the official COMAT shelf thread

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fldoctorgirl said:
Got an offer for a virtual elective. Was psyched.

At the end of the email, they mentioned it costs $500 to enroll. Was suddenly less psyched lol.
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If it meets your school’s requirements, I’d still take it!

One of my rotations has housing that’s contracted through an outside company, and it’s a $75 deposit plus $150 a week (which is great!), plus the wear and tear on my car the 14 hours I’m going to drive to get there from my previous rotation, plus 6 hours back to where I live. $500 is so much less than you’d pay for travel and housing somewhere, so just look at it as paying $500 to save a ton of money.
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calivianya said:
If it meets your school’s requirements, I’d still take it!

One of my rotations has housing that’s contracted through an outside company, and it’s a $75 deposit plus $150 a week (which is great!), plus the wear and tear on my car the 14 hours I’m going to drive to get there from my previous rotation, plus 6 hours back to where I live. $500 is so much less than you’d pay for travel and housing somewhere, so just look at it as paying $500 to save a ton of money.
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It doesn't meet any special requirements for my school outside of just being an elective....I'd rather just do something with a local doc you know? I figured a virtual month would be nice and the subject matter seems interesting, but $500 is a lot of money for "course materials".
 
fldoctorgirl said:
It doesn't meet any special requirements for my school outside of just being an elective....I'd rather just do something with a local doc you know? I figured a virtual month would be nice and the subject matter seems interesting, but $500 is a lot of money for "course materials".
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$500 is insane for a virtual elective unless it comes with a $400 amazon gift card

It's ridiculous how many hands are in our pockets as students. Can we just do one thing without it being a money grab for someone?!
 
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Hippocrates II said:
$500 is insane for a virtual elective unless it comes with a $400 amazon gift card

It's ridiculous how many hands are in our pockets as students. Can we just do one thing without it being a money grab for someone?!
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I had to pay 200 bucks just to apply to a em rotation yesterday, I’m still not over the shame of being so desperate
 
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Lol of course 2 days after I pay 200 bucks just to apply I get an EM offer from somewhere else. Shoot me
 
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Getting denied from every program I applied to through vsas so far smh lol what even goes into deciding who they accept or not? is it based on stats? school pedigree? first come first serve? im confused
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Getting denied from every program I applied to through vsas so far smh lol what even goes into deciding who they accept or not? is it based on stats? school pedigree? first come first serve? im confused
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It seems really, really really random. I got rejected for every single date for a certain rotation, then got a call that they were "impressed" I applied to every single one, and offered me a spot for a random 4 week gap not listed on VSAS. Like why not just offer me a spot to the ones I applied in the first place?

Another program, I put real real real real hard effort into the PS the were asking for. Got slapped with 95% rejection rate. Another hospital I didn't put nearly as much effort in PS wise, and got 3 acceptances.

Its a clown show lol
 
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Planning fourth year is giving me a stress ulcer. There's so much unknown and the dates are all over the place. Ahhhh.
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
Planning fourth year is giving me a stress ulcer. There's so much unknown and the dates are all over the place. Ahhhh.
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Trying to figure out what rotations to do during interview season is stressful. My nightmare is that I have a preceptor who is a massive dingus and makes it super difficult for me to get to interviews.
 
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Steve_Zissou said:
Trying to figure out what rotations to do during interview season is stressful. My nightmare is that I have a preceptor who is a massive dingus and makes it super difficult for me to get to interviews.
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Dying over this too. I've got pediatric EM scheduled for Nov, and I'm more than a little anxious about it
 
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Steve_Zissou said:
Trying to figure out what rotations to do during interview season is stressful. My nightmare is that I have a preceptor who is a massive dingus and makes it super difficult for me to get to interviews.
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Do you get any free weeks you can take, or any online modules/rotations through your school?

I’m taking my boards month starting October 25th since I can’t take the time for dedicated like I’ve talked about before because of my school’s delays. I’m piling on two weeks of independent study after that so that I can take a rotation at my third year core site starting 12/6 and then be back on track for away rotations starting 1/3.

