How to survive M3 and study for shelves/manage anki/uworld?

[coconutlover]

Any thoughts? Looked at my schools schedule, looks like I'm F***ed lmao. Appreciate any advice.

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[Hollow Knight]

I passed my surgery and IM shelves while barely studying. I wouldn’t recommend this approach, but I was in the hospital 60-80 hours a week and spent all my spare time trying to be fun and convince my wife not to divorce me. The point is if I passed, you’re gonna be fine.

But some advice- don’t stress over being the perfect little med student. Do what you need to do to study for your shelf exams.

Also, just start early and be consistent, especially on surgery. You’re really not going to want to do UWord after a 16 hour day, but 20 questions a day adds up. The flip side is also true, if you take a break for a couple weeks it’s really hard to catch up.

Also, it’s probably worth it to study IM on your easier rotations a little (like psychiatry for example). There are just way too many IM UWorld questions to do in 6-8 weeks. Especially if you’re on a busy service.

Also, pay attention on the hospital. Don’t Anki during rounds. Part of the reason my shelves went OK is I would think “Hey, I had a patient like this in the hospital and we did _____.”

 

[LucidSplash]

Any thoughts? Looked at my schools schedule, looks like I'm F***ed lmao. Appreciate any advice.

For perspective, everyone in your class is in the same boat. So whatever is happening in terms of schedule is the nature of 3rd year at your location. You are not individually ****ed anymore than anyone else in your class or previous classes have been ****ed.

Maybe query some people in the class above you for tips?

 

[mistafab]

I anki'd 3rd year and honored all my rotations and shelves. The main difficulty is just getting the reps in. When I reviewed my anki stats for the year, I averaged around 1 hr 40 minutes per day. The way I made it tolerable is I ONLY did anki cards for THAT rotation. I did NOT do repeats after finishing a rotation - as it would have added a bunch of extra time. I also in the last several weeks leading up to the shelf would make sure to complete all the Uworld for that rotation.

Also, I did not finish all my IM questions during the IM rotation. If I remember correclty, I did around half of it, then did the other half during my family medicine rotation. I ended on family medicine so ended up reviewing all my cards from all rotations during that block and finishing the rest of Uworld. WIth that set-up, I felt super prepared for step 2CK after only a 1 week dedicated block. Ended up doing great on Step 2 CK. Hope this helps.

In summary - M3 is just a HUGE time committment. If you accept it, and bear through it, it does work out. It is a very challenging year and a huge amount to learn. I think I averaged 60 hours a week the whole year typically, if you include clinical and study time.

 

[Redpancreas]

Any thoughts? Looked at my schools schedule, looks like I'm F***ed lmao. Appreciate any advice.

IIRC; you are pre-clinical. M3 will be the most stressful year. As you can see by above, there’s a wide range of experiences and yours will depend on too many factors out of your control. Wasting headspace thinking about it is unproductive and will breed neuroticism so I won’t even bother to type out my experience which was likely unique to me. Just do your best to develop a solid knowledge base, good habits, and take time to care for yourself. If you have any more specific questions, let us know.

Tl;dr. You’ll cross that bridge when you get there.

 

[JuicedToTheSocks]

Day at a time. Personally did anki for earlier rotations but starting finding it unhelpful because it's just rote memorization and not actually applying the information which is what actually makes shelves really difficult.

Also today's shelves are much harder than shelves 5+ yrs ago