Frustration with school and step 1...rote memorization vs. understanding

[Transformers]

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Hey guys, just wrapped up my 2nd path block (cards, pulm, and endo)...and well I did ok but I guess I'm just a bit frustrated with attempts and studying for step and school and well basically "doing too much" It hit me especially when I realized the difficulties of path of literally knowing it ALL--> from etiology, path, risk factors, diagnosis (and all its nuances of xrays, histopath, gross images, physical diagnosis), treatment (and all its pharm)....it makes me think GEEZ how can i possibly know ALL of this for every disease in the allotted time!

My school does an alright job of teaching but I guess when it comes down to it, theres so much to do and so little time. I'm not trying to honor path or pharm by any means but instead I would like to appreciate a better understanding of the whys and simply put, when it comes to the understanding, lectures often don't cut it...On the other hand Pathoma and kaplan pharm videos with Dr. Raymond on the other hand do a phenomonal job of explaining the material line by line and explaining the whys. Same with Goljan audios. and doing this on top of schoolwork and everything eats up my time making me do nothing but study study, skip lectures, and workout. I hope Im going a longer way doing this than just focusing on school because the ultimate goal honestly, is to dominate UWorld and Step I.

1.) So, my questions: At the end of the day, my main question is by putting in the time to do pathoma, kaplan vids to understand the Why or mechanistic reasoning of often neglected issues (the pathogenesis of a disease or pharmacologic actions/toxicities of drugs), am I going farther than just blindly memorizing class lectures?

2.) As far as "diagnosis" goes- xrays, cts, gross- will the images in pathoma and UWorld suffice so im not tearing my hair going through a histopath textbook or doing all of WebPath?

Thanks.

 

[tuxa]

Hi...i am new in this forum. But i took the exam 2 weeks ago...still waiting for the result. I just can say i got around 8 or 10 questions that i only could answer because i watched kaplan videos. They were not in goljan RR..nor in First Aid.

Maybe 90% of the exam was doable with First Aid ..the other 10% was composed of minutiae...random facts ...graphics..things that i don't know were you can learn them. But i am thankful i took a bit of time for these videos and made annotations in first aid.

Still don't know my scores. Memorizing is annoying ...but when you are in prometric dealing with ..peculiar questions ..you wish you had done more memorization . So ..get a little rest and keep trying harder ..the exam is more important..no matter if memorizing is a crap...what you do now you do it for yourself...for your future..it is your life...memorizing all that crap is making yourself a favor. But ..remember First Aid ...FA ..FA...because at least 90% of the exam you can respond or figure it out a decent guess with that book.

 

[smartparts]

I'm in a similar situation and I think its more rewarding to learn my own way rather than force myself to learn the way my instructors would like. It is disheartening when I get grades that I know don't reflect my knowledge of a subject because the instructors wrote questions that sniped me on lecture slides I didn't look at closely. It's made worse by people who conform to the class instruction by memorizing every word the professor said and go on to brag about their grades. It's hard to buck tradition knowing that you're going to take a hit on unit exams but if how you're studying leads to deeper understanding, then keep your head up and move on.

I've taken it a step farther and started reading cases from medical journals such as the Mayo Clinic Proceedings Resident's Clinic because getting into that pattern of thinking is going to be a much more powerful tool (for Step and beyond) than simply learning basic science. It's my understanding that preclinical grades/class rank aren't as important as standardized test scores/LORs for residency partially because program directors know that not every curriculum suits every student, and there's no way out in practice.

tl;dr Be brave. Learn how you want and what you want. 😎

 

[Checcles]

Hi...i am new in this forum. But i took the exam 2 weeks ago...still waiting for the result. I just can say i got around 8 or 10 questions that i only could answer because i watched kaplan videos. They were not in goljan RR..nor in First Aid.

Maybe 90% of the exam was doable with First Aid ..the other 10% was composed of minutiae...random facts ...graphics..things that i don't know were you can learn them. But i am thankful i took a bit of time for these videos and made annotations in first aid.

Still don't know my scores. Memorizing is annoying ...but when you are in prometric dealing with ..peculiar questions ..you wish you had done more memorization . So ..get a little rest and keep trying harder ..the exam is more important..no matter if memorizing is a crap...what you do now you do it for yourself...for your future..it is your life...memorizing all that crap is making yourself a favor. But ..remember First Aid ...FA ..FA...because at least 90% of the exam you can respond or figure it out a decent guess with that book.

Thanks for your input. Do you have an example of what your heard in a Kaplan vid thats not in FA. Just curious. (I notice Kaplan uses a lot of graphs that dont appear in FA and such that have been helpful for me)

 

[tuxa]

I can't tell details about my exam ...legal issues ..we all know.

But i can say those kaplan videos are extremely good ..i just watched some ..mostly micro ..pharmaco..biochemistry ...some step 2 by Conrad Fischer..

I made annotations in first aid and some of these things i wrote down appeared in my exam! there many things that aren't in FA...but they are minutiae..still FA material is 90% +/- of the exam. Almost every page in my FA has some annotations..a bit difficult to post them here 🙂

I am still waiting for my score.

🙂