USMLE/COMLEX RAFFLE ITEM: The "Basic Science" Years

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TheMastermind

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RAFFLE ITEM: I'm giving one "Basic Science Years" account away for free - for an entire year!


So, what is the Medical Mastermind Community and how can it help?

A "Mastermind" group is defined as two or more people, working in perfect harmony toward a definite objective. Therefore, the Medical Mastermind Community is a group of people (students in college and medical school, doctors, test prep companies, and government entities) interested in the success of medical students.

That's who we are, and here's what we can do for you:

  1. Gold Standard USMLE and USMLE Help audio books
  2. Define specific goals for your medical school and USMLE/COMLEX scores
  3. Give you 300 real practice tests with 10,000 questions
  4. Teach you how to study
  5. Speed up your reading
  6. Decrease your anxiety
  7. Give you 1,275 pages of medical student course summaries
  8. Allow more time for social interests
  9. Help you overcome self doubt (arguably the biggest benefit for your entire life)

The first semester is the most difficult transition for most students during all of medical school.

The reason for this isn't because other aspects of medical school aren't difficult, but because the imminent threat of failure is always looming.
Approximately 85% of all students traverse the Basic Science Years without any long-term, negative consequences on their transcript. For the others, 5% fail out on average and 10% struggle at the far left of the bell curve.

Nationally standardized exams and a course director's prerogative dictate that the bottom 10-15% of all students will fail any particular exam (at least). The grades are on a curve, but sometimes in an unfavorable direction! That is, if you score a raw 100% on a shelf exam but the average raw score is 52% with a standard deviation of 10 points, then your corrected score would actually come down. [This wouldn't matter to you because your course director would give you an A anyway, which happened to one of Doctor Dan's friends multiple times.]

Why are the tests so hard?

The top 1% of students in the nation are in your medical school and if the tests weren't exceedingly difficult, there wouldn't be an evenly distributed bell curve. To remedy this, medical schools make the tests so hard that the class average is rarely above a raw 70%.

After statistical "corrections", many shelf exams grades come back slightly higher (maybe 12 points) than the students' raw scores. One obvious benefit of this is public confidence in their doctors. The general public would never understand everything written on this page and if they saw raw scores of 60% averages, they would think their doctors are incompetent.

This fact speaks to the nature of what you're really trying to do in medical school. Your overall goal is to become a physician and many students like the Pass = Medical Doctorate (or, P = D.O.) approach for coping. Many students feel that if they get straight A's in medical school, that they're probably not spending enough time with their family and friends.​
Assuming we all do our best, the students that tend to stress over grades the most are those trying to enter into competitive specialties and need outstanding grades.

God bless them.

For the rest of us, what are we really trying to accomplish?

We would argue that staying above the bottom 15% in your class is a minimal goal to achieve comfort and significantly less stress during medical school. The good news is that this is relatively easy to accomplish. All you have to do is try study techniques and resources that those 15% aren't using – and then you're Golden!

"Your membership to the Medical Mastermind Community is a monthly investment in your future."

By surrounding yourself with people who already possess the qualities you want, you will slowly acquire a different way of thinking, studying, and organizing your plans to accomplish the goals you want in your own life.
Perhaps a parent or mentor has told you to "choose your friends wisely." Well, if you want to become a physician, you can't find better friends than this! But don't take our word for it, read our Medical Mastermind Community testimonials to see for yourself the difference we are making in people's lives – it's much more than a test score!

When you join the Medical Mastermind Community, you will gain immediate online access to our entire curriculum. It can seem overwhelming, so we enroll you in a monthly email series to gently walk you through the steps and help keep you on track.

The very first thing you need to do is listen to Napoleon Hill's Science of Personal Achievement audio course, which is included with your membership. If you get nothing else out of your training with us, your life will be immensely blessed by the teachings and philosophy of the world's first success teacher, commissioned by Andrew Carnegie himself!

