Any Advice or Materials to Study before Medical School?

[YankeesfanZF5]

Hello,

I am in my gap year and start medical school in 5 months. I was wondering what material or Qbanks would be beneficial to get started on learning the medical school material before I start? I have heard of students having to restart the year after failing a few exams at my medical school. I DO NOT want that to be me. I have great study habits and was accepted early on (So that should give me confidence since they believe in me). I did only get a 507 on the MCAT after 3 months of full-time study but had a 3.9 gpa in college. My strengths in college were A&P and Biochem so I hope that helps some. I plan to study as much as possible in medical school to get it done (I just need to make time for exercise!). Thank you for the responses in advance!

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[DiscusKeeper]

Pre-studying will not help you at all.

The only thing that could potentially be helpful would be looking into which resources you might want to use. I.e. familiarizing yourself with Anki, deciding if you want to use something like Pathoma or Boards & Beyond to supplement your lectures. But actual studying at this point will not benefit you.

 

[YankeesfanZF5]

Pre-studying will not help you at all.

The only thing that could potentially be helpful would be looking into which resources you might want to use. I.e. familiarizing yourself with Anki, deciding if you want to use something like Pathoma or Boards & Beyond to supplement your lectures. But actual studying at this point will not benefit you.

I have a good question for you. Thank you for your response by the way. I learn well from question banks and was wondering if you have any free qbanks that you know of? I have looked into Uworld and Kaplan for USMLE1 prep (Will definitely use Uworld). I have been scouring SDN for great resources for medical students. Besides pre-studying, any advice for things to do? I have a place down at my medical school, am taking some trips/vacations before class starts, and have bought a majority of my supplies for school already. Not sure what else to do. Thanks.

 

[DiscusKeeper]

I have a good question for you. Thank you for your response by the way. I learn well from question banks and was wondering if you have any free qbanks that you know of? I have looked into Uworld and Kaplan for USMLE1 prep (Will definitely use Uworld). I have been scouring SDN for great resources for medical students. Besides pre-studying, any advice for things to do? I have a place down at my medical school, am taking some trips/vacations before class starts, and have bought a majority of my supplies for school already. Not sure what else to do. Thanks.

Assuming you're on a standard 2-year preclinical curriculum, you shouldn't need to incorporate question banks into your studying until the start of year 2. I used USMLE-RX (equivalent to Kaplan) for studying along with classes in second year and am using UWorld now that I'm in my dedicated study period for Step 1.

I don't know of any full question banks that are free unfortunately.

 

[mrbreakfast]

Pre-studying will not help. The first few blocks of med school are relatively easier and will give you time to adjust your study methods.

Either try to relax and take a vacation (something you'll have much less time to do in the future) or explore different specialties and do some shadowing.

 

[7331poas]

Meh. You could easily download Zanki and make your way through biochem or something. People just do not want to perpetuate neuroticism.

 

[fantasticman221]

Hello,

I am in my gap year and start medical school in 5 months. I was wondering what material or Qbanks would be beneficial to get started on learning the medical school material before I start? I have heard of students having to restart the year after failing a few exams at my medical school. I DO NOT want that to be me. I have great study habits and was accepted early on (So that should give me confidence since they believe in me). I did only get a 507 on the MCAT after 3 months of full-time study but had a 3.9 gpa in college. My strengths in college were A&P and Biochem so I hope that helps some. I plan to study as much as possible in medical school to get it done (I just need to make time for exercise!). Thank you for the responses in advance!

The only thing that I'd do personally is try to get into a gross anatomy summer class if your school or another school offers one. That would be the greatest asset to you. People disagree with me on this, but at my school those that had experience flew through it and could afford entire weekends off. Regardless, the data does show that students that take it before tend to do better. If not, I would just hang tight. One thing that might also help you is knocking out a few boards and beyond video based upon what topic your school covers 1st and experimenting with an Anki deck so that you're ready and are accustomed to it when thr year starts.

 

[wanderingorion]

Meh. You could easily download Zanki and make your way through biochem or something. People just do not want to perpetuate neuroticism.

I second this. Hell even start anatomy/neuroanatomy too. It doesn't hurt, but you won't have the clinical context to cement it in, so there's a big chance it'll be a waste of time.

