss in text info about other things like: physiology of menses, axis maturation etc., but the thing is we kind of know that already after doing obgyn rotation. They also talked about convenience to give implantable device to cerebral palsy patient with heavy menses, because it'll last for 3 years and patients no longer feel embarrassed to ask for caregiver to change their pads every hour during heavy menses. While I understand that is a good information to know for rotations (especially outpatients), but will they ask that on exam? Probably not.

So what do you guys think? Is it ok to "speedrun" or I'm still better off reading every word, even if that means doing only like 50% of questions?

This is what I do, and if there’s a key concept I make a card for it. I don’t learn much from doing questions, it’s much more of an “assessment of where are you at“ tool on my end.

if I’m totally off base though I’ll read the whole thing Or crack open a book

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I have a boring question about quality vs quantity in doing UW questions (only in scenario when I have time constraints, otherwise quality is the winner of course).
I'm a very slow reader and I'm spending too much time reading UW explanations. What if I try to "speedrun" UW questions by glancing over and only reading bolded text in explanations - basically understanding the concept they are testing, without reading every word in page long explanation, and moving on? I know I'll miss some details, but this will allow me to go through all questions, rather than cutting UW bank short due to time constraints.

For example: 14yo girl with cerebral palsy, asthma and migraines having heavy menses comes to office and you need to do "best next step...". They want you to know which meds to give in that scenario from 5-6 given as answer choices.

I thought ocp (estrogen with progesterone) is "bread and butter" medicine to help her pituitary-ovarian axis to mature and stabilize, plus ocp will decrease her menses amount. Of course I was wrong. Answer was to give her implantable progesterone capsule, because estrogen might cause stroke in patients with migraines. So lesson here was to know risk factors and contraindications.
Basically I could have just read that 1 sentence and got the idea, instead of reading a page long explanation. I glanced over wrong answers to get quick idea why they are wrong and I moved on.

Now by doing that, I will miss in text info about other things like: physiology of menses, axis maturation etc., but the thing is we kind of know that already after doing obgyn rotation. They also talked about convenience to give implantable device to cerebral palsy patient with heavy menses, because it'll last for 3 years and patients no longer feel embarrassed to ask for caregiver to change their pads every hour during heavy menses. While I understand that is a good information to know for rotations (especially outpatients), but will they ask that on exam? Probably not.

So what do you guys think? Is it ok to "speedrun" or I'm still better off reading every word, even if that means doing only like 50% of questions?

I do this occasionally, especially if it's a topic I feel comfortable with already. I try to read the explanations usually, at least skim them, but if I'm short on time and it's something I'm already okay with I'll do this. There is no right answer, it's what works for you.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

On day 7/7 of IM and I'm actually sad I won't get to follow up on the one patient I've had all week. More signs.

 

[sunshinefl]

I have a boring question about quality vs quantity in doing UW questions (only in scenario when I have time constraints, otherwise quality is the winner of course).
I'm a very slow reader and I'm spending too much time reading UW explanations. What if I try to "speedrun" UW questions by glancing over and only reading bolded text in explanations - basically understanding the concept they are testing, without reading every word in page long explanation, and moving on? I know I'll miss some details, but this will allow me to go through all questions, rather than cutting UW bank short due to time constraints.

For example: 14yo girl with cerebral palsy, asthma and migraines having heavy menses comes to office and you need to do "best next step...". They want you to know which meds to give in that scenario from 5-6 given as answer choices.

I thought ocp (estrogen with progesterone) is "bread and butter" medicine to help her pituitary-ovarian axis to mature and stabilize, plus ocp will decrease her menses amount. Of course I was wrong. Answer was to give her implantable progesterone capsule, because estrogen might cause stroke in patients with migraines. So lesson here was to know risk factors and contraindications.
Basically I could have just read that 1 sentence and got the idea, instead of reading a page long explanation. I glanced over wrong answers to get quick idea why they are wrong and I moved on.

