DO Student Advice Needed~USMLE June 25th and COMLEX July 3rd

[serimeri]

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Hi everyone,

Just finished 2nd year at AZCOM and have been lurking here and have found this site really useful. I hope you guys can provide me some insight on my current situation and give me some guidance on how to proceed as I am currently very scared having taken NBME #7 and having gotten a self assessment score of 240~160 (Usmle score conversion), so obviously I failed.

Some background about my preparation so far, I started reading first aid around mid february and completed my first pass through (very superficial) at the end of March. I have been doing uworld questions here and there (whenever I got a chance) but have only done about 40% of the Qbank. I also have not reviewed some sets that i completed. I just finished our last term yesterday and it has been extremely difficult to balance classwork with board studying. I am not your traditional student by the way (I have a family), so it has been difficult to get around to things with kids. In general, I have felt, that I have done a lot of memorizing with Pathology and Biochem and not enough understanding. The same is true for Embryology/Anatomy.

In general, I feel like I have a stable core basic understanding of things, but it is the details (i.e. can't recognize a certain bug from Micro, or a certain Biochem pathway) that get me. I have also done about ~40% of the Pathoma videos as I was going through Pathology but I didn't get time to do it for each unit I was doing in class.

I guess in order to get to the point of what I am asking, in the limited amount of time I have left, what should I be doing? I have only done some of DIT part 1, I have found it just average. Since I have purchased the whole package, I decided to activate part 2 and plan on starting the schedule that they recommend tomorrow. But, given that I feel like my weakness is with concepts/details/actual material, do you recommend I continue with DIT and do the part 2 program (stick to the schedule)? Or should I just forget it and try to memorize everything from the Uworld questions (which I have about 65% left of). I have been averaging about ~50% on the questions as well. Its obvious that I need a lot of help with understanding the material, but I am not sure it is possible to learn so many physiology concepts in this short span of time.

Lastly, my goal is to obviously get the best score that I possibly can (I definitely want to be a competent physician), but right now I feel like my top priority is passing. With that in mind, do you think DIT is worth it? On another note, more of a DO specific question, my goal is to go into Family Practice and my OMM is mediocre (just need to brush up on sacrum and cranial dysfunctions and some anatomy), do you think I should forget about the USMLE and just try and pass the COMLEX? I have my COMSAE on May 30th so I will see how it goes (I will not be able to take the actual COMLEX and be dismissed from the program if I fail it more than 2 times)?

I am truly desparate to just pass, as bad as it sounds, I do not know how I managed to get by the first 2 years of medical school (I have been one of those hard workers/crammers) who just passes the exams and I am in the bottom 10% of my class. I just honestly don't know where to begin with all the material I don't know.

I am sorry for the long post, and I know that a lot of these threads are repeated, but I would appreciate any feedback you can give me. I feel like hard work can get you through the first 2 years of medical school, a good undergrad GPA, but with standardized tests, you have to have skills and considering the fact that I had a low MCAT score, I think my issue is with standardized exams.

Thanks again!

 

[primadonna22274]

I would absolutely NOT take USMLE as it stands right now. Focus on your COMLEX prep which you MUST pass. A failing USMLE will hurt you far more than not taking it at all.
My best advice would be to go through ALL of Pathoma. His explanations are golden. You need UNDERSTANDING, not memorization. You need focus--Dr Sattar will provide that.
Don't sacrifice OMM--go through Savarese twice but if you can't do that at least do the OMM Cram Pages (google this).
I feel your pain as we just finished M2 at LECOM a couple weeks ago and have had a very full semester with way too many last-minute schedule changes and mandatory add-on sessions. Your task for the next month is to master what you don't yet have down and pass COMLEX with a comfortable margin.
Those UWORLD questions are brutal and I do find I learn something from every one I miss, but if your scores are that far off now I think you would be better off focusing on COMBANK and COMQUEST qbanks for your review. You will likely find these easier and get a confidence boost as well--the questions are definitely written differently and less emphasis on esoteric scientist crap that won't make you a better doctor.
Best wishes!
Lisa

 

[serimeri]

Thanks for the advice. Would you suggest watching all the videos of Pathoma again? Is that necessary or is just reading the book good enough, I annotated the 40% of the book that I watched.