I have mixed feelings about it. I was very concerned about missing time for interviews so I’m glad to not have to be anywhere for six weeks... but at the same time, I would have liked to have more than a 10 day dedicated period to study for step 2. Especially considering how bad my motivation is right now. Peds COMAT in the AM and I maybe spent 30 minutes today studying. My preceptor gave me the day off and I blew all of it. I’ve probably done less than 100 practice questions all week long. :bang:


I definitely feel like getting rotations on VSAS is random. I just got an offer for a rotation starting 1/3 today - this is my third rotation I‘ve gotten off of VSAS so far. I think they were taking apps on 4/15 but I didn’t submit mine until 5/12. I did write a pretty good essay about the experiences I had in my past that were relevant to the specialty of the rotation (toxicology), so maybe they just liked my essay? I’m surprised they still had a spot to offer since I applied so late. It does give me hope that we can still add rotations even this far after the initial date and still have a chance.
 
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calivianya said:
Do you get any free weeks you can take, or any online modules/rotations through your school?

I’m taking my boards month starting October 25th since I can’t take the time for dedicated like I’ve talked about before because of my school’s delays. I’m piling on two weeks of independent study after that so that I can take a rotation at my third year core site starting 12/6 and then be back on track for away rotations starting 1/3.

I have mixed feelings about it. I was very concerned about missing time for interviews so I’m glad to not have to be anywhere for six weeks... but at the same time, I would have liked to have more than a 10 day dedicated period to study for step 2. Especially considering how bad my motivation is right now. Peds COMAT in the AM and I maybe spent 30 minutes today studying. My preceptor gave me the day off and I blew all of it. I’ve probably done less than 100 practice questions all week long. :bang:


I definitely feel like getting rotations on VSAS is random. I just got an offer for a rotation starting 1/3 today - this is my third rotation I‘ve gotten off of VSAS so far. I think they were taking apps on 4/15 but I didn’t submit mine until 5/12. I did write a pretty good essay about the experiences I had in my past that were relevant to the specialty of the rotation (toxicology), so maybe they just liked my essay? I’m surprised they still had a spot to offer since I applied so late. It does give me hope that we can still add rotations even this far after the initial date and still have a chance.
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We have a few online courses, but I’m using one right now for dedicated study time and am only going to be allowed another two weeks of online courses.

I’m hoping I can set up some real chill things for that time frame like anesthesia or pathology or something.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Got a Duke audition in sept feels good since i got flat out rejected by Kansas yesterday
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Go get it! Enjoy Durham while you’re there - I’ve got a bunch of family in the Raleigh/Durham area. It’s a pretty cool place.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Im so pumped! Im glad to hear Durhams a fun spot-have a few friends who went to Duke UG and said its a really cool place
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I may be in the minority but durham, outside of the incredible duke campus seemed sketchy to me haha cary and apex and raleigh were absolutely incredible though. And that Duke campus is insane. So nice
 
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Last week’s COMAT scores are up - 111 on peds. So I can get honors if my preceptor scores me high enough because I just make the cutoff. I don’t know if she’s going to - she knows I don’t want to go into peds.

Honestly didn’t expect that. I was so burned out and I don’t really care about pediatrics... hopefully that rotation was the last time I ever have to take care of children. It’s giving me a little more motivation to get back to studying for the surgery COMAT now. I was having a downward trend with my COMAT scores and at least this one turned it back around.
 
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Finished the psych comat. Last comat of third year!!!
 
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Yall know me and know I hate anki but ive been doing it for peds bc of all the step 1 stuff (glycogens storage, immunodef, pierre roben etc that i forgot from step 1 and the milestones and vax). So im a huge rookie and set myself to 20 new cards per day over 8 weeks to finish 2000 cards my math was wrong however lol im so bad at math and now I need to do 60 new cards per day to catch up. How long should 60 new cards take me? and now many reviews per day should I do to finish you think? have done about 800 or 900 new cards so far so about half done and 3 weeks left till comat. I know some of all yall are anki wizards please please help! lmao
 
calivianya said:
Last week’s COMAT scores are up - 111 on peds. So I can get honors if my preceptor scores me high enough because I just make the cutoff. I don’t know if she’s going to - she knows I don’t want to go into peds.