 

[Chibucks15]

Pre-studying doesn't help. Full stop. Besides a medical terminology course or something like that. 1) You have literally zero clue about what your school focuses on, so for all you know you could be studying completely wrong. Also, there really isn't a way to simulate medical school because you don't have deadlines and other dark clouds hanging over your head to push you forward. 2) If you do q-banks there is no way in hell you learn anything because you have no context. You'll literally just be wasting the best board prep because you'll memorize the answers, without knowing the pathophys behind it. 3) You put yourself at higher risk for burnout.

Do a search on here and you'll find tons more advice on it. Get in a healthy lifestyle like working out and meal prepping, find some organizational strategies, and enjoy the last real free time you'll have in the next decade. I know its exciting but there aren't any positives that come of it for 99% of the population

 

[Chelsea FC]

Pre-study starting strength. Getting in the best shape possible will reap tons of benefits in medical school

 

[afib123]

There are 100s of these threads but still an easy thread to answer so I will.
If you are willing, yes. But it better be productive. I would recommend not to waste time sifting through pages and not learning. Better use that time for other things like cooking, working out, etc

 

[fantasticman221]

Something I just realized is that whenever this is brought up, everyone always treats this as am all or none issue. You could do both, but like another poster said, make sure it is productive

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Hello,

I am in my gap year and start medical school in 5 months. I was wondering what material or Qbanks would be beneficial to get started on learning the medical school material before I start? I have heard of students having to restart the year after failing a few exams at my medical school. I DO NOT want that to be me. I have great study habits and was accepted early on (So that should give me confidence since they believe in me). I did only get a 507 on the MCAT after 3 months of full-time study but had a 3.9 gpa in college. My strengths in college were A&P and Biochem so I hope that helps some. I plan to study as much as possible in medical school to get it done (I just need to make time for exercise!). Thank you for the responses in advance!

I hear Bacardi and Smirnoff have some great independent study programs you could pick up in your spare time

 

[Chibucks15]

Something I just realized is that whenever this is brought up, everyone always treats this as am all or none issue. You could do both, but like another poster said, make sure it is productive

Okay, but how is a pre-med who hasn't been through the meat grinder of medical school going to know what's productive? Sure you could memorize Robbins or something but is that REALLY productive? It might save you points here and there but you don't know what your school is gonna test you on, and you don't know what's high yield or whats just fluff PhDs care about. Like i said, a medical terminology class was pretty helpful so that wouldn't be the worst use of time

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Real talk - medical Spanish (or French/creole spending on location) is super useful.

Don’t study medical stuff, without the med school basis, most of the other stuff will be lost on a premed.

Source: I tried, didn’t work, n=1

 

[potential_fut_doc]

brute force study anatomy like there is no tomorrow.

 

[libertyyne]

finish all of zanki /lightyear/ or dopemed and you should be set.

 

[fantasticman221]

Okay, but how is a pre-med who hasn't been through the meat grinder of medical school going to know what's productive? Sure you could memorize Robbins or something but is that REALLY productive? It might save you points here and there but you don't know what your school is gonna test you on, and you don't know what's high yield or whats just fluff PhDs care about. Like i said, a medical terminology class was pretty helpful so that wouldn't be the worst use of time

Boards and Beyond would help out with this. Like I said before, I wouldn't do this personally myself (other than look to take a summer gross anatomy class), but if someone really is dead set on doing so, that would be the first place to look. In all honestly, I've probably learned 95% of everything in the preclinical years thus far through bnb.

 

[operaman]

Don’t do it.

By the time you take step 1 you will have started forgetting things you studied at the beginning of your dedicated study time just weeks prior. How much do you think you’ll recall from 2 years earlier?

Don’t waste your time. Take time off. Have fun. If you must do something, consider shadowing some of the most competitive fields so you can start early with research and whatnot if you like one. Getting familiar with the various study material is probably not a bad idea - learning Anki and whatnot. But don’t study. It’s hard to overstate what a waste of time that is.

You will also experience some burnout at some point in the first couple years. Don’t blow your mental energy and motivation on study that is totally useless.

 

[sallyhasanidea]

Disagree with most of the above. Just so you know, the step 1 studying meta has changed in the last two years. The old arguments for not prestudying were 1) you'll forget everything and 2) you won't know what to study.

Rebuttals:
1) With Anki you will remember everything, the entire point is long term retention
2) With Zanki you will know exactly what is high yield, back in my day we had to sift through a bunch of **** to figure out what was high yield. This is no longer.