Now by doing that, I will miss in text info about other things like: physiology of menses, axis maturation etc., but the thing is we kind of know that already after doing obgyn rotation. They also talked about convenience to give implantable device to cerebral palsy patient with heavy menses, because it'll last for 3 years and patients no longer feel embarrassed to ask for caregiver to change their pads every hour during heavy menses. While I understand that is a good information to know for rotations (especially outpatients), but will they ask that on exam? Probably not.

So what do you guys think? Is it ok to "speedrun" or I'm still better off reading every word, even if that means doing only like 50% of questions?

I’ve done both styles of review. But if you do the intensive every single point in the explanation for all answer choices, it’s easy to get bogged down. I tried to go from doing way too much to hitting the key point.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I finish dorian IM tonight. 5k cards in 10 weeks, it’s been brutal. Sitting at 111 predicted on COMQUEST, but I’ve been fooled before. Hopefully I can get this bread!

 

[ohmanwaddup]

13 months till we go through the match. Let the stress poops begin

 

[Steve_Zissou]

13 months till we go through the match. Let the stress poops begin

More like excitement poops. I’m ready to get on with it.

 

[iforget2]

It is a great feeling when you get to a rotation and you think "Oh yeah, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

Definitely how I felt for FM. I was surprised to find out how much I enjoyed Obgyn visits and there was enough but not too much peds to satisfy my love for kids. I do wish I liked IM more though, since schedule-wise I preferred going more at my own pace rather than sticking to 15-20 minute blocks in FM. I'm hoping with the wide availability of FM jobs I'll be able to find a schedule and patient population that can keep me happy longterm. So awesome to read about everyone finding what interests them.

 

[dj-Roomba]

Does anyone know if studying for Step 2 is the same as studying for Level 2? Similar to the adage for step1/level1. I have decided I'm all in ortho and want to maximize my chances. Trying to decide if I need to get COMQUEST in addition to UWorld.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Does anyone know if studying for Step 2 is the same as studying for Level 2? Similar to the adage for step1/level1. I have decided I'm all in ortho and want to maximize my chances. Trying to decide if I need to get COMQUEST in addition to UWorld.

From what I understand, yes. Not sure if this advice changes for ortho?

 

[Neopolymath]

I’m having the opposite experience - I’m becoming less and less sure I want to do any of this at all.

My first IM rotation had a lighter workload (2-3 patients) and I enjoyed it. My second was more like what I imagine residency will be like, with four patients every day... and I low key hated it by the end. Hated spending so much dang time on paperwork. Hated leaving so late and really working all 12 of those hours... not just finishing my notes and having some downtime like my first rotation. Only my awesome attending made it bearable. I’m pretty much sold on the concept that I don’t need to be doing a residency that’s 70-80 hours a week where I’m actually working for most of those hours because I’m a nightmare when I get home when I’m irritable and tired, and I learned from my divorce in 2019 that no job is worth ruining my home life over.

OB has completely put me off of the OR because my preceptor is one of those that just rapid fires questions until you fail, about whatever random structure, and then just other minutiae about suturing, whatever, that makes me have deep existential dread about ever stepping a foot in the OR again. I was completely unprepared for this level of grilling about surgery in OB (probably my own fault, idk). Just looked at the surgery schedule for tomorrow and saw my preceptor has a couple of surgeries and it has ruined my whole day thinking about having to go into the OR. The only good thing about this rotation is I missed an entire week of it due to snow. Saved by the crappy roads and this town not having any road salt or a single snow plow lmfao.

I hated the two seconds my outpatient preceptors spent with their patients. It was not unusual on my FM rotation for my preceptor to knock out 35 patients a day, and I just don’t feel like that’s good care. We addressed one small problem at a time but I really feel like there wasn’t time for a decent work up of the whole patient, and I don’t want to work an assembly line.

I don’t like being damp, and I feel like I was constantly getting sneezed on and drooled on during peds... no thanks. No thanks on psych, too.