Also, on a related note, what do you think about DIT? I have paid for it and will not get my money back, or do you think it may be too much wasted time that I should be doing questions with. I have the green book and will definitely read it. I also wanted to add, I have purchased COMQUEST, do you recommend doing COMBANK in addition to this or is COMQUEST sufficient?

Who am I kidding, it will be a miracle if I get through all of the COMQUEST.

 

[primadonna22274]

Watch the remaining Pathoma videos on 1.0 speed, annotate as you go along. If you have time after you get through ALL of it then go through again on 1.4x

DIT is great for dedicated topic review on things you don't understand, but it's such a serious time commitment that I couldn't get through it. I found some of the cutesy stuff off-putting and just couldn't stick with it, but it works for lots of folks.

Do ALL of the COMQUEST qbank. Watch your scores improve as you go. You may even want to so the first week on Tutor mode until your confidence improves. Read the explanations for each answer choice in detail--you will learn from these. Don't bother with COMBANK. You already suffer from Too Many Sources Syndrome. It's fine to go back and forth between UWORLD and COMQUEST but the COMLEX will be much more like COMQUEST questions.

Pay attention to your performance on COMSAE. Where is your faculty on this? I can't imagine they would let you sit for the exam if your predictions are a fail risk--at this time your priority has to be boards. Not rotations, not residency options--you must pass step 1.

I wish you the best 🙂

I take COMLEX on Tuesday and USMLE next week. I'm a novice at this too but have been studying for boards since February of M1...I did Pathoma with each system and started First Aid last fall. There's plenty I've forgotten and I think we all have to accept it's impossible to know everything but each pass through the material helps a little more. I've coached a couple hundred PA students through the PANCE and I know something about board prep. My very best advice for you right now is to smartly limit your sources and dedicate your energy to those sources fully for the next month. I understand you have a family but they need you to PASS and move forward to becoming a physician. Best of luck!

 

[serimeri]

Watch the remaining Pathoma videos on 1.0 speed, annotate as you go along. If you have time after you get through ALL of it then go through again on 1.4x

DIT is great for dedicated topic review on things you don't understand, but it's such a serious time commitment that I couldn't get through it. I found some of the cutesy stuff off-putting and just couldn't stick with it, but it works for lots of folks.

Do ALL of the COMQUEST qbank. Watch your scores improve as you go. You may even want to so the first week on Tutor mode until your confidence improves. Read the explanations for each answer choice in detail--you will learn from these. Don't bother with COMBANK. You already suffer from Too Many Sources Syndrome. It's fine to go back and forth between UWORLD and COMQUEST but the COMLEX will be much more like COMQUEST questions.

Pay attention to your performance on COMSAE. Where is your faculty on this? I can't imagine they would let you sit for the exam if your predictions are a fail risk--at this time your priority has to be boards. Not rotations, not residency options--you must pass step 1.

I wish you the best 🙂

I take COMLEX on Tuesday and USMLE next week. I'm a novice at this too but have been studying for boards since February of M1...I did Pathoma with each system and started First Aid last fall. There's plenty I've forgotten and I think we all have to accept it's impossible to know everything but each pass through the material helps a little more. I've coached a couple hundred PA students through the PANCE and I know something about board prep. My very best advice for you right now is to smartly limit your sources and dedicate your energy to those sources fully for the next month. I understand you have a family but they need you to PASS and move forward to becoming a physician. Best of luck!

Thank you! I appreciate it. Yes, Boards are the priority, best of luck to you as well.

I will get in contact with Faculty this week and let them know that i may need more time.

Thanks again.

 

[serimeri]

I can't seem to get ahold of faculty. But a thought came to me, why not purchase a COMSAE a few days before and see how I do before talking to them? I am going through the comquest and getting better as I go through it. Is there a COMSAE that is preferred or a good predictor form A, B or C?

