Hope for a Poor Student?

[drmd123]

Hello all:
THIS POST IS SOMEWHAT LONG BUT PLEASE READ...
This is my first post and I'd like to speak to someone about some problems I've been having recently. I have never been a brilliant student, in fact, I'm probably nowhere near as intellectually gifted as many of my classmates. However, I have always prided myself on being an extremely hard worker and that hard work is what got me into medical school and through my first year.
Herein lies the problem. Since I began 2nd year back in August I have been an utter shell of my former studious self. I cannot explain why but my work-ethic has been abysmal. For every hour I spend working I spend 3 hours doing something else. There is not a single test that I haven't crammed for all year and I simply cannot bring myself to concentrate for a prolonged period of time. I've tried everything including changing study schedules, where I study, the resources I use, etc. etc.
The following philosophy has been beaten into me my entire life: "just always do your best and be content with the result, come what may". The problem is I have lost that source of contentment. And though I am only too cognizant of my laziness I feel powerless to change and this has been a great source of angst for me. I do well enough on exams (80's) but that is no consolation to me because I am quite certain that I haven't properly learned the material. I attribute my grades to simply being able to regurgitate what I memorized the night before. Besides, I've never been one to care about grades so long as I was confident that I understood the material.
And so here I am. It's mid-January and I'm edging ever closer to the end of my 2nd year classes. I only have 6-8 weeks to review before I take the Step I (deadline to sit is May 27th). This is simply not enough time to try to learn this material and how can I "review" when I haven't really learned it the first time around?
I feel lost and I am amazed at how I've been able to just get by so far. I keep hoping that one day soon I will just "snap-out of it" and make up for my shortcomings by beasting it for the boards. Alas, I've been telling myself that all year but I believe that time is running out.

So, can anyone relate? Has anyone been in this position before and gotten out of it? Is it going to be hard for me to do well on the boards because I didnt learn path/pharm well enough during 2nd year or can I make up for it with FA & UWorld? I would really appreciate your input.

Thanks.

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[StIGMA]

Med school is such an isolating and stressful experience compared to college/whatever you were doing before med school. Do you have balance in your life- other non-school activities, such as exercising, yoga, night's out?

Worst case scenario you still likely do alright on the boards. Focus on life balance (the term "wellness" is very popular), and you should find your groove again.

 

[ar2388]

if youre getting grades in the 80's then youre doing fine. i definitely felt like i wasnt properly learning the material during 2nd year but there is a ton of material thrown at you. for step 1, focus on the big 3 or 2, depending on your time constraints and reading speed. (FA+UWorld +/- RR path) and goljan audio during your DAILY workout. just 30min a day is excellent and youll be chuckling along with the funny man from bklyn telling you all about pathology

 

[copes]

Hello all:
THIS POST IS SOMEWHAT LONG BUT PLEASE READ...
This is my first post and I'd like to speak to someone about some problems I've been having recently. I have never been a brilliant student, in fact, I'm probably nowhere near as intellectually gifted as many of my classmates. However, I have always prided myself on being an extremely hard worker and that hard work is what got me into medical school and through my first year.
Herein lies the problem. Since I began 2nd year back in August I have been an utter shell of my former studious self. I cannot explain why but my work-ethic has been abysmal. For every hour I spend working I spend 3 hours doing something else. There is not a single test that I haven't crammed for all year and I simply cannot bring myself to concentrate for a prolonged period of time. I've tried everything including changing study schedules, where I study, the resources I use, etc. etc.
The following philosophy has been beaten into me my entire life: "just always do your best and be content with the result, come what may". The problem is I have lost that source of contentment. And though I am only too cognizant of my laziness I feel powerless to change and this has been a great source of angst for me. I do well enough on exams (80's) but that is no consolation to me because I am quite certain that I haven't properly learned the material. I attribute my grades to simply being able to regurgitate what I memorized the night before. Besides, I've never been one to care about grades so long as I was confident that I understood the material.
And so here I am. It's mid-January and I'm edging ever closer to the end of my 2nd year classes. I only have 6-8 weeks to review before I take the Step I (deadline to sit is May 27th). This is simply not enough time to try to learn this material and how can I "review" when I haven't really learned it the first time around?
I feel lost and I am amazed at how I've been able to just get by so far. I keep hoping that one day soon I will just "snap-out of it" and make up for my shortcomings by beasting it for the boards. Alas, I've been telling myself that all year but I believe that time is running out.

