MCW Class of 2010, Part 3

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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indo said:
So this is what wisconsin's devistatingly cold winters are like?
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This is more like what our balmy springs are like. I'm glad I didn't get around to putting the snow tires on the bike yet.
 
Andy15430 said:
So how does one go about developing a schedule? I've seen a few from other posters on the USMLE forum, and they are extensive! Most people plan out their whole day of studying for every day until the test, down to the minute! How did you do it?
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I guess that depends on the person, and what you want from this exam. I personally feel you get out what you put in. My schedule was pretty intensive, and maybe a little bit insane, so take it with a large grain of salt.
I started out by looking here on SDN a lot. Search for things like USMLE study schedule, etc. I found one I liked, and then modified it to fit my needs.
I generally gave two to three days to a subject, give or take. I also allowed for catch-up days and a couple of qbank only/easy days. These were generally weekend days, when I was less insane than during the week.
A typical day went something like this: study 7am to noon, break for lunch, study 1pm to ~6:30-7. Dinner with wife, then qbank until I didn't feel like doing it anymore (tried to do 100-150 random questions/night, and always read every answer.)

I could go on and on about this, so PM me if you want to hear more. Bottom line, read advice from a lot of people, and then work out what best fits for you.
 
donnyfire said:
I guess that depends on the person, and what you want from this exam. I personally feel you get out what you put in. My schedule was pretty intensive, and maybe a little bit insane, so take it with a large grain of salt.
I started out by looking here on SDN a lot. Search for things like USMLE study schedule, etc. I found one I liked, and then modified it to fit my needs.
I generally gave two to three days to a subject, give or take. I also allowed for catch-up days and a couple of qbank only/easy days. These were generally weekend days, when I was less insane than during the week.
A typical day went something like this: study 7am to noon, break for lunch, study 1pm to ~6:30-7. Dinner with wife, then qbank until I didn't feel like doing it anymore (tried to do 100-150 random questions/night, and always read every answer.)

I could go on and on about this, so PM me if you want to hear more. Bottom line, read advice from a lot of people, and then work out what best fits for you.
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By "qbank" you mean "xbox," right? please say yes. please.

and by "read every answer" you meant "drank heavily along with large doses of sleep aids" i'm guessing.
 
Agent Splat said:
By "qbank" you mean "xbox," right? please say yes. please.

and by "read every answer" you meant "drank heavily along with large doses of sleep aids" i'm guessing.
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exactly. please keep in mind that I'm not kidding when I said my schedule was insane. Most people probably don't need to go this nuts.
 
donnyfire said:
exactly. please keep in mind that I'm not kidding when I said my schedule was insane. Most people probably don't need to go this nuts.
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yeah, but your results are worth striving for 😳


I went to phys, skipped MIM, played an hour of Call of Duty 2 when I got home, took a six hour nap, made a frozen pizza, and watched the Beauty & the Geek premiere. Some guy wore his Star Trek uniform to the elimination room :laugh:
 
MCW was just on the news...again. Fox 6 this time. Apparently there's some new billboard somewhere with a picture of a dog saying Don't let man's best friend go under the knife. They interviewed Matt/Mike? Tomli... something or other. And a another guy that I didn't catch the name of.

I'm so sick of this.


As for the winters, I don't recall a good, cold, snowy winter since ~2000. That year I was at the U of MN, and it took me 2.5 hours to drive to school one day.
 
We should just do the phys lab with pigs. Nobody would care, and we could eat bacon afterwards. The protesters were conspicuously absent after we killed some rats at my biology lab at UWM in '04.
 
TheProwler said:
We should just do the phys lab with pigs. Nobody would care, and we could eat bacon afterwards. The protesters were conspicuously absent after we killed some rats at my biology lab at UWM in '04.
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i saw the news guy by the van outside when I left school...they weren't filming at that moment, otherwise I guarantee MCW would have had great representation from one of their finest students, in his white coat and everything, singing and dancing in the background.

i heard a rumor they ARE switching to pigs in the next year or two.
 