I'll give you the answer you're looking for because if you're going to study you might as well study right. Also several students in the first year class at my school finished several zanki sections before coming to school. If you do start this know you can never take a day off from studying again. You have to do your reviews everyday.

1. Download zanki from medicalschoolanki, lurk there and ask them specific questions
2. If you know where you are going to school get the schedule of classes so you can figure out what order they do stuff in. Most schools start with biochem, ours did biochem --> cardio --> resp, etc.
3. Watch boards and beyond videos and do the associated zanki cards, you can also use physeo, etc. a bunch of resources are out there for video learning. Zanki made their cards from costanzo so you can use that too.
4. Do news and keep up with your reviews every single day. If you have 5 months left you can easily finish everything for first year, the physiology and maybe more.
5. During first year do all of the path, micro, pharm sections. If you are at a 2 year program you can finish all learning by end of first year. Then you have an extra year to do all Qbanks, and learn how to take the exam. You can probably get a very thorough run through all of the qbanks couple month sbefore your dedicated begins. Start doing NBME exams before dedicated and try to take your step 1 exam AS SOON AS possible (ideally the first day of dedicated or even before if your school lets you).
6. The grind doesn't stop at Step 1, when you are in your "dedicated" period finish all Step 2 decks and all Uworld questions before third year starts, acquire all honors and the highest of shelf scores, if your 3rd year grades are based mostly on shelves
7. This is a fool proof way to get AOA, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Also this is how you remain stress free during medical school.

Don't listen to the people posting above that are saying it won't help you for your classes. If you go on medicalschoolanki or search here you will see first hand that people COMPLETELY IGNORE SCHOOL LECTURES AND LEARN ONLY FROM ZANKI. As in all learning in medical school is self-directed. If you do this you will coast by first year, and blow step1 out of the water as long as you keep up with your reviews. I guarantee other people in your class will be doing this, and they will be the top students. I myself wish I didn't fall for all the people saying don't study before medical school. Instead of studying I sat on my ass and did nothing, I wish I did study before medical school. And I wish somebody would have given me the information I just gave you. Good luck.

 

[7331poas]

Pre-studying doesn't help. Full stop. Besides a medical terminology course or something like that. 1) You have literally zero clue about what your school focuses on, so for all you know you could be studying completely wrong. Also, there really isn't a way to simulate medical school because you don't have deadlines and other dark clouds hanging over your head to push you forward. 2) If you do q-banks there is no way in hell you learn anything because you have no context. You'll literally just be wasting the best board prep because you'll memorize the answers, without knowing the pathophys behind it. 3) You put yourself at higher risk for burnout.

Do a search on here and you'll find tons more advice on it. Get in a healthy lifestyle like working out and meal prepping, find some organizational strategies, and enjoy the last real free time you'll have in the next decade. I know its exciting but there aren't any positives that come of it for 99% of the population

What your school focuses on doesn't matter. Full stop. You need to mature zanki + lolnotacop. That is the purpose of preclinical.

 

[Stagg737]

I hear Bacardi and Smirnoff have some great independent study programs you could pick up in your spare time

I recommend the HNFAP(v) study program for med school matriculants. Should be watching ~3 hours of videos then discussing with friends as much as necessary until you feel comfortable with the material. Usually in some social location such as a restaurant or bar. Do this for several months and you should be well rested and prepared for starting med school.

HNFAP(v) = Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime (video)

 

[7331poas]

Don’t do it.

By the time you take step 1 you will have started forgetting things you studied at the beginning of your dedicated study time just weeks prior. How much do you think you’ll recall from 2 years earlier?

If you are using Anki, you should be able to remember anything in your deck

 

[Stagg737]

Disagree with most of the above. Just so you know, the step 1 studying meta has changed in the last two years. The old arguments for not prestudying were 1) you'll forget everything and 2) you won't know what to study.

Rebuttals:
1) With Anki you will remember everything, the entire point is long term retention
2) With Zanki you will know exactly what is high yield, back in my day we had to sift through a bunch of **** to figure out what was high yield. This is no longer.

I'll give you the answer you're looking for because if you're going to study you might as well study right. Also several students in the first year class at my school finished several zanki sections before coming to school. If you do start this know you can never take a day off from studying again. You have to do your reviews everyday.