The second thing you need to do is join us on a New Member Webinar. Whether you call in or login to view the slideshows, this teleconference will give you specific direction for your particular situation so that you can start getting results in your own life and join the long list of people that tell their friends all about us!

The third thing you need to do is visit the "My Blog" forum and start a New Thread titled by your first and last name. This is a members-only forum and you can not view others' forum posts there until you pay for an active membership. This private, personal blog is for you to post your action plan and document your progress. Some choose to get feedback on their personal essays there, as other members of the Community love to help each other out.

If you're ready to grow professionally and personally by accepting our offer for help, then sign up now!

Members don't see this ad.
 
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How are these podcast different from our med school lectures? Are they more clinically oriented or USMLE oriented?

Very good question, thanks.

The podcasts cover all kinds of topics related to the Medical Education Journey, such as:


The Medical School Lectures are targeted USMLE Audiobooks, produced by Apollo Audiobooks (also present here in the Exhibitor Forums this week).

In fact, Dr. Justin Anderson from Apollo Audiobooks talked me into participating in Test Prep Week this year, and I'm glad he did.

You can get free samples of the USMLE Audiobooks to make sure you like them. Personally, I discovered this format independently as an undergrad and was thrilled to find a Mastermind partner like this:

 
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Members don't see this ad :)
As a second year medical student, would it be worth it to revise my study strategies using Mastermind for USMLE studying or is it too late?
 
As a second year medical student, would it be worth it to revise my study strategies using Mastermind for USMLE studying or is it too late?

The Spring of the second year of Medical School is the "new crunch time", the second hardest time you've faced (since the very first semester of medical school).

As USMLE Step 1 approaches, the hours get longer and the pace gets more grueling.

Now, there are a lot of good reasons for going through the Medical Mastermind Study Techniques, Speed Reading, and Test-Taking Skills videos and workbooks, but in your particular case it would be nice to simply have options to study the material in different ways and make it less stressful.

Keeping your stress level down during memorization, and increasing it immediately afterwords, then having low stress during an exam have been shown to increase retention.

A meta-analysis is discussed as a part of the Medical School Study Techniques course...

I sense you may have a common, underlying fear that if you drastically change your study habits you'll be abandoning your proven techniques that have gotten you this far.

I would never tell a student to do that.

Instead, my Study Techniques training will give you practical ideas (and isn't what it's all about anyway?) that you can apply IMMEDIATELY.

I'm clear to mention that you are free to watch the Speed Reading videos too with your membership, but 1st year Medical Students and those in the grind for USMLE Step 1 shouldn't spend any real time playing around with photoreading for medical school. That would be about the only mistake you could make, though it is fascinating to learn about.

Speed Reading is only 2 modules out of 9 (at the time of this post), so the vast majority of the meat would be very easy for you to compliment your Step 1 effort.

Godspeed on your next exam,
 
Do you have any statistics confirming the benefits of your program?
 
Do you have any statistics confirming the benefits of your program?


Sure do. Thanks for asking.

Below are some data taken when using a free, Survey Monkey survey when I helped teach the American Medical Student Association how to conduct remote Mastermind groups.

We're presenting a poster at the AMSA National Conference this week.

So, here's my case for saying that the Medical Mastermind Community benefits not only the academics, but the social life of medical students and premeds:

Percentage Of Charter Members Attaining Their Goals

100%

Percentage Of Dissatisfied Mastermind Members

0%


Demographics

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History Of Using Other Coping Resources

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Desirability Of Recorded Mastermind Training

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Sample Size

4,072 free Speed Reading course participants.

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As a second year medical student, would it be worth it to revise my study strategies using Mastermind for USMLE studying or is it too late?

On the flip-side of this, would it be worth getting an account if you're starting MS-1 in August? Or would it be better to wait until you're already in and seeing how you're doing?
 
On the flip-side of this, would it be worth getting an account if you're starting MS-1 in August? Or would it be better to wait until you're already in and seeing how you're doing?