So, can anyone relate? Has anyone been in this position before and gotten out of it? Is it going to be hard for me to do well on the boards because I didnt learn path/pharm well enough during 2nd year or can I make up for it with FA & UWorld? I would really appreciate your input.

Thanks.

Yes, you can still do very well on the boards. What helped me was to base my study pace on completing uworld. I wanted to get through uworld 2x in 6-8 weeks, so I was motivated to finish the required amount of questions daily. It is normal to feel overwhelmed. It is time to get stressed out and have that sense of urgency to get things done. 80's on exams is a good enough foundation. If you are a good crammer, then you are actually at an advantage. Think of this as a 6-8 week cram session. In a general, the more repetitions and the more questions you can get through during this time, the better you will do.

 

[OPPforlife]

Yeah dude your totally fine. Honestly Step One is as BS as the rest of med school. Be sure that in the time set aside for step one you grind it out. I would say the biggest barrier to doing well on step one is that people just tend to cram as much information as they can. That is important, dont get me wrong, you will HAVE to cram an insurmountable amount of information. However, I would highly suggest that while going through UW you try to figure out why you miss certain questions. What type of information is there in these questions that you tend to not learn as well. Then go back and make sure you learn that information well enough. parting words, "You will be fine, relax."

 

[valkener]

Hey man,

You seem like you need deadlines to get things done. Some of us work like that.. Make sure you do the best you can now for Step I and afterwards I'd get some counseling or psychology done.. maybe you adhd or something that could be fixed easily (you mentioned you need 3 hours for 1 hour of work). Anyway, you'll pull this off trust me.

 

[TAWS]

This sounds like the classic symptoms of medical school burnout. Happens to a lot of people.

 

[drmd123]

Yes, you can still do very well on the boards. What helped me was to base my study pace on completing uworld. I wanted to get through uworld 2x in 6-8 weeks, so I was motivated to finish the required amount of questions daily. It is normal to feel overwhelmed. It is time to get stressed out and have that sense of urgency to get things done. 80's on exams is a good enough foundation. If you are a good crammer, then you are actually at an advantage. Think of this as a 6-8 week cram session. In a general, the more repetitions and the more questions you can get through during this time, the better you will do.

Wow... you actually got through Uworld twice in 6-8 weeks? I can't imagine that you had much time for looking at anything else. Perhaps you could shed some light on how effective it was for you?
Thanks a lot btw.

 

[drmd123]

I'd like to thank everyone above for their comments and suggestions. I still feel like crap but at least I feel somewhat reassured that II'll be able to get through MS2 in one piece. I just keep hoping that one day I will rediscover my form and be able to enjoy that sense of accomplishment again.
Cheers.

 

[copes]

Wow... you actually got through Uworld twice in 6-8 weeks? I can't imagine that you had much time for looking at anything else. Perhaps you could shed some light on how effective it was for you?
Thanks a lot btw.

Yes, first pass of uworld I did by topic in first aid. So I would read the first aid section, then do all the questions in uworld while annotating uworld. I think the goal was around 100-150 questions per day. Some days I did more, some days I did less. The second pass goes a lot faster and I'm not sure if it was terribly helpful since you will recall a lot of the questions. Some of my friends chose to do kaplan and uworld 1x each. I used some usmle rx questions but not many. The more questions the better.The ~2-3 days before the test I spent reading through my annotated first aid and I was completely burned out by the last day. Keep in mind there are other ways people chose to study. The only other book I used besides first aid was BRS Path. Goljan was popular but it is way too much information unless you have been using it throughout the year or you have Robbins memorized. The only thing I used from Goljan was the nephritic/nephrotic syndromes chart. I used Gunner Training for pharm but it is probably too late to start it if you only have 6-8 weeks. I don't consider myself very smart but I am usually able to do well by working harder than everyone else. My second year grades weren't that great. So we may be similar in those ways. I was able to get above 240 which was my goal but still well below the SDN average.