PSA for M1-2s: Step 1 studying

[Hollow Knight]

Hello all. Here's just a PSA since I know there's been some confusion about how to prepare for a P/F step (at least at my school). My goal here is not to make fun of anyone's study methods; I just want to help out the youngsters.

UFAPS is still king. If you want to be a dermatologist, you should probably do this/mature all of AnKing. It'll help you excel third year and crush step 2.

However, is all of UFAPS necessary to just pass? No, of course not.

My recommendation: watch and mature the AnKing cards for Pathoma, Sketchy Micro, and Sketchy Pharm. Then, do AnKing cards off your UWorld incorrects.

If you do the above, and went to an even remotely decent med school, you'll surely pass step 1.

Lastly, there is always a subset of med students who say the following: Anki doesn't work, you'll be a crappy doctor if you do third party, just trust your school's curriculum.

To those people I say: this is horrible advice. I was one of those people and almost failed step 1. My friends who completely ignored my school's curriculum skipped dedicated (passed step the first day and then went on vacation), and quite frankly, they have better medical knowledge than me.

Am I advocating for people to ignore their school's curriculum? No. However, I would encourage you to at least do Pathoma/Sketchy and UWorld if you want to pass step. Ignore it at your peril......

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[Howdie]

When did your friends start studying for Step 1? Also, just out of curiosity, is your school a 1.5 or 2 year didactic program?

I’m an incoming MS1 so this is greatly appreciated!

 

[Hippocratesintraining]

Goin push back. If flashcards aren't your thing, don't waste time on something that doesn't work. Using the resources above? abosolutely. But practice questions are just as if not more effective. Scholar rx is a good burner qbank since you don't wanna waste uworld and save it. Amboss will make you question every choice you've ever made in your life since those questions are beyond difficult but again, you're reinforcing. Anki is a path for success but isn't THE ONLY path to success.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Goin push back. If flashcards aren't your thing, don't waste time on something that doesn't work. Using the resources above? abosolutely. But practice questions are just as if not more effective. Scholar rx is a good burner qbank since you don't wanna waste uworld and save it. Amboss will make you question every choice you've ever made in your life since those questions are beyond difficult but again, you're reinforcing. Anki is a path for success but isn't THE ONLY path to success.

I agree with this completely. I just know a ton of people who basically didn't study, and received advice from uppers not to study (they did like 50% of UWorld and nothing else)

Some people are smart enough to just take their med school classes and go take step, but many people aren't.

Also, for some reason a TON of the upperclassmen at my school actively discouraged anki/said using it would make you an inferior physician. Look, if you don't like it/it doesn't work for you, that's fine, but pretending that spaced repetition doesn't help a lot of people is crazy (by "you" I mean my uppers, not Hippocratesintraining

 

[Hollow Knight]

When did your friends start studying for Step 1? Also, just out of curiosity, is your school a 1.5 or 2 year didactic program?

I’m an incoming MS1 so this is greatly appreciated!

So if you do the pure step prep route, my friends sort of studied for the entirety of our preclinical. They did BandB, Pathoma, Sketchy, etc in place of our professors' stuff.

I'm not saying you should do that (unless you get better grades doing that, then hey, be my guest).

I personally did pathoma when we had path and sketchy when we had micro/pharm. Otherwise, I looked at my professors' slides/read Costanzo and found corresponding Anki cards.

I basically just did dedicated for step. I went in pretty unprepared, but my wife and I were having problems, so I was questioning my career choice at that point anyway. I passed, but I got super lucky, don't be like me

 

[annasofttofu]

Is doing 3rd party and de-emphasizing in-house material better regardless of what school you go to? Is in-house material good at any school, and if not, what are professors even doing?

I’m wondering cause I’m also getting this advice at my school, and I’m fully on the 3rd party train but I’m wondering what the picture is like at other schools.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Is doing 3rd party and de-emphasizing in-house material better regardless of what school you go to? Is in-house material good at any school, and if not, what are professors even doing?

I’m wondering cause I’m also getting this advice at my school, and I’m fully on the 3rd party train but I’m wondering what the picture is like at other schools.

Edit: to answer your question, if you want to maximize your step 2 score, absolutely yes. Philisophical discussion below

Obviously, in a perfect world, we'd all just study for our in house exams, pass them, and then pass step 1. I think this was the motivation to make it P/F.

For whatever reason, that doesn't work for most people I know.

I think if I had an AnKing-style deck for my med school, that probably would work. In other words, it's not that the med school's curriculum is bad, it's that it's hard to remember everything you've ever studied without spaced repetition.

Or to put it another way, so many med students use Anki now that the bell curve has been pushed to the right, and it's harder to pass just off remembering stuff from your classes.

Also I doubt that step 1 questions were this esoteric 15 years ago. The amount of random letter/number combinations in First Aid now is insane

 

[doctadank]

You mentioned that studying for STEP during preclinical helped your friends take it super early into dedicated and they have insane amounts of clinical knowledge during rounds. I'm a conceptual learner and a lot of the tags in anking don't really fit the bnb videos so I've started only unsuspending high yield cards specifically mentioned in the videos (high yield is a tag in anking) to make it more manageable for me.

TLDR I'm probably not going to unsuspend all of the cards, even within what is covered by bnb, would that hold you back from attaining that esoteric knowledge for pimp questions? Is it maturing the preclin cards that makes the difference or is it doing all the low yield info?

I intend to do sketchy/pathoma (and their cards) over the M1/2 summer and start uworld but until then do sketchy where it goes along with our school's curriculum but I want to set myself up for a short dedicated and a strong medical foundation.
Also wondering what the best way to get that conceptual understanding of medicine since I've felt a lot of it has been rote memorization. You've mentioned Costanzo but I'm not sure what the best way to use it is.

Happy to talk in DMs if you prefer that because I realize these questions are specific. Thanks in advance for the help and the writeup!