Please help: how to study for internal med shelf?

[Shejeboshease]

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i'm spending over 12 hours on avg at the hospital during our internal med. rotation..so its very hard to study when u finally get back home. i have just about ten weeks till the shelf exam. so how do i study for it:
1. during my hospital shift, i try to read up on pts online from "up to date", pubmed papers, etc.
2. studying 'STep up to medicine" 20 pages a day...plan to finish the book 3 times before taking the shelf
3. case files: plan to finish twice
4. USMLE world bank: plan to do 10 questions a day
5. i know i should study First aid too but WHEN???? i don't have any time left
i still don't know if its gonna be doable...we just finished our first week and i wasn't able to study at all after long hospital shift. no idea, how other people do it.

everyone keeps telling me to read up on my patients..so if read from 'up to date' and other pubmed papers, would that help me with shelf exams? thanks

 

[lakersbaby]

i'm spending over 12 hours on avg at the hospital during our internal med. rotation..so its very hard to study when u finally get back home. i have just about ten weeks till the shelf exam. so how do i study for it:
1. during my hospital shift, i try to read up on pts online from "up to date", pubmed papers, etc.
2. studying 'STep up to medicine" 20 pages a day...plan to finish the book 3 times before taking the shelf
3. case files: plan to finish twice
4. USMLE world bank: plan to do 10 questions a day
5. i know i should study First aid too but WHEN???? i don't have any time left
i still don't know if its gonna be doable...we just finished our first week and i wasn't able to study at all after long hospital shift. no idea, how other people do it.

everyone keeps telling me to read up on my patients..so if read from 'up to date' and other pubmed papers, would that help me with shelf exams? thanks

I don't think with all that you must study first aid also. Step up to medicine is more than enough to do well on that shelf. I think questions are more important whether is be the world questions or MKSAP questions. I personally thought the MKSAP questions were better. You are doing more than enough to honor the shelf just keep at it.

 

[swtiepie711]

i'm spending over 12 hours on avg at the hospital during our internal med. rotation..so its very hard to study when u finally get back home. i have just about ten weeks till the shelf exam. so how do i study for it:
1. during my hospital shift, i try to read up on pts online from "up to date", pubmed papers, etc.
2. studying 'STep up to medicine" 20 pages a day...plan to finish the book 3 times before taking the shelf
3. case files: plan to finish twice
4. USMLE world bank: plan to do 10 questions a day
5. i know i should study First aid too but WHEN???? i don't have any time left
i still don't know if its gonna be doable...we just finished our first week and i wasn't able to study at all after long hospital shift. no idea, how other people do it.

everyone keeps telling me to read up on my patients..so if read from 'up to date' and other pubmed papers, would that help me with shelf exams? thanks

IMO you're goals are unrealistic and setting yourself up for unnecessary stress! For medicine, I used Step Up as my only "text" resource (besides using uptodate during days on wards etc). At our school, medicine is 2 mos of inpatient wards - I did MKSAP for the 1st month (don't think I finished) & then switched to USMLEWorld Medicine questions for the second month (which I most certainly didn't finish, not even sure I got to 50% of the medicine qs).
I was recently looking at my step up and realized I didn't even make it through that book 100% (there were occasional pages here or there that I skipped for some reason).
End result: I did plenty fine on the shelf.
If you even get to 1/2 of what you're setting out to do, you'll do great!

 

[IHeartNerds]

MKSAP 3 was very good. I also did case files, and the questions from the Kaplan Step 2 CK question book. Ended up with >95 on shelf.

You will know an amazing amount by the end, if you have any semi-interesting patients at all. Don't forget that all shelf exams have a ton of trauma on them (at least, imo), so review medical/surgical trauma management.