1. Download zanki from medicalschoolanki, lurk there and ask them specific questions
2. If you know where you are going to school get the schedule of classes so you can figure out what order they do stuff in. Most schools start with biochem, ours did biochem --> cardio --> resp, etc.
3. Watch boards and beyond videos and do the associated zanki cards, you can also use physeo, etc. a bunch of resources are out there for video learning. Zanki made their cards from costanzo so you can use that too.
4. Do news and keep up with your reviews every single day. If you have 5 months left you can easily finish everything for first year, the physiology and maybe more.
5. During first year do all of the path, micro, pharm sections. If you are at a 2 year program you can finish all learning by end of first year. Then you have an extra year to do all Qbanks, and learn how to take the exam. You can probably get a very thorough run through all of the qbanks couple month sbefore your dedicated begins. Start doing NBME exams before dedicated and try to take your step 1 exam AS SOON AS possible (ideally the first day of dedicated or even before if your school lets you).
6. The grind doesn't stop at Step 1, when you are in your "dedicated" period finish all Step 2 decks and all Uworld questions before third year starts, acquire all honors and the highest of shelf scores, if your 3rd year grades are based mostly on shelves
7. This is a fool proof way to get AOA, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Also this is how you remain stress free during medical school.

Don't listen to the people posting above that are saying it won't help you for your classes. If you go on medicalschoolanki or search here you will see first hand that people COMPLETELY IGNORE SCHOOL LECTURES AND LEARN ONLY FROM ZANKI. As in all learning in medical school is self-directed. If you do this you will coast by first year, and blow step1 out of the water as long as you keep up with your reviews. I guarantee other people in your class will be doing this, and they will be the top students. I myself wish I didn't fall for all the people saying don't study before medical school. Instead of studying I sat on my ass and did nothing, I wish I did study before medical school. And I wish somebody would have given me the information I just gave you. Good luck.

Yea, and then when you hit clinical years and start getting pimped your 240 Step 1 is going to get crapped on. This is a great way to learn a bunch of random facts, but without understanding clinical context those random facts are worthless.

If you are using Anki, you should be able to remember anything in your deck

This is making a blanket statement assumption that isn't true for everyone. My worst sections in med school were the ones I used Anki for. It's a great tool if it fits your learning style, but it is definitely NOT for everyone.

 

[libertyyne]

Disagree with most of the above. Just so you know, the step 1 studying meta has changed in the last two years. The old arguments for not prestudying were 1) you'll forget everything and 2) you won't know what to study.

Rebuttals:
1) With Anki you will remember everything, the entire point is long term retention
2) With Zanki you will know exactly what is high yield, back in my day we had to sift through a bunch of **** to figure out what was high yield. This is no longer.

I'll give you the answer you're looking for because if you're going to study you might as well study right. Also several students in the first year class at my school finished several zanki sections before coming to school. If you do start this know you can never take a day off from studying again. You have to do your reviews everyday.

1. Download zanki from medicalschoolanki, lurk there and ask them specific questions
2. If you know where you are going to school get the schedule of classes so you can figure out what order they do stuff in. Most schools start with biochem, ours did biochem --> cardio --> resp, etc.
3. Watch boards and beyond videos and do the associated zanki cards, you can also use physeo, etc. a bunch of resources are out there for video learning. Zanki made their cards from costanzo so you can use that too.
4. Do news and keep up with your reviews every single day. If you have 5 months left you can easily finish everything for first year, the physiology and maybe more.
5. During first year do all of the path, micro, pharm sections. If you are at a 2 year program you can finish all learning by end of first year. Then you have an extra year to do all Qbanks, and learn how to take the exam. You can probably get a very thorough run through all of the qbanks couple month sbefore your dedicated begins. Start doing NBME exams before dedicated and try to take your step 1 exam AS SOON AS possible (ideally the first day of dedicated or even before if your school lets you).
6. The grind doesn't stop at Step 1, when you are in your "dedicated" period finish all Step 2 decks and all Uworld questions before third year starts, acquire all honors and the highest of shelf scores, if your 3rd year grades are based mostly on shelves
7. This is a fool proof way to get AOA, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Also this is how you remain stress free during medical school.

