Flash cards certainly have their place and are effective for rote memorization, but they are tedious and not suited for an engineer's learning style. However, I did not select a school with PBL due to the strength of their clinical training and residency programs in my fields of interest. Engineers, were you able to find a way to apply and systematize your learning during M1 and M2? I suppose that something as simple as Step 1 questions may be helpful.
Engineers, how did you study in medical school?
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bite the pill and flash card. even cursory reading will give you most of conceptual depth needed. from there it is just robotic space bar smash monkeying. take an SSRI and some addy, if needed to push through.
srs. not srs.
srs. not srs.
A bit disingenuous here. Part of what step 1 requires is not only memorizing but also integrating information and being able to apply it to novel scenarios. Saying a monkey could do it is nonsense. And people wonder why there's all this mid level encroachment in medicine. You think nursing students are telling each other that their skills are limited?
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practice of medicine isn't like that. exams are. 80% of the 260-270s STEP1 scorers I know are button smashers. My scores on exams, from in house to shelves and board practice tests to boards all improved mindlessely memorizing. Most med students who get in meritocratically are sufficiently intelligent to make the logical leaps intuitively asked for on boards. It isn't hard math, physics, comp sci, philosophy or even tough basic life science experimental design. It mostly a dedicationvcontest. It is not heavily aptitude based and largely skewed towards long term heavy memorization. There is a reason carib students who often failed to break a 30 on three consecutive MCAT attempts after 3 months of studying still manage to sometimes firecracker away to pull a 260 out of their ass. There is a reasons schools with MCATs 2SDs above other scores hardly have STEP scores 1/ 2 SD over the same schools.
Rate limiting step to success on med school boards is the product of memory and dedication and memory is considered but a fraction of fluid intelligence. It is a rather narrow scope. There is a reason aptitude test scores correlate only weak to moderate with STEP exams but highly with other aptitude tests.
What are you referring to here?
I'll agree mostly with what you're saying. But to say anyone could do it isn't true. 90% of the people I met in undergrad wouldn't survive a month in medical school. To them, studying involved looking over things the night before the exam. A week of studying before an exam was a lot to them. And the Caribbean argument isn't nearly as common as you think. Most people who get those kinds of scores weren't brought down by GPA or MCAT, but rather some red flag (cheating etc.)
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hence why I have the "get in meritocratically" qualifier. the carib students that manage it are exceptions but the fact they aren't that much of unicorns says something
Gotcha. Most of your ideas make sense, but sometimes you mix up medical student success with the general population. What would be an example of someone who didn't get in meritocratically?
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32 MCAT or so equivalent and 3.7 GPA at a legitimate undergrad.
Average MCAT for elite surgical subspec residents is 32. Others lower. That should tell you something about how capable people are but just don't do it right (exceptions for life circumstances)
Table B1: Test Scores and Experiences of First-Year Residents, by Specialty
Test Scores and Experiences of First-Year Residents, by Specialty
What if you're above in one metric or below in another metric?32 MCAT or so equivalent and 3.7 GPA at a legitimate undergrad.
Average MCAT for elite surgical subspec residents is 32. Others lower. That should tell you something about how capable people are but just don't do it right (exceptions for life circumstances)
Table B1: Test Scores and Experiences of First-Year Residents, by Specialty
Test Scores and Experiences of First-Year Residents, by Specialtywww.aamc.org
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If you are within ballpark of a couple points or two tenths of gpa percentage point, should be fine or even more leeway at a deflationary place like princeton, u chicago, or cal tech or a super hard major like electrical engineering CS double at say ut austin
PhD engineering here. I generally don’t like reading and I hate to memorize random things. Learn and rationalize the physiology and feedback loops and then the vast majority of medicine will just make sense. Then try and problem solve like an engineer. There are things you’ll have to memorize for sure, no way around it, but memorizing the random crap is easier if you know the background science of things.
Did you have any good methods for this? Practical steps you took to rationalize the physiology, aside from reviewing text and lecture? I imagine that visualizing the feedback loops would be helpful, drawing diagrams and such. In engineering we had spoon-fed practice problems. I anticipate needing to take a much more active role in learning in this regard.
Yes diagrams can help for sure, much like a FBD or circuit to visualize the problem at hand. If you learn how things work under normal circumstances, then when a problem happens at one part of the chain you can anticipate what will be happening downstream and upstream
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Engineering undergrad; had to completely change how I study in Med school, it went from learning equation and actually understanding what they mean to just straight up memorization of buzzwords. So whatever way you can maximize memorization would be my advice.
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Repetition, video learning (BnB, Sketchy, Pathoma) will make this so much easier!!! My short-term memory is good, not great, but long term memory is excellent if I put in the time to understand the materias first time. crammed zanki a few days leading up to specific exams, but did learn the materials at least 2x or 3x passes prior to anki, so it was fast and furious anki. reviewed Sketchy and Pathoma during breaks which helped solidifying info before step
Visualize them as a LTI system with feedback control, and how different inputs change the gain. Cardiac cycles, etc can be visualized as PV diagrams from thermodynamics that follow similar sets of equation for work, etc. Parts of curve represent analogous transitions: isobaric, isochoric, etc depending on the part of the cycle. Equations from fluid mechanics to describe blood flow, etc; consult a biophysics textbook if you need help understanding.
You don't need to know any of this for medical school but if you seek to "rationalize the physiology", this is how you would do it.
