Board study during summer after first year?

[Brodo Swaggins]

How useful is board prep during the summer before second year? I know that some students do this, but is it a common approach? I'm trying to get my head around board prep in general and the best way to go about getting ready for complex/step 1. Where is a good place to start in researching good study strategies? I'm starting from square 1 here, so anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

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[ToKingdomCome]

Interested in this as well

 

[Elevencents]

This has come up multiple times this past week. The general consensus is it is not efficient to board prep this early. Review weak areas from M1 if you want, but sitting down with FA is pretty pointless IMO.

I personally plan on working and doing my daily allotment of firecracker. And that's it.

 

[sunealoneal]

I'm going over my weak areas this summer using FA as a guide of what I need to know. And since I have a systems curriculum I'm doing relevant Qbank questions during any downtime to reveal any additional weaknesses.

I certainly don't think people need to do this. Many if not most students that I've read about or talked to have gotten amazing scores without doing much during the summer. But I'd feel uneasy if I didn't, it's just my personality. There are a few topics that have been haunting me as the year has gone on that I know I could've learned better, so I'm brushing up on those now. I'm not really planning on looking at stuff we do next year though, that seems like it'd be fairly inefficient.

 

[JustPlainBill]

Enjoy your summer over first year -- what you've managed to learn by now will likely be normal physiology/anatomy in depth -- I agree that you may want to review the weak areas. For 2nd year which will likely include pathology, I would make sure I understood renal, cardio, pulmonary for sure. TCOM actually used to have a 1 week review of renal/cardiopulmonary before the official kick off of 2nd year.

In general, I would not be thinking board prep since you've still got a blitz year coming at you learning path and medicine at the same time. You may want to invest in USMLEWorld and do the questions that correlate with the system you are studying during 2nd year but not over the summer. Relax, life's about to get hectic and you'll need the sleep -- stockpile sleep NOW so you can draw on it later....you'll get to recharge sleep again in 4th year before internship...and then again in the last month of your residency --- maybe.

Remember that I'm speaking from a systems based curriculum viewpoint --we did normal physiology/anatomy by system in 1st year, pathology/medicine by system in 2nd year -- took 6 weeks to study for boards and then jumped into rotations 3rd year.

Remember also that the best way to study for boards is to do very well and study well in your current classes --

As I've said before -- if you really want to get started on board prep, what you can do now is grab a new copy of FA, go to Kinkos and have them remove the cover and 3 hole punch it. Get a big binder and then at the end of each day, take 20 minutes or so and annotate the heck out of it according to what you're studying -- you can add notebook paper to it now that it's 3 hold punched and in a binder. When it comes time for board prep, you have a ready made resource that's familiar to you in your own hand writing --- use that for your review and do copious amounts of questions and spicy hot Chinese food with Black Rifle Coffee (Napalm is my choice of their offerings) and you're good to go....

Hope this helps.....PM if you need to ---

 

[costales]

It's your last real school summer. Enjoy it. If you have an urge to do something school-related, get some research under your belt in case you decide to go for something competitive later on.

 

[Brodo Swaggins]

This has come up multiple times this past week. The general consensus is it is not efficient to board prep this early. Review weak areas from M1 if you want, but sitting down with FA is pretty pointless IMO.

I personally plan on working and doing my daily allotment of firecracker. And that's it.

What's FA stand for again? I'm not familiar with board prep abbreviations yet. I still need to familiarize myself with what board prep materials are typically used actually

 

[hallowmann]

What's FA stand for again? I'm not familiar with board prep abbreviations yet. I still need to familiarize myself with what board prep materials are typically used actually

First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. You should probably buy a copy, you'll definitely need it for 2nd year.

You know, I'd say it really depends on who you are. If you can study and still not get burned out during one of the harder years in med school (2nd yr), go for it. The people I know who studied and actually read through FA or something similar like Crush Step 1, which I would recommend because of the content and more explanation, are probably the people that did the best in 2nd year, and I believe boards.