Don't listen to the people posting above that are saying it won't help you for your classes. If you go on medicalschoolanki or search here you will see first hand that people COMPLETELY IGNORE SCHOOL LECTURES AND LEARN ONLY FROM ZANKI. As in all learning in medical school is self-directed. If you do this you will coast by first year, and blow step1 out of the water as long as you keep up with your reviews. I guarantee other people in your class will be doing this, and they will be the top students. I myself wish I didn't fall for all the people saying don't study before medical school. Instead of studying I sat on my ass and did nothing, I wish I did study before medical school. And I wish somebody would have given me the information I just gave you. Good luck.

This is wrong , not because anki doesnt help, but because the intensity of medical school teaches you how to learn stuff quickly, ultimately culminating in step 1 dedicated. It is training like training for a marathon. There is soo much time during m1 and m2 that you can mature all of zanki if you just focused on it.
Being thrown into m1 and realizing the immense amount of information you have to learn in a short amount of time , the experience in itself is the training. How many cards do you honestly think a premed can get through ? Most people in my class performing well in class and in the upper decile are not people that necessarily had extensive UG prep like taking med school subjects in premed, rather are the ones that learned to adapt to medical school and how to get to the performance they want. It is the urgency of an exam hovering over your head, the rapid delievery of lectures @8 hours a day, the tests every two weeks that makes you gain a focus and motivation that is necessary to complete the task. No premed has those pressures and will naturally not be able to casually mature zanki, because that is insane. It is the motivation that is required to do 4-6 hours a day of grinding cards. It is the guilt that comes with not studying in your free time in medical school.
So unequivocally doing prestudying is dumb. Might as well tell someone to go memorize first aid before medical school, but why do that when you will have enough time to do so in medical school? There is no value add to prestudying. Why not start medical scholl with being refreshed, because it is not the lack of time that screws with people in medical school it is the burnout.

 

[fantasticman221]

Disagree with most of the above. Just so you know, the step 1 studying meta has changed in the last two years. The old arguments for not prestudying were 1) you'll forget everything and 2) you won't know what to study.

Rebuttals:
1) With Anki you will remember everything, the entire point is long term retention
2) With Zanki you will know exactly what is high yield, back in my day we had to sift through a bunch of **** to figure out what was high yield. This is no longer.

I'll give you the answer you're looking for because if you're going to study you might as well study right. Also several students in the first year class at my school finished several zanki sections before coming to school. If you do start this know you can never take a day off from studying again. You have to do your reviews everyday.

1. Download zanki from medicalschoolanki, lurk there and ask them specific questions
2. If you know where you are going to school get the schedule of classes so you can figure out what order they do stuff in. Most schools start with biochem, ours did biochem --> cardio --> resp, etc.
3. Watch boards and beyond videos and do the associated zanki cards, you can also use physeo, etc. a bunch of resources are out there for video learning. Zanki made their cards from costanzo so you can use that too.
4. Do news and keep up with your reviews every single day. If you have 5 months left you can easily finish everything for first year, the physiology and maybe more.
5. During first year do all of the path, micro, pharm sections. If you are at a 2 year program you can finish all learning by end of first year. Then you have an extra year to do all Qbanks, and learn how to take the exam. You can probably get a very thorough run through all of the qbanks couple month sbefore your dedicated begins. Start doing NBME exams before dedicated and try to take your step 1 exam AS SOON AS possible (ideally the first day of dedicated or even before if your school lets you).
6. The grind doesn't stop at Step 1, when you are in your "dedicated" period finish all Step 2 decks and all Uworld questions before third year starts, acquire all honors and the highest of shelf scores, if your 3rd year grades are based mostly on shelves
7. This is a fool proof way to get AOA, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Also this is how you remain stress free during medical school.

Don't listen to the people posting above that are saying it won't help you for your classes. If you go on medicalschoolanki or search here you will see first hand that people COMPLETELY IGNORE SCHOOL LECTURES AND LEARN ONLY FROM ZANKI. As in all learning in medical school is self-directed. If you do this you will coast by first year, and blow step1 out of the water as long as you keep up with your reviews. I guarantee other people in your class will be doing this, and they will be the top students. I myself wish I didn't fall for all the people saying don't study before medical school. Instead of studying I sat on my ass and did nothing, I wish I did study before medical school. And I wish somebody would have given me the information I just gave you. Good luck.