 

[primadonna22274]

Our school purchased COMSAE C for us. I felt it was a decent assessment.
I am starting to wonder what you get for your outrageous AZCOM tuition....
Good luck 🙂 keep going!

 

[as90]

maybe see if you can get your money back for USMLE? Pathoma is a gem by the way.

 

[dandi]

Hi everyone,

Just finished 2nd year at AZCOM and have been lurking here and have found this site really useful. I hope you guys can provide me some insight on my current situation and give me some guidance on how to proceed as I am currently very scared having taken NBME #7 and having gotten a self assessment score of 240~160 (Usmle score conversion), so obviously I failed.

Some background about my preparation so far, I started reading first aid around mid february and completed my first pass through (very superficial) at the end of March. I have been doing uworld questions here and there (whenever I got a chance) but have only done about 40% of the Qbank. I also have not reviewed some sets that i completed. I just finished our last term yesterday and it has been extremely difficult to balance classwork with board studying. I am not your traditional student by the way (I have a family), so it has been difficult to get around to things with kids. In general, I have felt, that I have done a lot of memorizing with Pathology and Biochem and not enough understanding. The same is true for Embryology/Anatomy.

In general, I feel like I have a stable core basic understanding of things, but it is the details (i.e. can't recognize a certain bug from Micro, or a certain Biochem pathway) that get me. I have also done about ~40% of the Pathoma videos as I was going through Pathology but I didn't get time to do it for each unit I was doing in class.

I guess in order to get to the point of what I am asking, in the limited amount of time I have left, what should I be doing? I have only done some of DIT part 1, I have found it just average. Since I have purchased the whole package, I decided to activate part 2 and plan on starting the schedule that they recommend tomorrow. But, given that I feel like my weakness is with concepts/details/actual material, do you recommend I continue with DIT and do the part 2 program (stick to the schedule)? Or should I just forget it and try to memorize everything from the Uworld questions (which I have about 65% left of). I have been averaging about ~50% on the questions as well. Its obvious that I need a lot of help with understanding the material, but I am not sure it is possible to learn so many physiology concepts in this short span of time.

Lastly, my goal is to obviously get the best score that I possibly can (I definitely want to be a competent physician), but right now I feel like my top priority is passing. With that in mind, do you think DIT is worth it? On another note, more of a DO specific question, my goal is to go into Family Practice and my OMM is mediocre (just need to brush up on sacrum and cranial dysfunctions and some anatomy), do you think I should forget about the USMLE and just try and pass the COMLEX? I have my COMSAE on May 30th so I will see how it goes (I will not be able to take the actual COMLEX and be dismissed from the program if I fail it more than 2 times)?

I am truly desparate to just pass, as bad as it sounds, I do not know how I managed to get by the first 2 years of medical school (I have been one of those hard workers/crammers) who just passes the exams and I am in the bottom 10% of my class. I just honestly don't know where to begin with all the material I don't know.

I am sorry for the long post, and I know that a lot of these threads are repeated, but I would appreciate any feedback you can give me. I feel like hard work can get you through the first 2 years of medical school, a good undergrad GPA, but with standardized tests, you have to have skills and considering the fact that I had a low MCAT score, I think my issue is with standardized exams.

Thanks again!

OMG. It was like I wrote your post. I am a DO student with a family that has followed the same schedule as you and I have completed almost the exact same material. I have the same uworld scores and have completed the same amount of the qbank. I do feel like I am a good test taker and I did okay on the MCAT at a 31. I took the NBME exam #15 and scored a 179 today. My previous uworld exams were a 172 and 192. I am not sure where I am going wrong in my studying and don't understand why my scores are not improving. It was devastating for me today when my score decreased. My Comlex is on the 17th of June and the USMLE on the 19th. At this point I am not sure if I should reschedule or what I should focus on or how. I feel like I'm good at the concepts and not the details, but my problem is I don't know where to begin to tackle my weak spots. I am glad you started this thread and best to luck to you.

 

[InFactotum]

Something seems off. If you are truly consistently scoring 50% on UWorld, you should be getting around a 200 on the NBME. 160 is far from the margin of error. This means you must be not doing UW on timed random (thus skewing your UW percentage too high) or you are doing something very wrong on the NBME.