Yes, it's much better to give yourself at least 2-3 months of practicing Speed Reading without the stress of Medical School.

There will likely be feature of the Speed Reading program that you like, but it will take time to figure out what they are and how to use them.

Everyone studies differently.

Probably the best way to know how long you should give yourself to absorb the Mastermind Study Method, if you're aiming at bare minimum (which is a terrible idea for a doctor), is to ask yourself a question:

How long does it take you to read 6 books?

That's about how many books it will take for you to experiment with Speed Reading and work your way through trying each of the Study Techniques that I teach.

If you really put effort into ahead of time, and borderline premed students really ought to, then you will hold your head high after the first round of tests.
 
I am entering medical school this fall, and this program looks really interesting. When should I begin using this program if I decide to purchase it?
 
I am entering medical school this fall, and this program looks really interesting. When should I begin using this program if I decide to purchase it?

If I were in your shoes and someone laid out the entire Medical Education Journey before my feet, I would sign up immediately.

Oh wait. I was in your shoes!

When I got my acceptance letter to medical school and was waiting in what I call the Post-MCAT Year(s), I didn't really know what I should be doing with my time.

Probably the best advice I heard (at that time, now times have changed) was to have fun while I could. Now students are gobbling up the Medical Mastermind material and looking pitifully at their medical school classmates when they hang their head so low after exams and are ashamed to talk about grades.

My medical school student body was doing a fund-raiser and selling CDs of real medical school exams for $60. I couldn't write the check fast enough.

Well, the quality, honesty, and depth of the Medical Mastermind Training is so far advanced over what was available to me that I won't attempt to quantify it. Personally, I think its ridiculous to not avail yourself of every resource you can afford in order to accomplish your goal.

The Medical Mastermind Community is the price of your cheapest book in medical school - you do the math!

There's only so much you should do before starting medical school and everyone's case is different.

As much real exposure as you can possibly get BEFOREHAND to the intensity and attitude you'll need for success, by real medical students, the better.

Trust me on this, the kind of medical student you want to rub off on you doesn't spend a lot of time in forums.

So, when we get them to lead a Medical Mastermind Webinar, we record it - that way you can watch them at your leisure (poor word choice for medical students, though we all need a break sometimes).

In short, I would eat this stuff up before your plate is full. Then, you may come to find that being a part of Community, in an often isolating education journey, may be just the thing that keeps you grounded and centered for the long haul.

God bless,
 
Could you describe more about the community aspect of the Medical Mastermind Community? How many members actually utilize the community opportunities available?
 
Could you describe more about the community aspect of the Medical Mastermind Community? How many members actually utilize the community opportunities available?

Sure, Meissner Effect (great name, by the way).

Here's how it works:

1. Students login to weekly or monthly Live Webinar series using a teleconferencing software called GoToMeeting.

2. The presentations range from medical to MCAT and from interviewing physicians and authors to live patient interviews. These presentations last 15-30 minutes and are recorded.

3. Then, the recording equipment is turned off and an open discussion ensues in a comfortable, save environment. [Note: the American Medical Student Association really liked this aspect of the program and adopted it for their own Mastermind program when I taught them how I did it.]

The result is years' worth of well-researched, formal and informal presentations and interviews on practically every topic on medical education - from PreMed to funding your practice and all points in between.

The true "Community" is bonded by a shared sense of relief we have all felt to travel among peers, among colleagues, among friends.
 
I think this is a great way to get this product some more popularity- you should visit med schools and promote this!
 
I think this is a great way to get this product some more popularity- you should visit med schools and promote this!

Thank you so much for the encouragement. Comments like that have kept me going over the years...

We have a big accolade that I think will help us get our message into medical schools:

I coauthored the AMSA Mastermind Program: A Confidential, Long-Term Approach To Student Wellness and it just won 3rd place at the 2011 American Medical Student Association National Conference.
 
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