This is basically what I've always wanted to say...to a degree of course

 

[fantasticman221]

This is wrong , not because anki doesnt help, but because the intensity of medical school teaches you how to learn stuff quickly, ultimately culminating in step 1 dedicated. It is training like training for a marathon. There is soo much time during m1 and m2 that you can mature all of zanki if you just focused on it.
Being thrown into m1 and realizing the immense amount of information you have to learn in a short amount of time , the experience in itself is the training. How many cards do you honestly think a premed can get through ? Most people in my class performing well in class and in the upper decile are not people that necessarily had extensive UG prep like taking med school subjects in premed, rather are the ones that learned to adapt to medical school and how to get to the performance they want. It is the urgency of an exam hovering over your head, the rapid delievery of lectures @8 hours a day, the tests every two weeks that makes you gain a focus and motivation that is necessary to complete the task. No premed has those pressures and will naturally not be able to casually mature zanki, because that is insane. It is the motivation that is required to do 4-6 hours a day of grinding cards. It is the guilt that comes with not studying in your free time in medical school.
So unequivocally doing prestudying is dumb. Might as well tell someone to go memorize first aid before medical school, but why do that when you will have enough time to do so in medical school? There is no value add to prestudying. Why not start medical scholl with being refreshed, because it is not the lack of time that screws with people in medical school it is the burnout.

Everyone had a different experience. For me personally, I've always considered myself a hard worker. All med school required of me was to shift my priorities around. I don't consider myself working more, but rather my time is divided up differently. I was always a type A person so the way I study for medical school is nearly identical to how I studied in UG.

 

[sallyhasanidea]

This is wrong , not because anki doesnt help, but because the intensity of medical school teaches you how to learn stuff quickly, ultimately culminating in step 1 dedicated. It is training like training for a marathon. There is soo much time during m1 and m2 that you can mature all of zanki if you just focused on it.
Being thrown into m1 and realizing the immense amount of information you have to learn in a short amount of time , the experience in itself is the training. How many cards do you honestly think a premed can get through ? Most people in my class performing well in class and in the upper decile are not people that necessarily had extensive UG prep like taking med school subjects in premed, rather are the ones that learned to adapt to medical school and how to get to the performance they want. It is the urgency of an exam hovering over your head, the rapid delievery of lectures @8 hours a day, the tests every two weeks that makes you gain a focus and motivation that is necessary to complete the task. No premed has those pressures and will naturally not be able to casually mature zanki, because that is insane. It is the motivation that is required to do 4-6 hours a day of grinding cards. It is the guilt that comes with not studying in your free time in medical school.
So unequivocally doing prestudying is dumb. Might as well tell someone to go memorize first aid before medical school, but why do that when you will have enough time to do so in medical school? There is no value add to prestudying. Why not start medical scholl with being refreshed, because it is not the lack of time that screws with people in medical school it is the burnout.

I don't disagree with you, the pressure definitely helps. But OP merely wanted to know how to study before med school and I gave him his answer. That being said, the more zanki you get done with now, the more you have mature later and the less news you have to do. So for the OP it's either now or later, pick your poison.

Yea, and then when you hit clinical years and start getting pimped your 240 Step 1 is going to get crapped on. This is a great way to learn a bunch of random facts, but without understanding clinical context those random facts are worthless.


This is making a blanket statement assumption that isn't true for everyone. My worst sections in med school were the ones I used Anki for. It's a great tool if it fits your learning style, but it is definitely NOT for everyone.

Regarding the 240 score - not sure why you're bringing this up. Zanki isn't the first mega deck, Bros has been around for years. These decks are proven time and time again. If OP does some research he can see that people who have the diligence to use zanki appropriately consistently score 250+, although yes some people do score lower and likely it is because they are trying to rush to finish zanki and not doing enough problems as well. And regarding the clinical context, that is what the 10,000+ questions the OP will be doing prior to step 1 is for.

 

[7331poas]

Yea, and then when you hit clinical years and start getting pimped your 240 Step 1 is going to get crapped on. This is a great way to learn a bunch of random facts, but without understanding clinical context those random facts are worthless.



This is making a blanket statement assumption that isn't true for everyone. My worst sections in med school were the ones I used Anki for. It's a great tool if it fits your learning style, but it is definitely NOT for everyone.

1) that is why qbanks and pathoma exist. Every first and second year student should be ignoring school lecture.

2) How are you measuring your worst sections? Do you mean on step 1 or your school exams?