Honestly didn’t expect that. I was so burned out and I don’t really care about pediatrics... hopefully that rotation was the last time I ever have to take care of children. It’s giving me a little more motivation to get back to studying for the surgery COMAT now. I was having a downward trend with my COMAT scores and at least this one turned it back around.
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Leggo!! Any advice??? i have peds in a lil less than a month. Doing dorian peds, UW and comquest. OB destroyed my confidence so ive been going ham for peds. Found out i got 112 on OMM but PDs dont care and neither do you or i lmao
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Yall know me and know I hate anki but ive been doing it for peds bc of all the step 1 stuff (glycogens storage, immunodef, pierre roben etc that i forgot from step 1 and the milestones and vax). So im a huge rookie and set myself to 20 new cards per day over 8 weeks to finish 2000 cards my math was wrong however lol im so bad at math and now I need to do 60 new cards per day to catch up. How long should 60 new cards take me? and now many reviews per day should I do to finish you think? have done about 800 or 900 new cards so far so about half done and 3 weeks left till comat. I know some of all yall are anki wizards please please help! lmao
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It shouldn't take long. You need to do all your reviews due every day.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Leggo!! Any advice??? i have peds in a lil less than a month. Doing dorian peds, UW and comquest. OB destroyed my confidence so ive been going ham for peds. Found out i got 112 on OMM but PDs dont care and neither do you or i lmao
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I really didn’t have too many of those immunodeficiencies and glycogen storage diseases you’re talking about, so I wouldn’t go too hard on it. I want to say I maybe had 1-2. Mine was really mostly clinical stuff - diseases that are going to kill the kid, things you can do that are going to kill the kid (like giving a drug not indicated in kids), etc. Milestones and vax were very important. I got asked NO gene mutations or gene products. So the level you have to know (if your test is anything like mine) is more like which diseases do you diagnose with genetic testing.

Hint: I had multiple questions about young girls or teen girls where karyotyping was how you diagnose the disease several different times, and there are only a couple of things where that’s important lmfao. But for real, knowing a karyotype was as close to knowing genetic stuff as my test went. I don’t know if that will be representative of yours.
 
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calivianya said:
I really didn’t have too many of those immunodeficiencies and glycogen storage diseases you’re talking about, so I wouldn’t go too hard on it. I want to say I maybe had 1-2. Mine was really mostly clinical stuff - diseases that are going to kill the kid, things you can do that are going to kill the kid (like giving a drug not indicated in kids), etc. Milestones and vax were very important. I got asked NO gene mutations or gene products. So the level you have to know (if your test is anything like mine) is more like which diseases do you diagnose with genetic testing.

Hint: I had multiple questions about young girls or teen girls where karyotyping was how you diagnose the disease several different times, and there are only a couple of things where that’s important lmfao. But for real, knowing a karyotype was as close to knowing genetic stuff as my test went. I don’t know if that will be representative of yours.
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Thanks! Do you think its worth memorizing normal vitals for each age childhood age group?
 
Deecee2DO said:
Yall know me and know I hate anki but ive been doing it for peds bc of all the step 1 stuff (glycogens storage, immunodef, pierre roben etc that i forgot from step 1 and the milestones and vax). So im a huge rookie and set myself to 20 new cards per day over 8 weeks to finish 2000 cards my math was wrong however lol im so bad at math and now I need to do 60 new cards per day to catch up. How long should 60 new cards take me? and now many reviews per day should I do to finish you think? have done about 800 or 900 new cards so far so about half done and 3 weeks left till comat. I know some of all yall are anki wizards please please help! lmao
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Like @fldoctorgirl you should make a goal to finish all your reviews every day. When I started out I had a pretty conservative goal of 1 card per 12 seconds, which comes out to 300 cards/hour. If you know the cards well you should be faster than that, but I felt it was a good goal for me to hit especially knowing how distracted I can get during an hour of just anki lol.
 
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iforget2 said:
Like @fldoctorgirl you should make a goal to finish all your reviews every day. When I started out I had a pretty conservative goal of 1 card per 12 seconds, which comes out to 300 cards/hour. If you know the cards well you should be faster than that, but I felt it was a good goal for me to hit especially knowing how distracted I can get during an hour of just anki lol.
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Ok thanks! So many of the cards have a lot of info on it along withthe closed deletions im guessing you dont sit there and try to learn all the info on the card? Or if u know the closed deletion u move on
 
Deecee2DO said:
Thanks! Do you think its worth memorizing normal vitals for each age childhood age group?
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Agree with everyone else - mine were generally pretty obvious if they were going to be abnormal. Like adult level hypertensive BPs in a small child or any child with a HR of >200 or <50, stuff like that. I felt like you could figure them out with some common sense.
 
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Ya girl got 99th percentile on the psych COMAT lol bye third yearrrrr
 
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I know you guys are gonna appreciate this.

Taking the COMSAE my school wants us to take before boards today… and I just have to stop during the first block to share the stupidity. GI bleed… and they’re asking me what I wanna do to normalize parasympathetic tone.

B*tch please. Obviously we‘ve all been treating GI bleeds wrong and should have been using OMT instead.
 
