Resources for rotations, shelf exams and STEP 2

[Surgeon D.O.]

Trying to be proactive and not wallow in sadness about my STEP 1 so I figured I'd reach out about some of the best resources for rotations, shelf exams and STEP 2.

I really need videos that walk you through everything or my ADHD starts to kick in (straight reading has always been a struggle).

I enjoyed OnlineMedEd for some of the clinical aspects of the first 2 years, anyone find it helpful for years 3 & 4? I know Boards and Beyond has STEP 2 vids now as well.

Since I'm pursuing surgery, any good sites, podcasts or resources for surgery and internal med in particular?

Thanks SDN.

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[calivianya]

I was really too ADHD to swear by online med ed but I know some classmates loved it. It’s a pretty good big picture kind of thing but I didn’t think it was that detailed. Divine Intervention’s podcasts really are good for just about anything. The Curbsiders is an IM specific podcast that’s also great.

I ended up not using much of anything at all besides questions… you don’t get organized knowledge that way, but you do get piece by piece knowledge that eventually you can put together in your brain once you’ve seen enough questions. It gets a little frustrating to learn that way because I felt like I was sometimes missing the big picture just doing questions, but it didn’t hurt me for COMATs (all >111 except family med, which was a 109).

I thought the comquest questions represented the COMAT material better, but that UWorld has better questions overall. I didn’t end up finishing UWorld but I did finish comquest for each specialty. In hindsight, if I could redo things, I’d spend the first two weeks of each rotation on UWorld and learn off of those, then finish all the comquest questions for the specialty in the last two weeks leading up to the COMAT so I could have gotten more of UWorld done before dedicated while still using comquest to prep for the COMATs.

I sort of did that for surgery (a good bit of UWorld surgery questions and finished comquest surgery questions) and it was my best COMAT at 125.

 

[Surgeon D.O.]

I was really too ADHD to swear by online med ed but I know some classmates loved it. It’s a pretty good big picture kind of thing but I didn’t think it was that detailed. Divine Intervention’s podcasts really are good for just about anything. The Curbsiders is an IM specific podcast that’s also great.

I ended up not using much of anything at all besides questions… you don’t get organized knowledge that way, but you do get piece by piece knowledge that eventually you can put together in your brain once you’ve seen enough questions. It gets a little frustrating to learn that way because I felt like I was sometimes missing the big picture just doing questions, but it didn’t hurt me for COMATs (all >111 except family med, which was a 109).

I thought the comquest questions represented the COMAT material better, but that UWorld has better questions overall. I didn’t end up finishing UWorld but I did finish comquest for each specialty. In hindsight, if I could redo things, I’d spend the first two weeks of each rotation on UWorld and learn off of those, then finish all the comquest questions for the specialty in the last two weeks leading up to the COMAT so I could have gotten more of UWorld done before dedicated while still using comquest to prep for the COMATs.

I sort of did that for surgery (a good bit of UWorld surgery questions and finished comquest surgery questions) and it was my best COMAT at 125.

Thanks for all that.

No I totally get it, I need questions to hook me into the important pieces, otherwise it goes over my head. Usually I do questions then go through material so my attention is drawn to the right places and I know what to focus on. Getting UWorld for 3rd year is absolutely a staple.

 

[deleted966837]

I don't have any personal experience with it, but another thread mentioned Pocket Pimped as a study resource (DO who matched into ortho, although there is a gen surg version of the book as well) One DO applicant's experience applying to orthopaedic surgery (still helpful for other competitive stuff)