Step 1/COMLEX with no Dedicated - Suggestions

[Tgfu34]

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I know I’m jumping the gun a bit (OMS-I) but my school currently does not offer a dedicated period after second year to study for boards and I am a tad concerned. I figured I would have to start studying sooner than normal but I am worried about starting too early without having a solid foundation from courses to build off of. Any guidance and suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!!

 

[MusicDOc124]

I know I’m jumping the gun a bit (OMS-I) but my school currently does not offer a dedicated period after second year to study for boards and I am a tad concerned. I figured I would have to start studying sooner than normal but I am worried about starting too early without having a solid foundation from courses to build off of. Any guidance and suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!!

1) Way to early to be worried about boards. You state that you don't have the foundation yet - which makes sense since you've been in school for 2-3 months. Your focus should be on the current courses.

2) This question may be better suited for the current M3s and M4s at your school since it's specific to your schools schedule.

Good luck.

 

[Medic741]

I did this.

Had 2 weeks before STEP, then a week between STEP and COMLEX. Scored 680’s and 230’s.

Obsessively watched all of physeo M1. Watched the sketchy path system before the system started. Used firecracker from the start of M1. Did not use anki, couldn’t stand to hit the space bar for a few thousand cards each day.

Seriously, work smart not hard and learnt he material well the first time through.

Start board prepping September of M2, 8-noon every day was board prep time for me and didn’t touch new material no matter what was going on in school. Worked out well.

 

[Neopolymath]

I go to a POS school too, OP!!! Work hard M1 (but don't get burnt out) and definitely study sketchy over the summer (takes like no time.) Start studying for boards really early second year and do not under any circumstances listen to your dumb classmates telling you to wait until February or some ****. 250's are made in the off-season so to speak.

 

[getfat]

Focus on your grades right now as a first year. You're gonna need wiggle room in 2nd year so you can focus on boards and place less emphasis on classes.

Some schools have a barrier program for taking boards. So you if you let your grades tank 2nd year they can give you even more hoops to jump on top of having very little board dedicated time.

A lot of my classmates focused on rocking classes up until spring of 2nd year so they could completely ignore classes and just focus on boards and barely passing classes.

Agreed with @Neopolymath advice. But i will add another more importantly talk to 3rd years (if you can 4th years as well) about what they did for 1st and 2nd year. Most 2nd years are still figuring everything out so they aren't the best people to talk to. Most people don't exactly figure out what works best until spring possibly late summer.

Most of the responses here emphasize just focusing on 1st year because for a lot of DO schools every year is different. The hurdles we faced are probably going to be different for you. Welcome to the suck that is DO school haha.

 

[Tgfu34]

Thank you for all the advice! @Neopolymath and @getfat, when the time comes to start prepping, would you recommend starting with sketchy or something else? I currently do Zanki alongside my current courses to supplement what I don’t learn in class. With mandatory attendance I feel that’s all I can do right now and maintain my grades and sanity.

 

[PorkChopsOG]

Thank you for all the advice! @Neopolymath and @getfat, when the time comes to start prepping, would you recommend starting with sketchy or something else? I currently do Zanki alongside my current courses to supplement what I don’t learn in class. With mandatory attendance I feel that’s all I can do right now and maintain my grades and sanity.

Who thought that mandatory attendance + no dedicated was a good idea???? I'm so sorry for you OP. Are you at a new DO school?

 

[getfat]

Who thought that mandatory attendance + no dedicated was a good idea????

I know you are being sarcastic but i wouldn't be surprised this kind of stuff became more common. Most of the people that run pre-clinical curriculum are PHDs. People who have never done med school think like this. At least at my school its just PHDs (not MDs or DOs) that don't listen to students set these types of curriculums.

Love my other doctor colleges but if you haven't done med school then you shouldn't be designing my overall curriculum. Just like I doubt many basic science PHD students would want a mentor that only had a clinical degree.

 

[getfat]

would you recommend starting with sketchy or something else?

Sketchy will just help you bluntly memorize buzzwords behind certain bugs and diseases. Its really helpful for COMLEX. This may change by the time you take boards. Even when I took boards there were a couple parasites that I felt like were exclusively not sketchy. You won't know the why or the how behind anything but you can rock a multiple choice test with sketchy.

Personally I believe where you are at the most important thing is setting your foundation. You need to set up proper rationale so when you are in board dedicated its a quick review to remember everything you forgot. You will hit a point where you forget everything you once knew very well.

Personally I felt like boards and beyond set the best foundation for everything in pre-clinicals. Most of the top performers in the last Step 1 Experiences Thread matured zanki. I couldn't do it because i started at beginning of 2nd year and was not religious in doing it. So i decided halfway through to stick to lightear (which is just B&B). I wish i matured zanki like some of my high performing classmates. My problem was that I didn't realize how many cards were really in the deck. So its important you make a schedule for how many new cards you need to see in a day in order to mature the specific deck at that point.

 

[Prehealth1011]

Honestly since you're an OMS-I, try out every resource a little and see which one works the best. Then pick 1 or 2 of them and stick to it. There's no clear cut "this > this". Different people learn differently. An auditory learner might praise Goljan but that doesn't mean it'll work for you. Someone might mature Zanki while neglecting questions to get that 250 but again, doesn't mean it'll work for you.

 

[Tgfu34]

Who thought that mandatory attendance + no dedicated was a good idea???? I'm so sorry for you OP. Are you at a new DO school?