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Update: joke’s on me. My worst discipline on the COMSAE was surgery… which is confusing af since surgery was one of my BEST disciplines in UWSA1 like a week ago. Surgery COMAT is in one week and now I’m second guessing what I know. Stupid NBOME and their stupid questions. :bang:
 
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calivianya said:
Update: joke’s on me. My worst discipline on the COMSAE was surgery… which is confusing af since surgery was one of my BEST disciplines in UWSA1 like a week ago. Surgery COMAT is in one week and now I’m second guessing what I know. Stupid NBOME and their stupid questions. :bang:
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I hate NBOME so much. UWorld i was crushing peds and now im getting murdered by questions on comquest where Im getting questions wrong with 15% of people got correct and yet the majority chose an answer choice that 70% chose (which ends up being wrong). Thats a you problem NBOME not us clearly. **** you nbome
 
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calivianya said:
Update: joke’s on me. My worst discipline on the COMSAE was surgery… which is confusing af since surgery was one of my BEST disciplines in UWSA1 like a week ago. Surgery COMAT is in one week and now I’m second guessing what I know. Stupid NBOME and their stupid questions. :bang:
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Just outta curiosity, any idea what the average score was or what you and your friends got?
 
Deecee2DO said:
I hate NBOME so much. UWorld i was crushing peds and now im getting murdered by questions on comquest where Im getting questions wrong with 15% of people got correct and yet the majority chose an answer choice that 70% chose (which ends up being wrong). Thats a you problem NBOME not us clearly. **** you nbome
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lol calm down bro
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
Just outta curiosity, any idea what the average score was or what you and your friends got?
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No clue. We’re just supposed to take it before boards and we can take it anytime. Most everyone I know isn’t taking level 2 until late July because we aren’t done with rotations yet, so I doubt anyone but me’s done it. It‘s COMSAE BSA 108 (no idea if all schools do this one or what), and I got a 636.

Really hoping I do better on the real thing because it’s a great score, but it’s literally a 99 point drop for me… and I can’t help but think programs would ask me wtf happened for me to drop that far. Sorta wish I hadn’t screwed myself by doing so well on level 1 lmfao


@Deecee2DO I laugh reacted because I remember missing that one, too. I also picked conjunctivitis. Make sure you get all those bs comquest questions done, though, and go through your incorrects the day before, because that was pretty much the only resource I used to pull 111 on peds.
 
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calivianya said:
No clue. We’re just supposed to take it before boards and we can take it anytime. Most everyone I know isn’t taking level 2 until late July because we aren’t done with rotations yet, so I doubt anyone but me’s done it. It‘s COMSAE BSA 108 (no idea if all schools do this one or what), and I got a 636.

Really hoping I do better on the real thing because it’s a great score, but it’s literally a 99 point drop for me… and I can’t help but think programs would ask me wtf happened for me to drop that far. Sorta wish I hadn’t screwed myself by doing so well on level 1 lmfao


@Deecee2DO I laugh reacted because I remember missing that one, too. I also picked conjunctivitis. Make sure you get all those bs comquest questions done, though, and go through your incorrects the day before, because that was pretty much the only resource I used to pull 111 on peds.
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Wow really? idk if I will be able to finish incorrects for comquest lol i have done all of Dorian Peds plus all 520 UWorld questions and then will finish comquest but u think if I dont do incorrects ill be good? also watched emma dr HY and divine 3x each
 
Deecee2DO said:
Wow really? idk if I will be able to finish incorrects for comquest lol i have done all of Dorian Peds plus all 520 UWorld questions and then will finish comquest but u think if I dont do incorrects ill be good? also watched emma dr HY and divine 3x each
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Oh, you’ve done more than enough then. I really didn’t do anything but finish comquest and do a handful (probably <100) uworld questions and it was enough for me.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
also lol how predictive was what comquest predicted you at?
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Exactly on the money lmfao. Just pulled it up and they had me at 111.

This is why I can’t crap on comquest. I actually agree that they are inferior questions… but I also think NBOME writes inferior questions, so they match. It also exactly predicted my 115 on psych. It was off by 2 on FM and off by 3-4 on OB and IM. I really don’t think there’s a closer resource to the type of questions NBOME writes than comquest tbh.
 
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calivianya said:
Really hoping I do better on the real thing because it’s a great score, but it’s literally a 99 point drop for me… and I can’t help but think programs would ask me wtf happened for me to drop that far. Sorta wish I hadn’t screwed myself by doing so well on level 1 lmfao
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Honestly I doubt any program will even look at your COMLEX since you're taking step but.
 
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