How to prepare for step 1 when your medical school doesn't help you?

[JermanH]

So my medical school is known for not tailoring their lectures, exams, tests to help you out on step 1...how do I fill in the gaps to tailor what I learn for step 1 preparation? I feel like I'm going to be missing out on because I know a lot of the top schools tailor their material to reflect step 1 test questions..

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[theonlytycrane]

Ignore your school material (just pass) and do board stuff only.

 

[Oso]

To this day I’m still not sure if the people in charge of the pre-clinical curriculum at my school know step 1 is a thing... Wish I was joking.

FA + UW +/- pathoma +/- sketchy micro

 

[theonlytycrane]

I can't speak to the clinical aspects of medical school, but pre-clinical setups are far beyond obsolete and it's sad that we all waste our $ sitting at home learning everything ourselves (while paying more $ for online resources that are actually good and persevering through weekly annoyances from our schools)

 

[Goro]

So my medical school is known for not tailoring their lectures, exams, tests to help you out on step 1...how do I fill in the gaps to tailor what I learn for step 1 preparation? I feel like I'm going to be missing out on because I know a lot of the top schools tailor their material to reflect step 1 test questions..

Professors testing on minutiae or their research? How do you know they're not preparing you?


I can't speak to the clinical aspects of medical school, but pre-clinical setups are far beyond obsolete and it's sad that we all waste our $ sitting at home learning everything ourselves (while paying more $ for online resources that are actually good and persevering through weekly annoyances from our schools)

The galling and perverse thing about this mode of teaching/learning is that it seems to be more effective than the passive learning of sitting in a lecture hall listening to the sage on the stage!

 

[mehc012]

Professors testing on minutiae or their research? How do you know they're not preparing you?


I can't speak to the clinical aspects of medical school, but pre-clinical setups are far beyond obsolete and it's sad that we all waste our $ sitting at home learning everything ourselves (while paying more $ for online resources that are actually good and persevering through weekly annoyances from our schools)

The galling and perverse thing about this mode of teaching/learning is that it seems to be more effective than the passive learning of sitting in a lecture hall listening to the sage on the stage!

I wish more schools were open to the idea of integrating these resources (or at least getting group rates for them, if not covering them). I don't think that they should stop there, as there is definitely a lot of utility in learning more detail than the review sources at first, but many schools seem to try to teach in ways that avoid these resources, when instead they could perhaps utilize the organization that's already working for many people and embellish it as needed.

Then again, I've always appreciated the fact that when my school's organization doesn't work for me, I can just go look at board resources and design my own study plan off of those, so perhaps it would be a step backwards to decrease options.

 

[intubesteak]

There are still important things to glean from lecture. Board review material is not made to be a stand-alone resource--you need to first learn the material from either class or a textbook before trying to make sense of a few bullet points in first aid.

 

[JermanH]

Professors testing on minutiae or their research? How do you know they're not preparing you?

I spoke to a few upper classmates who tell me that the lectures didn't prepare them for step 1

 

[Goro]

I spoke to a few upper classmates who tell me that the lectures didn't prepare them for step 1

One of the key things here is to find out in what way they didn't help. hence my asking about minutiae, etc. Also, did they clarify whether it was the lecture content, or going to lecture that was unhelpful?