It’s not a newer school unfortunately. The mandatory attendance only lasts a semester but my productivity would be through the roof if I didn’t have to go to class. I’m counting down the days until I don’t have to go. A lot of people have asked about implementing a dedicated period but it has been shot down every time. It definitely makes scoring 250+ a lot tougher than it already is.

 

[getfat]

Its possible. @Neopolymath did pretty well on boards and had to deal with alot of similar nonsense like you did.

The biggest thing is figuring out exactly what type of resources are best for you and sticking to just that. Don't do what I did and get overloaded with resources.
Most of these apps, websites teach the same exact concepts in different ways or presentations. You need to just stick to one and get as many questions done as possible.

 

[Giovanotto]

Suggestion: Learn to love FM (just kidding, but no, seriously...)

 

[Goro]

I know I’m jumping the gun a bit (OMS-I) but my school currently does not offer a dedicated period after second year to study for boards and I am a tad concerned. I figured I would have to start studying sooner than normal but I am worried about starting too early without having a solid foundation from courses to build off of. Any guidance and suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!!

What penal colony is this?????

 

[Medic741]

Thank you for all the advice! @Neopolymath and @getfat, when the time comes to start prepping, would you recommend starting with sketchy or something else? I currently do Zanki alongside my current courses to supplement what I don’t learn in class. With mandatory attendance I feel that’s all I can do right now and maintain my grades and sanity.

I’d highly recommend using sketchy alongside classes. Before each system starts shoot to watch all of sketchy path for that system so when that material gets covered during the course it’s a review instead of brand new info.

Doing this gave my grades a hefty boost and overall decreased the effort I had to put into school

 

[getfat]

What penal colony is this?????

Not sure what OPs school is but GAPCOM does the same thing. I'm sure south-GA PCOM will do it for the upcoming class too.

 

[NecFasc92]

Not sure what OPs school is but GAPCOM does the same thing. I'm sure south-GA PCOM will do it for the upcoming class too.

Wtf is south-GA PCOM? Is that the actual name???

 

[getfat]

Satellite campus of a branch campus of PCOM. (Please correct me if the wording is wrong haha)

PCOM South Georgia | Moultrie, GA Location of PCOM

Learn about PCOM South Georgia in Moultrie, GA. Find out how to apply to our Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) and MS in Biomedical Sciences programs.

www.pcom.edu

 

[Blanky]

Sketchy will just help you bluntly memorize buzzwords behind certain bugs and diseases. Its really helpful for COMLEX. This may change by the time you take boards. Even when I took boards there were a couple parasites that I felt like were exclusively not sketchy. You won't know the why or the how behind anything but you can rock a multiple choice test with sketchy.

Personally I believe where you are at the most important thing is setting your foundation. You need to set up proper rationale so when you are in board dedicated its a quick review to remember everything you forgot. You will hit a point where you forget everything you once knew very well.

Personally I felt like boards and beyond set the best foundation for everything in pre-clinicals. Most of the top performers in the last Step 1 Experiences Thread matured zanki. I couldn't do it because i started at beginning of 2nd year and was not religious in doing it. So i decided halfway through to stick to lightear (which is just B&B). I wish i matured zanki like some of my high performing classmates. My problem was that I didn't realize how many cards were really in the deck. So its important you make a schedule for how many new cards you need to see in a day in order to mature the specific deck at that point.

Why the zanki> lightyear? I heard they are equal and to just stick with one or the other.

 

[getfat]

Why the zanki> lightyear? I heard they are equal and to just stick with one or the other.

zanki is much more comprehensive than lightyear. Light year is just B&B. Its a personal preference but i agree that you should just stick to one. Some people loved zanki because it covers most of everything you would need to know for step 1. The problem is that its an insane number of cards. >20,000. So if you decide to go that route, you need to be starting it in beginning of 2nd year. Or whenever you start systems.

The problem is being able to mature zanki in the appropriate amount of time. If you can do it props to you and it will show when you start taking practice tests.

This is assuming you learn best in flashcards style apps like zanki. Everybody doesn't learn best this way. If you aren't retaining information in this way you need to focus on your learning style. Whether its reading, concept maps, videos etc etc.

 

[WhereMyLiberalsAt]

zanki is much more comprehensive than lightyear. Light year is just B&B. Its a personal preference but i agree that you should just stick to one. Some people loved zanki because it covers most of everything you would need to know for step 1. The problem is that its an insane number of cards. >20,000. So if you decide to go that route, you need to be starting it in beginning of 2nd year. Or whenever you start systems.

The problem is being able to mature zanki in the appropriate amount of time. If you can do it props to you and it will show when you start taking practice tests.

This is assuming you learn best in flashcards style apps like zanki. Everybody doesn't learn best this way. If you aren't retaining information in this way you need to focus on your learning style. Whether its reading, concept maps, videos etc etc.

I don’t think Anki is a “learning style.” I also don’t think using Anki is a binary decision...

Everyone should be using Anki. People can learn the material anyway they see fit.... But, they have to use space repetition to make sure all those concepts and nitty-gritty facts they just learned don’t slip out of their mind.

Besides anatomy literally everything this semester (M1) and a lot of next semester is review from undergrad....

It’s demoralizing to reteach yourself something you learned two years ago and forgot it... all because you thought you’d learn it some special “medical-school esque way.”

If only I knew nothing is special about medical school education. The kreb cycle is just the kreb cycle and the ANS is just the ANS.... Except now the info cost $40k.