Agent Splat said:
i saw the news guy by the van outside when I left school...they weren't filming at that moment, otherwise I guarantee MCW would have had great representation from one of their finest students, in his white coat and everything, singing and dancing in the background.
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With a white sock puppet, hopefully?
 
grrrr, I went to bed at 1:30, and I feel asleep at 3:30am. I decided NOT to stay up and finish my MIM assignment that I'd forgotten about since I skipped the lecture, but then I proceeded to lay in bed awake for two hours anyways. Now I'll be skipping neuro to do it. blah.
 
TheProwler said:
grrrr, I went to bed at 1:30, and I feel asleep at 3:30am. I decided NOT to stay up and finish my MIM assignment that I'd forgotten about since I skipped the lecture, but then I proceeded to lay in bed awake for two hours anyways. Now I'll be skipping neuro to do it. blah.
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Who are the neuro and mim course directors? The MIM dude left last year. He was my small group leader and an excellent easy grader.
 
Neitz for neuro (same guy as for you), and Dr. Papin for MIM (she's in her early thirties at most)
 
Did anyone watch In Living Color back when it was on? Well, it is still on BET... There was a skit that Jim Carrey would do where there was a news reporter interviewing some person and Jim Carrey would accidentally walk by in the background. Then start making his crazy faces, then all of the sudden he is pulling a giant boat with a roap and so on and so forth. Anyone remember that skit? The girl on That 70's show is hot.
 
TheProwler said:
Neitz for neuro (same guy as for you), and Dr. Papin for MIM (she's in her early thirties at most)
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Dr. Meurer is the course director for MIM. After lecture yesterday she announced that you didn't have to actually WRITE all the PICO questions out, just read over them.
 
indo said:
Ashers, hope I'm not disturbing you, but, uh, I saw you from across the party, and, uh, I don't usually do this, but I felt compelled to tell you something. You have an absolutely breathtaking heinie. I mean, that thing is good. I want to be friends with it.
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For the record, this is a quote from Anchorman, I wasn't really hitting on Asher's buttockses.







Donnyfire, how long did you keep that study schedule up? That is pretty impressive.
 
samenewme said:
Dr. Meurer is the course director for MIM. After lecture yesterday she announced that you didn't have to actually WRITE all the PICO questions out, just read over them.
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uh, what she said 😛 don't listen to the guy who doesn't go to class.
 
Don is nuts... but his results are worth it.

Me? I studied a bit in the AMs, and did 100 % of Qbank... there was this site (http://www.medfriends.org/step1_estimator/index.htm) where you could enter in your Qbank percentage and it would tell you your boards score... I think it was reasonably accurate, within five points or so for me.
 
Don is nuts... but his results are worth it.

Me? I studied a bit in the AMs, and did 100 % of Qbank... there was this site (http://www.medfriends.org/step1_estimator/index.htm) where you could enter in your Qbank percentage and it would tell you your boards score... I think it was reasonably accurate, within five points or so for me.

Oh yeah, and Dr. Meurer is awesome. I love her bunches.. and you guys just reminded me that I need to email her. So nice work.
 
That site was within 3 points for me. Surprisingly accurate. 👍
 
Hey Don... guess who's doing a research month (that can be entirely completed from home) next December? Oh yeah, that's me. November, January and April off, if I get my way. Bwah hah hah.
 
Xandie said:
Hey Don... guess who's doing a research month (that can be entirely completed from home) next December? Oh yeah, that's me. November, January and April off, if I get my way. Bwah hah hah.
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Nice.

And nice evil laugh, too.

I have no idea what I'm doing next year. None.
 
donnyfire said:
That site was within 3 points for me. Surprisingly accurate. 👍
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I HOPE it's accurate...damn! Who knew my shoddy qbank percentage (of course, I've only done about 10 questions so far) would correlate with such a perfectly satisfactory predicted score! I'm just gonna stop studying for boards. I'm already beyond my target score.