Considering you want FP, I would focus only on COMLEX right now. If you get your COMLEX scores up, you can schedule the USMLE at a later date and still apply to ACGME. You also need to have a serious look at your study habits. The impression you give is that you tend to gloss over material and figure you have the "gist" of it. I've been working with DIT and regret my decision (gonna abandon it), but I think for someone like you it might be a great thing if you do EXACTLY as it tells you to. Do the 15 or 19 day plan to give yourself some serious time to drill the concepts. Also, GO OVER YOUR UWORLD TESTS. The explanations are awesome and explain far more than just the superficial concept.

Finally, I'd get one of the COMLEX qbanks. I haven't picked one out myself yet, but since your goal should be the COMLEX at this point, I'd get used to those sorts of questions.

Good luck. Must be really hard with a family. If it's at all possible, you'll need to put in some really long hours.

 

[as90]

Definitely still do the uworld questions though, you will learn more from than then COMQUEST in my opinion. It is still the best q bank for the non-omm stuff even for comlex difficulty....newer comlex is more usmle like now for basic science stuff for step 1

 

[primadonna22274]

Definitely still do the uworld questions though, you will learn more from than then COMQUEST in my opinion. It is still the best q bank for the non-omm stuff even for comlex difficulty....newer comlex is more usmle like now for basic science stuff for step 1

OMG I totally agree with that assessment. I was somewhat surprised at how sophisticated many of my COMLEX questions were--very reminiscent of UWORLD.

 

[serimeri]

OMG I totally agree with that assessment. I was somewhat surprised at how sophisticated many of my COMLEX questions were--very reminiscent of UWORLD.

Wow congrats on your COMLEX being done. Getting through the Pathoma right now and doing COMQUEST.

Would you advise me to continue with Pathoma and COMQUEST or as the other poster suggested, do more UWORLD? Was the COMLEX pretty comparable to the COMSAE?

Thanks again!

 

[serimeri]

Also, do you guys have any suggestion for Micro for the comlex? I have heard those lippincott cards are good, but I just cannot have any more physical cards, I need something on the iphone or electronic, I'm way too disorganized as it is.

 

[primadonna22274]

Wow congrats on your COMLEX being done. Getting through the Pathoma right now and doing COMQUEST.

Would you advise me to continue with Pathoma and COMQUEST or as the other poster suggested, do more UWORLD? Was the COMLEX pretty comparable to the COMSAE?

Thanks again!

I still stand by my recommendation to finish Pathoma. The knowledge is what you need. I flipped through all of my notes in Pathoma the night before and I do think I gained a few more points I might have missed otherwise.

Still do COMQUEST. If you have UWORLD do as many of those as you can. Use the explanations as a learning experience.

Good luck!!

 

[serimeri]

Thanks, primadonna, for someone like me, who memorized, regurgitated and forgot most of the micro this year, do you advise just to practice questions on micro through the q banks and make flashcards of what is in first aid? Is the COMLEX micro really as obscure as people make it out to be?

An upperclassman gave me a stack of 4 year old Microcards for free (much as I don't like physical copies of cards), I can try and spend a half an hour with them everyday. Or perhaps I should make my own out of first aid and write them down?

Our Micro department, really did an average job on concentrating on important stuff for boards. The guy who taught us viruses didn't even test us on what is DNA vs. RNA (he said this is a DO school and COMLEX doesn't care about that stuff), however since the comlex is becoming more USMLE like, I'm not sure if i should go into that depth.

Anyhow, back to COMQUEST! thanks again

 

[Trogghunter]

Delay it if you must. I delayed mine and studied during surgery and IM...it was tough, but I did it. How bad do you want it?!

 

[serimeri]

Delay it if you must. I delayed mine and studied during surgery and IM...it was tough, but I did it. How bad do you want it?!

I'll see I don't think they will let me though. Your talking about COMLEX right? We'll see how this COMSAE goes if I don't pass, I can't take the COMLEX and I will be given a set amount of time to pass, if I do not pass COMSAE again, I will be remediated.

