1st year DSP student here
All we get for each class is a Module- list of objectives to guide our study and textbooks. Depending on the professors for each class, you will also get supplemental materials that will be posted on the portal to supplement your study- these can be anything from Podcasts, case studies, mini study-guides, diagrams or even ppt lectures they use to teach the LDP kids. 90% of your study will be done by reading the book. If you are not big on reading medical textbooks then DSP might not work for you. You will need to read the textbooks and supplemental materials to answer the questions in the Module and make your own study materials. It sounds hard but it really isn't. There are board review books for you to use, youtube videos etc. The same way you will be studying for the boards essentially. Nobody is going to give you power points to study from for the COMLEX or USMLE
For my DSP/PCSP class, people form groups to work on the module and study together, the people in these groups divide up the objectives among themselves and typically finish the entire module within 2, 3 days. That way, the bigger the groups, the fewer objectives you will be responsible for and have to read from the book. After the module is done, they just study from the module and do practice questions to prep for the exam.
I do not know much about PBL. But case studies are not all that's cracked up to be. Is it the up and coming thing in medical education? There are plenty of clinical cases in the book that you can read about if you want clinical scenarios.
DSP and LDP students do not take exams together. LDP students take multiple classes at the same time. DSP students work on 1 subject at a time. The 2 schedules do not coincide besides the OPP and doctoring classes. We cover pretty much the same stuff.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
I mentioned this before and I am going to mention it again: it is super easy to switch from DSP to LDP but not the other way around. People from LDP wanting to switch into DSP have to be interviewed by the pathway director and there must be spots available. Some people cope well with sitting in lectures for 4-6 hours a day, others don't. Find what works for you and stick with that.
It's just so agonizing walking to the mailbox every day thinking that it could be the day cause people post on here that they received mail (who had their portal change on the same day as me) only to see no mail...I'm sure some people on here can relate, lol!