That said, if it were me (and it was) I'd cut the summer in half. Spend half of it doing something amazing, carefree, wonderful, etc. and then the other half doing something career related (research, studying for boards, etc.). It really is your last chance to do something fun like that with friends and family for at least a couple years, and I got a solid month of trips I wouldn't trade for a 5-10 point bump on boards (or at least I think I wouldn't).

 

[Capltd29]

MS-II here, about to take Step/Level1 at the end of the month. I tried to study last summer here and there and I just felt like there was so much of it that we hadn't learned yet in 1st year that it almost wasn't worth it. From what I can tell, step 1 isn't really 50/50 from 1st year and second year, it feels more like 30/70. The 20 being mostly Biochem, some physio, and Neuro. I guess if you really feel compelled, spend some time on Biochem or Neuro. I know when I picked up those subjects again it felt like I'd never seen if before, and I had done really well in both classes.

 

[Brodo Swaggins]

MS-II here, about to take Step/Level1 at the end of the month. I tried to study last summer here and there and I just felt like there was so much of it that we hadn't learned yet in 1st year that it almost wasn't worth it. From what I can tell, step 1 isn't really 50/50 from 1st year and second year, it feels more like 30/70. The 20 being mostly Biochem, some physio, and Neuro. I guess if you really feel compelled, spend some time on Biochem or Neuro. I know when I picked up those subjects again it felt like I'd never seen if before, and I had done really well in both classes.

Ah I gotcha. I have last years FA. Haven't heard of crush step 1. You recommend that over FA?

 

[Jlaw]

Dude enjoy your summer. You're better off going into 2nd year fresh and ready to work. You don't know enough to effectively study at this point and nothing you go over is going to stay in your head for a year anyway.

 

[sylvanthus]

Don't do any studying at all during that summer.

 

[SurgeDO]

network in the summer. spend a week with a residency program of a specialty you are interested in.

start seriously studying for step 1 at the beginning of fall (if you are looking for a definitive way to crank out a 260+). nonchalantly skimming through FA at this point is pretty pointless if you ask me.

 

[Brodo Swaggins]

network in the summer. spend a week with a residency program of a specialty you are interested in.

start seriously studying for step 1 at the beginning of fall (if you are looking for a definitive way to crank out a 260+). nonchalantly skimming through FA at this point is pretty pointless if you ask me.

Is it that easy in your experience to shadow within a residency program as a second year? I know they'll be getting new 3rd years soon and they may see someone like me as being in the way.

 

[hallowmann]

Is it that easy in your experience to shadow within a residency program as a second year? I know they'll be getting new 3rd years soon and they may see someone like me as being in the way.

I did plenty of shadowing & some research in 2nd year. Its very easy, and a good way to network.

Crush delves a little deeper into subjects. Its in paragraph form and actually explains things in a more logical sequence, building upon itself. Its good if you haven't seen a lot of the material yet and want a "crash course" in the systems. FA is basically a book of almost every high yield bullet point. Its great when you've seen almost everything before, but if I looked at it in the summer between MS1 & 2, it wouldn't have made any sense to me.

I generally agree with the sentiment on here about being sure at least part of your vacation is rest and relaxation. Two months or so is a long time. If you really want to do something, split it in half with a nice long vacation and something career related (shadowing, research, networking, studying, etc.)

 

[AnonymousD.O.]

First things first, yes it definitely matters how you study. For me, I need lots and lots of repetition, and the way I do it is writing stuff down and answering questions. I'm a pretty awful auditory learner. So, about 1/2 of the way through first year I started reviewing earlier material, by reviewing FA and doing Rx questions to make sure I had it down. I wouldn't take this back, it's helped me tremendously. There are of course things that I forgot when dedicated time came, but I was way ahead of the game. However, there are certainly people who begin studying 3 or 4 months before, and do exceptional. It really depends who you are. Make sure, to not use Uworld as an assessment of what you know, use it to learn. So start it about 3 months out so you can really take your time.

Also, as for the summer, I didn't touch anything. I think your time is better used either doing research, or completely relaxing.