I think I'll just stop studying for all my classes...probably don't need too...I'm predicted to get a decent score!
 
TheProwler said:
bump bump, bump bump it up! see y'all at the blag bag ball tonight
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Not me. I asked out all 103 female med students and apparently they're all busy tonight.
 
indo said:
Not me. I asked out all 103 female med students and apparently they're all busy tonight.
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a few girls in our class weren't there. samenewme, akpete and I had to hold down the party since the rest of the SDN crew was washing their hair.
 
I was at Children's Hospital... not that I've ever been to Black Bag Ball, but I probably would have enjoyed it more than I did my evening.
 
Xandie said:
I was at Children's Hospital... not that I've ever been to Black Bag Ball, but I probably would have enjoyed it more than I did my evening.
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I was busy transporting dying men and burn victims to the hospital.

But I would have enjoyed washing my hair as well.
 
Hi all
How is everyone enjoying the new year. This is mostly to M2. For Phys, does most of the test questions come from the Lecture notes or should i concentrate more on Guyton. What's the best way to study for neuro? Books, Note??
 
fromeverywhere said:
Hi all
How is everyone enjoying the new year. This is mostly to M2. For Phys, does most of the test questions come from the Lecture notes or should i concentrate more on Guyton. What's the best way to study for neuro? Books, Note??
Click to expand...

For physiology, most of the lecturers draw their questions directly from their notes. Dr. Cowley, if he is teaching this year, will take some random statements from the book and expect you to know a the minutiae of it for the test, so definitely read his sections once or twice. Another professor later in the year (the GI physiology guy, I think) had some material on the test that he didn't cover in class very much, too.

I probably should refrain from giving advice about Neuro based on my grade. Once I just committed to rotely memorizing everything in the notes, my grades started getting better, though. Don't waste your time with the book...Neitz tries to scare you into reading it by putting 2 questions on every test straight from the book, but he usually writes the answer into the question if you read it carefully. I don't think I got a single "book question" wrong last year, and I never cracked the text.
 
I think I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist. I pretty much have the textbook pain (but no tingling/numbness) in my thenar eminence and wrist, with radiation up my forearm. The pain is worst when I write, and it also was really painful when I tried to grip a bottle of wine this weekend (seems like any heavy object that requires a wide grip causes pain -- I'll refrain from any masturbation jokes).

I think this is stemming from around finals last semester when I was furiously writing notes for pathology. Any one else have problems with their hands from school? Marc, I think I've seen you wearing wrist braces...do they help?
 
Wrist pain sucks. You don't realize how much you use your arms, wrists, and hands until you have some good pain to make you aware of every movement. After a good session of rock climbing the flexors are so tired that I can't hardly shift my car.

I don't have carpel tunnel symptoms but I do have ganglionic cysts in both wrists. After a lot of typing they can become extremely hard. A doctor x-ray'd them because they felt like bone. Anyway, I feel your (wrist) pain because when it is bad I can't even pour out milk without dropping the damn carton.
 
indo said:
Anyway, I feel your (wrist) pain because when it is bad I can't even pour out milk without dropping the damn carton.
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I'm glad to hear that happens to you. I felt like a total wuss making my wife get the milk out of the case at the grocery store yesterday.
 
Andy15430 said:
For physiology, most of the lecturers draw their questions directly from their notes. Dr. Cowley, if he is teaching this year, will take some random statements from the book and expect you to know a the minutiae of it for the test, so definitely read his sections once or twice. Another professor later in the year (the GI physiology guy, I think) had some material on the test that he didn't cover in class very much, too.

I probably should refrain from giving advice about Neuro based on my grade. Once I just committed to rotely memorizing everything in the notes, my grades started getting better, though. Don't waste your time with the book...Neitz tries to scare you into reading it by putting 2 questions on every test straight from the book, but he usually writes the answer into the question if you read it carefully. I don't think I got a single "book question" wrong last year, and I never cracked the text.
Click to expand...