At this point I don’t like anything and I don’t know why I’m still here. Thinking about doing all of my electives in interventional radiology because I do like procedures, but don’t think I could sit and just read studies all day in DR. But I’ve still got the DO letters after my name and IR is tough to match, so, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll float a few rotations in anesthesia in there too and see how that feels. Sorry to word vomit here but it’s sort of related to what’s being said and I am feeling discouraged.

You need to read more about ESIR and procedures in DR subspecialties like body, breast, msk, neuro. You don't have to do IR to do procedures in rads and most IRs do some reading out in the community. It's a great mix.

Anesthesiology is a great field that I think you would enjoy as well. You need to explore both and read up more on the workflow of both.

Being a DO will not hinder you near as much as you think, particularly if going into IR via the ESIR pathway (a few advantages to this path anyways).

 

[ohmanwaddup]

IM Comquest done, Dorian IM done. Enjoyment of IM has increased but looking forward to putting this exam behind me. I expect to go full nerd next year when I don't have reviews hanging over my head

 

[calivianya]

OB is killing me. Did some of uworld first, and am starting comquest last minute to get some questions in before the comat in a few hours. Started off super strong with a block I knew everything for... and every subsequent block since has brought my predicted score down. Doesn’t feel great to watch that prediction keep dropping.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

OB is killing me. Did some of uworld first, and am starting comquest last minute to get some questions in before the comat in a few hours. Started off super strong with a block I knew everything for... and every subsequent block since has brought my predicted score down. Doesn’t feel great to watch that prediction keep dropping.

This happened to me with psych, I did 5 points better than predicted. go kick butt my dude

 

[ASGD1983]

YMMV, but for me personally since comats went online my average scores increased a bit. I have exam anxiety and taking it from comfort of home chair, sipping tea/coffee is helping for some reason
I'm wondering if we (class of 2022) will make it to the end of summer without having to come back to testing center in person for shelf exams? I'm still hearing rumors that our faculty is planning to bring us back, but so far so good lol.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

YMMV, but for me personally since comats went online my average scores increased a bit. I have exam anxiety and taking it from comfort of home chair, sipping tea/coffee is helping for some reason
I'm wondering if we (class of 2022) will make it to the end of summer without having to come back to testing center in person for shelf exams? I'm still hearing rumors that our faculty is planning to bring us back, but so far so good lol.

My school has everything planned to be online.

I agree it is 100% better, though I do wonder how much cheating goes on

Bright side is a take the IM COMAT today. A little burnt, barely studied anything last night and this morning but screw it.

 

[deleted1081396]

careful, daddy Ryan hates when people share an account. He has been known to contact people's schools and report them for "theft"

I would have torrented BnB out of principle if I'd known that before buying it.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

Done with IM Comat. Probably felt the most "fair" second only to surgery. Was really rushed for time though. No idea how I did, a few where I wanted to change the answer by as a rule I try to never do that. More "know it or you don'ts" than I expected Tbh.

Predicted 112, we shall see what happens

 

[calivianya]

Done with IM Comat. Probably felt the most "fair" second only to surgery. Was really rushed for time though. No idea how I did, a few where I wanted to change the answer by as a rule I try to never do that. More "know it or you don'ts" than I expected Tbh.

Predicted 112, we shall see what happens

I did 9 points better than predicted for IM. You might have done really awesome!

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I did 9 points better than predicted for IM. You might have done really awesome!

lol I think I’d streak through the town if that’s what happens 😂

 

[fldoctorgirl]

YMMV, but for me personally since comats went online my average scores increased a bit. I have exam anxiety and taking it from comfort of home chair, sipping tea/coffee is helping for some reason
I'm wondering if we (class of 2022) will make it to the end of summer without having to come back to testing center in person for shelf exams? I'm still hearing rumors that our faculty is planning to bring us back, but so far so good lol.

I hope they stay online, I would really hate having to go in for them.