Lectures and the Boards

[Gospe1]

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M2 here. A few people in my class have decided to forgo lectures in order to start studying for the boards. They are planning to do this for the rest of our 4 month pathophysiology course. I often feel that I work at a very different pace than lectures. I'm curious as to people's experience in substituting lectures either completely or nearly so with their own schedules for M2. Good results for the boards at the end?

 

[dermpathdoc]

M2 here. A few people in my class have decided to forgo lectures in order to start studying for the boards. They are planning to do this for the rest of our 4 month pathophysiology course. I often feel that I work at a very different pace than lectures. I'm curious as to people's experience in substituting lectures either completely or nearly so with their own schedules for M2. Good results for the boards at the end?

poor results in the ends..you need those path lectures to help understand material....good path grades=good board scores

 

[JustSomePreMed]

Bump just to hear some other people's stories, although I imagine dermpathdoc is probably right.

 

[IM Substance P]

I ramped down my M2 studying in April to get a bit of a headstart on Step 1 studying. I took Step 1 in the first week of June.

I had already been skipping almost all lectures and lecture podcasts for most of my M2 year, but I essentially gave up on the Endocrinology path course to get moving on Step 1.

I barely passed the Endocrine course. I also took a hit on grades in my other semester-long courses on the final exams for those courses.

However, I think the plan succeeded. I had a pretty stellar Step 1 score, but the overall impact on my GPA was minimal.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

I ramped down my M2 studying in April to get a bit of a headstart on Step 1 studying. I took Step 1 in the first week of June.

I had already been skipping almost all lectures and lecture podcasts for most of my M2 year, but I essentially gave up on the Endocrinology path course to get moving on Step 1.

I barely passed the Endocrine course. I also took a hit on grades in my other semester-long courses on the final exams for those courses.

However, I think the plan succeeded. I had a pretty stellar Step 1 score, but the overall impact on my GPA was minimal.

Would you mind sharing what your overall studying plan looked like during that time you were still taking classes?

 

[plauto]

I am going through this dilemma myself. However, I did see that 90% of what is said at my lectures is on FA, so I just make sure to go thru FA at the end of each lecture and supplement FA with extra notes. I guess if I had crazy PhDs talking about their own research then it would be a lot harder.

 

[ZagDoc]

[insert cliche analogy about building a foundation before building the house]

Attempting to teach yourself core concepts from review books instead of focusing on learning them well the first time in the context of your classes is a dangerous tactic, IMHO.

 

[plauto]

[insert cliche analogy about building a foundation before building the house]

Attempting to teach yourself core concepts from review books instead of focusing on learning them well the first time in the context of your classes is a dangerous tactic, IMHO.

I agree with you. I guess the issue is that in some schools the material is poorly taught or not taught at all.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

[insert cliche analogy about building a foundation before building the house]

Attempting to teach yourself core concepts from review books instead of focusing on learning them well the first time in the context of your classes is a dangerous tactic, IMHO.

I agree, but I also feel like at some point (likely pretty late in the second semester) it becomes a cost/benefit analysis where the amount of board-relevant material you have already covered (since day one of first year) surpasses the amount you have ahead of you. And in that case, the issue of reviewing old things while trying to still learn the new stuff becomes a dilemma.

 

[vicinihil]

Depends what kind of learner you are. I think less than 25% of my class attends lecture regularly because everyone realizes that studying on your own and looking at the lecture ppt and notes is faster and more effective than listening to someone blab about a topic. We get great notes for every class session with a detailed schedule so we know exactly what happens, when. Goljan and FA should help you understand Path enough. If not, try seeking out a question source to supplement your understanding. Personally, I haven't gone to any non-required classes since end of first semester first year.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

Depends what kind of learner you are. I think less than 25% of my class attends lecture regularly because everyone realizes that studying on your own and looking at the lecture ppt and notes is faster and more effective than listening to someone blab about a topic. We get great notes for every class session with a detailed schedule so we know exactly what happens, when. Goljan and FA should help you understand Path enough. If not, try seeking out a question source to supplement your understanding. Personally, I haven't gone to any non-required classes since end of first semester first year.

Our school has very light lecture time (and they're all recorded), and I too have not been attending lectures since the middle of last year.

But I do still watch them on high speed and go through the notes (which are generally quite good), but again the focus is not always the same as what might appear in Goljan. For instance, some conditions may get a half-page dedicated to them in Goljan, yet comprise an entire hour-long lecture (which for us are usually jam packed with information since we only have two one-hour lectures per day.

So while not mutually exclusive in information, the school lectures vs. standardized board prep material often diverge in their focus. So for me, the issue is now becoming "do I continue to spend all my time digesting every bit of info in the lecture notes to keep getting honors? Or do I scale things back, settle for what would likely be a B or something, and hope that the time I divert towards structuring my learning in the context of Step I (and perhaps reviewing old material as well) pays dividends come June? It's difficult to know what those results would be.

 

[wAyRadikull]

I think its definitely possible to keep up with both. I would actually go as far as to say that you should. Read your notes/Robbins for a good understanding, and read RR/FA after.

Also, reading brand new material during board prep is the single most painful thing I've had to endure to date. I absolutely hate it. Its such a buzz kill and messes up the flow. So make sure you read through RR/FA just to note whether you've covered all your bases.