 

[Trogghunter]

I'll see I don't think they will let me though. Your talking about COMLEX right? We'll see how this COMSAE goes if I don't pass, I can't take the COMLEX and I will be given a set amount of time to pass, if I do not pass COMSAE again, I will be remediated.

Wtf that's ridiculous. If you don't pass a comsae you remediate a year? Comsae not comlex right? If they're going to hold you back a year for a comsae...you better take that comsae open book and do the below to pass the real deal.

To pass comlex 1: bugs, drugs, omm. Memorize FA micro including g+ g- algorithms, make a cheat sheet of FA drug mechs and toxicity and memorize it, then download OMM cram pages from a Google search and memorize. Use flashcardexchange.com to go through step 1 micro and step 1 drugs to quiz yourself, its really fast. There are multiple sets with 300+ user submitted flashcards.

Many people would attest that the above formula for success would get a solid pass if that was all that you knew.

 

[primadonna22274]

I like the post above.
Micro is one of my strong subjects and we have an OUTSTANDING micro/immuno dept at LECOM. I still didn't know for sure 4-5 of the questions on my COMLEX. Micro was a HUGE part of my COMLEX and our profs tell us it's traditionally VERY HIGHLY TESTED stuff.
Your micro dept did you a huge disservice.
You're gonna have to learn it, however you can.
Good luck.

 

[Ary Lall]

I still stand by my recommendation to finish Pathoma. The knowledge is what you need. I flipped through all of my notes in Pathoma the night before and I do think I gained a few more points I might have missed otherwise.

Still do COMQUEST. If you have UWORLD do as many of those as you can. Use the explanations as a learning experience.

Good luck!!

When you say finish Pathoma, do you recommend reading the book several times or just watching the videos?

Also, is Pathoma, First AID, and COMQUEST enough if just taking COMLEX? I know you said that your exam had some WTFs that seemed like they were from UWORLD.

Thanks

 

[serimeri]

Wtf that's ridiculous. If you don't pass a comsae you remediate a year? Comsae not comlex right? If they're going to hold you back a year for a comsae...you better take that comsae open book and do the below to pass the real deal.

To pass comlex 1: bugs, drugs, omm. Memorize FA micro including g+ g- algorithms, make a cheat sheet of FA drug mechs and toxicity and memorize it, then download OMM cram pages from a Google search and memorize. Use flashcardexchange.com to go through step 1 micro and step 1 drugs to quiz yourself, its really fast. There are multiple sets with 300+ user submitted flashcards.

Many people would attest that the above formula for success would get a solid pass if that was all that you knew.

Sorry for the panic and confusion. I should learn to not communicate on public forums when I haven't had enough coffee lol

I should have clarified, we have to pass the COMSAE, we get 2 tries. If we fail after the 2nd one (mid-june), we will remediate our board review course (which is P/F). I guess that means study until you pass COMSAE even if that means you will delay rotations.

I don't tihink we have a bad micro department, I think I just have an aversion to Immunology (last year), and just memorized without thought for micro (we didn't have that much time for the tests) usualy only one weekend.

I know the algorithm you are talking about, flowchart in first aid, I'm ashamed to tell you that it will just not stick in my head (even after drawing it out for 5 times).

However, no excuses, did a COMQUEST bunch and got a 66% today so it is a little better.

Primadonna, sorry to be another bother, but every time I do uworld, I feel like my average just does not go up. I honestly think its the little things (things that I probably knew when I was a sophomonre in college at the cellular level). Having taken the COMLEX (recent), do you think COMQUEST will be sufficient for me to attain my passing goal? Also, regarding viruses (how much of the genetics/molecular details were on there)? I feel I could tell you the clinical features but it will take some serious effort for me to tell you things so as to DNA, ssRNA, etc. Given my poor performance already, I think I am going to have to put that towards Pathoma.

Again, thanks so much for the input you guys, I am going to do as you all suggested for Micro this weekend and put my best foot forward. My family is also really coming together for me so that is all the more motivation for me to push forward.