I believe that they are only recommending Kandel for neuro this year. I think they got enough backlash about the worthlessness of the Nadeau book. Kandel is good for a reference and more understanding (from what I've heard - I don't have it), but is by no means necessary.

For phys, I always read Guyton first, then went through the powerpoints with the coops. Worked well for me. But yeah, the tests are mainly from the notes. Andy, I agree with you about the GI questions. I didn't read as much of the book for that one (time), and ended up getting some of those smaller details wrong.
 
Andy15430 said:
I think I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist. I pretty much have the textbook pain (but no tingling/numbness) in my thenar eminence and wrist, with radiation up my forearm. The pain is worst when I write, and it also was really painful when I tried to grip a bottle of wine this weekend (seems like any heavy object that requires a wide grip causes pain -- I'll refrain from any masturbation jokes).

I think this is stemming from around finals last semester when I was furiously writing notes for pathology. Any one else have problems with their hands from school? Marc, I think I've seen you wearing wrist braces...do they help?
Click to expand...

It's probably tendonitis. There are 3 causes of carpal tunnel in people under 40:
1) Rheumatoid Arthritis
2) Diabetes
3) Hypothyroidism.

I had tendonitis in my wrists from typing a lot in high school. I also had tendonitis in my thumb from drawing blood using only butterfly needles when I worked as a vampire. A splint should help it.
 
We got a talk from Cowley today about the dog lab. He was pretty convincing. I always wondered why they didn't use pigs, but he made it pretty clear what the disadvantages are (massive necks and chubby legs are hard to get arterial access, and they need aerosolized anesthesia, and they are more prone to fibrillation). Also, I didn't know that our Dept. of Physiology was (according to him) the best in the nation. He also "resents the hell" out of being called old-fashioned for not using computer models, since he worked with Guyton for over a decade on designing computer-based cardiovascular modeling systems, and he still doesn't prefer them.

I still don't understand why it's such a lightning rod issue. The county euthanizes up to a thousand dogs a year just for being unwanted. The dogs we get would have been euthanized already - we just happen to be making good use of them before they go.
 
Did anything important happen in Neuro lab today? By important, I mean something that I can't learn on my own.

Apparently I've developed the inability to both go to sleep at a normal hour and get out of bed before noon.
 
indo said:
Did anything important happen in Neuro lab today? By important, I mean something that I can't learn on my own.

Apparently I've developed the inability to both go to sleep at a normal hour and get out of bed before noon.
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:sigh:

you and me both, except I went to bed at 11:45pm, fell asleep around 3am, and had to wake up at 5:50am so that I'd have a ride to school, only to find out that no, you didn't miss anything. You'll need to be in the computer lab to use the virtual microscope (the link is in the CTB ANGEL section), but you don't *need* any instructors, although they are helpful. They might still be there actually, until 5pm.

Over Christmas, I was pretty much nocturnal. I slept until 2-3pm and went to bed around 4am.
 
TheProwler said:
:sigh:

you and me both, except I went to bed at 11:45pm, fell asleep around 3am, and had to wake up at 5:50am so that I'd have a ride to school, only to find out that no, you didn't miss anything. You'll need to be in the computer lab to use the virtual microscope (the link is in the CTB ANGEL section), but you don't *need* any instructors, although they are helpful. They might still be there actually, until 5pm.

Over Christmas, I was pretty much nocturnal. I slept until 2-3pm and went to bed around 4am.
Click to expand...

Have you tried taking melatonin to make you sleep? If you take it about an hour before you want to go to bed you'll slowly get tired and fall asleep. It gives me really vivid dreams though.
 
double post. sorry.


I think physiology is going to be my favorite class of the year.
 
Andy15430 said:
I'm glad to hear that happens to you. I felt like a total wuss making my wife get the milk out of the case at the grocery store yesterday.
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Pansy. 🙂
 
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