I think I've mentioned this somewhere else, but studying systems as in FA along with systems path is a great idea for MS2. Its very efficient. I personally alotted 2 days per week over a 3 week period (a block) to get through some of the bigger subjects like biochem, micro, neuro etc in addition to systemic pathology. I think it worked well, it made the aforementioned subjects a little easier to review during serious board prep time.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

I think I've mentioned this somewhere else, but studying systems as in FA along with systems path is a great idea for MS2. Its very efficient. I personally alotted 2 days per week over a 3 week period (a block) to get through some of the bigger subjects like biochem, micro, neuro etc in addition to systemic pathology. I think it worked well, it made the aforementioned subjects a little easier to review during serious board prep time.

Interesting. Could you possibly elaborate a little more on what you mean, exactly? So two days/week you've been spending doing what exactly with FA?
Thanks!

 

[vicinihil]

Interesting. Could you possibly elaborate a little more on what you mean, exactly? So two days/week you've been spending doing what exactly with FA?
Thanks!

Sleeping with, coddling, and the rest is up to your imagination. Whatever you have to do to FA to make it work for you.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

Sleeping with, coddling, and the rest is up to your imagination. Whatever you have to do to FA to make it work for you.

Yeah yeah har har. I'm serious. For lectures, I take a lot of handwritten notes (which slows me down) because I don't always feel like just reading something makes it stick.

When you guys "go through First Aid" are you taking notes down somewhere? Or just passively reading? Or what?

I realize these are probably stupid/simplistic questions, but I really don't have a good idea as to how to attack Step I studying from a logistics point of view, as my current method (handwriting everything) would certainly not work to hand write all of FA.

 

[wAyRadikull]

Interesting. Could you possibly elaborate a little more on what you mean, exactly? So two days/week you've been spending doing what exactly with FA?
Thanks!

What I meant by studying systems as in FA is going through the appropriate anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and pathology while you're actually covering the system in class. For example, if you're doing your cardiology block: Go over the anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and pathology. This way, you're knocking out 4 subjects right there in one go. Yes, its very time consuming, but well worth it in my opinion. The sources are very dependent on you. I personally used FA for anatomy, BRS for physiology, Kaplan/FA for pharmacology and RR/ Lecture notes for pathology.

In addition to that, I also tried to knock out biochemistry or microbiology a little bit every week. For us, each block is about 3 weeks of material. The first two weeks, I would take out about 2 days each week, making it a total of 4 days (over 2 weeks) to finish up a whole subject, this left me with a week in the end to study for my block exams. This way, I had ample time each week to study my school material and stay on top of systems.

If you have a little bit of time to review, and you are unable to utilize a proper review book, pick up your FA and read it. At least you will have some idea on what you need to work on come intense board prep time.

I hope that makes a little more sense.

 

[JustSomePreMed]

What I meant by studying systems as in FA is going through the appropriate anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and pathology while you're actually covering the system in class. For example, if you're doing your cardiology block: Go over the anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and pathology. This way, you're knocking out 4 subjects right there in one go. Yes, its very time consuming, but well worth it in my opinion. The sources are very dependent on you. I personally used FA for anatomy, BRS for physiology, Kaplan/FA for pharmacology and RR/ Lecture notes for pathology.

In addition to that, I also tried to knock out biochemistry or microbiology a little bit every week. For us, each block is about 3 weeks of material. The first two weeks, I would take out about 2 days each week, making it a total of 4 days (over 2 weeks) to finish up a whole subject, this left me with a week in the end to study for my block exams. This way, I had ample time each week to study my school material and stay on top of systems.

If you have a little bit of time to review, and you are unable to utilize a proper review book, pick up your FA and read it. At least you will have some idea on what you need to work on come intense board prep time.

I hope that makes a little more sense.

Man, yeah I don't know how some of you find the time for all that. I mean, I do really well in class so far (but sometimes I feel like I'm just memorizing rather than understanding, which worries me), but I honestly feel like it's all or nothing: either I know enough to get honors, or I don't know enough to pass. I'm sure I'm wrong about that, but it's how I feel, and what keeps me motivated to keep studying and studying and studying.

I really need to enable myself to break past that, mentally, if I want to get a jumpstart on boards studying (which I do, and I really don't want to end up one of those "honored M1/M2 but average on boards" stories).

 

[wAyRadikull]

Man, yeah I don't know how some of you find the time for all that. I mean, I do really well in class so far (but sometimes I feel like I'm just memorizing rather than understanding, which worries me), but I honestly feel like it's all or nothing: either I know enough to get honors, or I don't know enough to pass. I'm sure I'm wrong about that, but it's how I feel, and what keeps me motivated to keep studying and studying and studying.

I really need to enable myself to break past that, mentally, if I want to get a jumpstart on boards studying (which I do, and I really don't want to end up one of those "honored M1/M2 but average on boards" stories).

You'll be surprised how much easier the "review" becomes once you've learnt it well the first time. I remember absolutely dreading biochemistry while studying for the boards. I thought I would have to re-learn it although I did pretty well in class. All I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised.

MS2 is a loaded year and you need to be smart with your time. I think you should continue the way you're learning since you're getting honors with that method and there is no reason to change. If you have studied this hard during your whole time during basic sciences, reviewing shouldn't be too bad.