 

[libertyyne]

Everyone had a different experience. For me personally, I've always considered myself a hard worker. All med school required of me was to shift my priorities around. I don't consider myself working more, but rather my time is divided up differently. I was always a type A person so the way I study for medical school is nearly identical to how I studied in UG.

we clearly had very different UG experiences. I mostly read the book the night before once. That doesnt cut it for med school

 

[fantasticman221]

we clearly had very different UG experiences. I mostly read the book the night before once. That doesnt cut it for med school

Agreed. I was a bit of an anomoly. I usually studied till 9 on most nights and till midnight or 1 am on the weekends.I guess OP is going have to really look and see and analyze if it would be the right decision

 

[operaman]

If you are using Anki, you should be able to remember anything in your deck

In theory, yes. I tried this initially thinking it would be a surefire way to a flawless step 1 score. Unfortunately when my deck crossed 20,000 cards before Christmas of MS1, I had to adjust my expectations! Even for smaller decks, keeping up amid the other curricular and clinical demands of school is terribly difficult.

The other reality is that over the long haul with a big enough deck, a substantial number of facts will space out beyond your ability to recall and when you get into the tens of thousands of cards range, the reviews become untenable.

When you start thinking on this massive scale, the idea that a few hours a day for six to eight weeks before even starting school will make any meaningful difference is fairly absurd. I wish this worked but it just doesn’t make enough of a difference to warrant wasting your last long span of unencumbered free time until retirement.

 

[holdthemayo]

The final season of Game of Thrones comes out soon. I'd study that.

 

[libertyyne]

The final season of Game of Thrones comes out soon. I'd study that.

I hear its all in the Tanki Deck.

 

[Stagg737]

I don't disagree with you, the pressure definitely helps. But OP merely wanted to know how to study before med school and I gave him his answer. That being said, the more zanki you get done with now, the more you have mature later and the less news you have to do. So for the OP it's either now or later, pick your poison.

The reason people say to do it later is because that's when people are actually able to do it efficiently. Libertyyne already pointed it out, but studying before med school and studying in med school are completely different beasts for almost everyone and study habits/methods used before med school are usually pointless for med school material. There's plenty of ways to study before med school. The question is are these methods worthwhile, and the answer is almost uniformly no and that includes using Anki. The only exception I agree with is if someone takes an in-depth cadaver dissection class spring/summer before just to make anatomy lab more manageable.

Regarding the 240 score - not sure why you're bringing this up. Zanki isn't the first mega deck, Bros has been around for years. These decks are proven time and time again. If OP does some research he can see that people who have the diligence to use zanki appropriately consistently score 250+, although yes some people do score lower and likely it is because they are trying to rush to finish zanki and not doing enough problems as well. And regarding the clinical context, that is what the 10,000+ questions the OP will be doing prior to step 1 is for.

It's same for all the major decks. I'll stand by my advice that there's no reason to do them before med school (especially to stave off burnout which no one here has mentioned yet) and Operaman gave an excellent reasoning why above. UWorld is only marginally good for clinical stuff as the Step 1 Qbank is focused for exactly that. Take it from someone who has already done it and also interacted with people who largely tried to exclusively use Anki + Qbanks for their clinical education before M3. The 4-5 I've worked with who admitted to this were very intelligent but did not shine when it came to clinical reasoning and decision making. They were great at rambling off factoids and algorithms but not great with other aspects. This is partially exacerbated by my field (psych) as UWorld and Anki decks are crap for actually learning psychiatry and I usually tear those med students apart (nicely) when they rotate with me.

2) How are you measuring your worst sections? Do you mean on step 1 or your school exams?

Both.

 

[7331poas]

In theory, yes. I tried this initially thinking it would be a surefire way to a flawless step 1 score. Unfortunately when my deck crossed 20,000 cards before Christmas of MS1, I had to adjust my expectations! Even for smaller decks, keeping up amid the other curricular and clinical demands of school is terribly difficult.

if you have 20k cards in your deck in 6 months then you are doing it wrong. That is likely why your strategy failed. Zanki + lolnotacop is 30k by itself.

And yes, if you were able to come into medical school with the principles of zanki already completed that is huge in my opinion.

Once again, I would not recommend a student do this. but there is no question that it would benefit to walk in having already watched pathoma + matured the cards.There is nothing about medical school that intrinsically improves your ability to do zanki.

