Family Medicine Medu Cases Instead of Shelf

[MegaSonic]

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Hello everyone,

My school is replacing the Family Medicine Shelf with cases from something called Medu. I've heard that this is a good thing, but I'm still looking for more information about it. Since my class is the first to do this and I'm in the first group to do FM, there's no one here to ask about it. Has anyone ever done this before? How should I study for it? Any input helps. Thanks!

 

[fssca20]

I'm not sure exactly how you're school will be using it, but in general you will go step by step through a case building a differential. As you go along there is a meter which registers your engagement (green, yellow, red). If you are going too fast, not reading things, it will start to switch to yellow/red. There are also both multiple choice questions (that usually have multiple answers) and there are also some fill in the blank type questions too (such as write a brief 1-3 sentence summary of this patient, or what is your dDx). I suspect that's probably how you would be graded with it. I've gone through about 3 cases and in my opinion most of the questions are fairly basic..I haven't even started clinicals yet and I can get most of them right from common sense and a decent basic science foundation, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

 

[tiedyeddog]

Those are garbage, imo. My school made us do them as a learning tool. We weren't graded. They are so slow and take so much time to progress through, they are just so painful.

 

[JP2740]

Medu is complete an utter garbage. I would play video games to give each page to ample time to maintain a "green light" (if you click through it basically gives you a red or yellow light that means you're a dick for clicking through). I devoted myself to make sure I didn't read a single one.

Sometimes I'd do them at work too. My buddies would get a good laugh when I answered questions like what is your differential with "ice cream" or "**** off." Didn't know they could actually read my responses lol.

Idk how in the world they would grade it though.

 

[Psai]

honestly i think medu is ok but a waste of time if mandatory

 

[cbrons]

Those are garbage, imo. My school made us do them as a learning tool. We weren't graded. They are so slow and take so much time to progress through, they are just so painful.

Agree 100% ... they are HORRIBLE. Plus the videos...... LOL...... the patients and primary care physcians are so pleasant it is painful (and unrealistic)

 

[AlmostAnMD]

AAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahahahaha

medu

product of yet another focus group gone awry

They actually DO have exams they can offer in family medicine based off of these cases, so it's not impossible to still have an exam.

Also, you can breeze through cases and still get a green light by typing gibberish into the differential/findings window at each page. Then each case takes like 2 minutes instead of an hour. Total waste of time.

 

[Oo Cipher oO]

Med-u cases are very informative and worthwhile if you a willing to put the time into them. The cases are fairly simplistic but the meat of the program is teachinh you on the correct work up and differential. The one-three sentence summary can seem like an exercise in futility but if you do it a few times you will find you get good at them and I have had numerous attending a comment positively when they ask for my summary for a case.

 

[tiedyeddog]

Med-u cases are very informative and worthwhile if you a willing to put the time into them. The cases are fairly simplistic but the meat of the program is teachinh you on the correct work up and differential. The one-three sentence summary can seem like an exercise in futility but if you do it a few times you will find you get good at them and I have had numerous attending a comment positively when they ask for my summary for a case.

You're attendings go over medu cases with you?

 

[Oo Cipher oO]

You're attendings go over medu cases with you?

No but they sometimes ask for a small summary at the end of presenting a patient before moving on to the A/P. That is essentially the one to three sentence summary the med u cases have you practice.

 

[tiedyeddog]

No but they sometimes ask for a small summary at the end of presenting a patient before moving on to the A/P. That is essentially the one to three sentence summary the med u cases have you practice.

oh, gotcha.

 

[CherryRedDracul]

Med-u cases are very informative and worthwhile if you a willing to put the time into them. The cases are fairly simplistic but the meat of the program is teachinh you on the correct work up and differential. The one-three sentence summary can seem like an exercise in futility but if you do it a few times you will find you get good at them and I have had numerous attending a comment positively when they ask for my summary for a case.

I have to grudgingly admit ... they are very useful if you put the time into it. They just take forever to do so I end up burning through each case in about 10 minutes with a series of clicks and typing in random things when I hit yellow (or often, red). But I do read the case summary at the end of each case because it does actually have practical information that has proven to be useful IRL.

Also, for surgery cases, you can open multiple tabs and do multiple cases/videos simultaneously.

 

[MegaSonic]

Thanks for all the input. I should find out soon how exactly my class is going to use the Medu cases, but at least now I'm not completely in the dark.

 

[Donald Juan]

If I could choose between devoting legitimate time to doing medU cases that would be graded vs. studying for and taking a shelf, I would take medU cases every single rotation. The shelf exams are just overloaded with frivolous minutiae you'll only ever learn about in a shelf exam review book and never see once if you spent all year in your hospital or clinic. Say what you will about the format of the medU cases, but at least they cover more bread and butter topics--as in, the type of stuff you should actually be learning about a specialty in a 3rd year rotation.

 

[WinslowPringle]

The info in the MedU cases is decent. The format is miserable. I just made stuff up for the fill-ins so I could make the stupid light turn green.

 

[notbobtrustme]

There is a shelf exam associated with the cases and it's ****ing absurd. Easily the toughest shelf exam I've taken. Every shelf, I've scored >90th percentile. This shelf I scored in the 70th percentile, which is fine because the average is like 60.

I did all 40-something cases, read the pdfs and did the questions. The shelf exam tested minutia from the cases especially regarding algorithms and didn't really reflect clinical practice at all.

 

[seminoma]

Schools trying to reinvent the wheel always give me a good chuckle.