 

[trapperjohn4077]

I don't support pre-studying anatomy/medicine/etc because it is not helpful for the majority of students who try to do it. If you want something to study before medical school, I'd do biostats, and learn SAS or R or something. This would make you a great asset in research projects during medical school.

 

[atomi]

I am in my gap year and start medical school in 5 months. I was wondering what material or Qbanks would be beneficial to get started on learning the medical school material before I start?

I'd focus on studying the insides of your eyelids as much as possible.

 

[TheIllusionist]

read big robbins. very fast and straightforward read

 

[CherryRedDracul]

Pick up some new hobbies like learning a new instrument.

And then work on maintaining your hobbies through medical school.

Just don't prestudy. Within my first week of medical school, I learned well enough that prestudying would have been utterly useless.

 

[7331poas]

I don't support pre-studying anatomy/medicine/etc because it is not helpful for the majority of students who try to do it. If you want something to study before medical school, I'd do biostats, and learn SAS or R or something. This would make you a great asset in research projects during medical school.

i.e do the biostats/public health section in zanki

 

[Melchizedek]

i.e do the biostats/public health section in zanki

Dude. We get it. You have a boner for Zanki.

 

[7331poas]

Dude. We get it. You have a boner for Zanki.

Just pointing out that there is no reason to purposefully avoid taking out 2 birds with 1 stone.

 

[FelicityMD]

I second everyone not studying before school actually starts but I also know the feeling of 'sitting around and wanting to do something'. The summer before medical school I looked over netters anatomy flashcards (because I had never taken anatomy) and that turned out really nice. When we started dissection/anatomy I felt like I knew some things and having a foundation totally helped with bulk memorization of other stuff.

 

[mrbreakfast]

Pre-study starting strength.

x2. This is a great time to get in shape, a fitness routine will help you keep sane in med school, the gym is a major social hub at many med schools, and with a program like starting strength, you'll be well on your way to filling out those scrubs/meeting the ortho bench press cutoffs.

 

[mandyads]

I'm curious how helpful this will be as well. For me, I am going to review my anatomy. My situation may be a bit different from the typical individual, though, because I completed a special master's program under a medical school and took anatomy and neuroanatomy at a level very comparable to that of medical students, with complete human cadaver dissection and clinical correlates and all. I have now taken head-to-toe (non-neuro) anatomy a total of three times, HOWEVER, I seem to forget many of the details very quickly and it was the course MOST time consuming for me... just dreadful at times, omg. The medical school I am attending only gives us two heavy-sciences courses in our first semester: anatomical sciences with lab(all of our gross anatomy forced into a semester) and molecular medicine. For me, I'm making sure I don't forget my anatomy and taking the time to sharpen up on the things I always took for granted (origins and insertions), I'll definitely put myself in a good position for anatomical sciences to be my best class in order to make room for the demand of molecular medicine. But this wouldn't work for someone without that very solid foundation.

Even though unrelated to your question - I COMPLETELY agree with what some people said about focusing on a routine - discipline in your schedule and staying healthy. Right now, I meal prep for the week EVERY Saturday or Sunday and have a dedicated workout plan. I've gotten my meal prep time down to 30 meals in 3 hours with minimal cleanup. I have medical school in mind every time I do this, so I become more efficient at saving money and time. Fitness is a huge part of my mental health and my booty gains remind me that I'm not just school, but that I have a whole other life. It also helps me stay in tune with my body, so I can practice resting adequately. I've also decided to work about 12 hour days (I decided to baby-sit, rather than work in the hospital, so it is low stress) in order to keep my mind in the game of "okay, I am working from 5am-5pm... gotta stick to a schedule." I reserve errands and fun for the weekends, with the occasional exception. It sounds like a lot, but I'm training myself. I want to get an early start to my day, expect 12 hours of dedicated time to school per day, while still balancing what matters most in my personal life. Basically, I'm not willing to give that up to fall into a study hole (like I know I'm prone to do). Making this lifestyle second nature BEFORE it's time to rock will definitely come in handy - I would say this is the best advice I could give. Discipline will benefit EVERY aspect of your journey as a medical student and it gives time to figure out what your "fitness" is.



SIDENOTE: JUST REALIZED THIS WAS POSTED IN 2019, NOT 2020. *sad face*