Taking Advantage of P/F Curriculum

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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bluefalcon32

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I will be attending a P/F medical school for the first 2 years. Such a curriculum allows one more flexibility with their studies as they do not have to focus so much on the nitty gritty low yield details of their profs but can use their time more efficiently to study for what truly matters-- Step 1. I fully understand that I do not comprehend medical school yet, what details/things are more important than others, etc until I start school. But from those of you currently in school, what would you advise me to do to get the most use out of my time as I review?
 
bluefalcon32 said:
I will be attending a P/F medical school for the first 2 years. Such a curriculum allows one more flexibility with their studies as they do not have to focus so much on the nitty gritty low yield details of their profs but can use their time more efficiently to study for what truly matters-- Step 1. I fully understand that I do not comprehend medical school yet, what details/things are more important than others, etc until I start school. But from those of you currently in school, what would you advise me to do to get the most use out of my time as I review?
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I'd advise you to re-examine your understanding of what a pass fail curriculum means.
 
I may be incorrect but I define it as a curriculum where students need to do better than a certain cut-off to Pass. At the end of the day, if one gets above that cut-off, he/she receives a Pass on their transcript and no numerical grade. But Passing and getting say 90% are 2 different things. Some of the class material is just minutia that the Prof wants students to know. With that, once students can have a little more time to focus on what they want and what matters-- studying material for Step 1.
 
Winged Scapula said:
I'd advise you that your school will keep track of how well you do on those "nitty gritty details" and rank you against your classmates, releasing that information when you apply for residency. P/F does not mean you can just focus on Step 1.
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So then in that case, you suggest treating a P/F curriculum just like one would a graded curriculum? If so, then one should use the class notes as the foundation and supplement with review books to enhance student understanding and not so much focus on Step 1 prep until the allocated time to study for it comes around in Yr 2?
 
bluefalcon32 said:
I may be incorrect but I define it as a curriculum where students need to do better than a certain cut-off to Pass. At the end of the day, if one gets above that cut-off, he/she receives a Pass on their transcript and no numerical grade. But Passing and getting say 90% are 2 different things. Some of the class material is just minutia that the Prof wants students to know. With that, once students can have a little more time to focus on what they want and what matters-- studying material for Step 1.
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You misunderstand.

Yes, there will be a minimum cut off below which you will fail and above which you will pass. Your transcript will show P or F.

However, your school will keep track of whether you got 71% or 95% on those exams and when it comes time to produce the MSPE for residency, they will use those scores (not the P/F) and rank you in comparison to your classmates. If you skimmed the P/F line, you will be ranked low. While Step 1 may be one of the primary factors in residency matching, class rank/AOA can be important as well.

And note that we haven't even begun to talk about my concern that you are approaching medical school with the idea that you only need to do well on Step 1 rather than develop a foundation of medical knowledge and learning skills.
 
bluefalcon32 said:
So then in that case, you suggest treating a P/F curriculum just like one would a graded curriculum? If so, then one should use the class notes as the foundation and supplement with review books to enhance student understanding and not so much focus on Step 1 prep until the allocated time to study for it comes around in Yr 2?
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Yes.
 
bluefalcon32 said:
I may be incorrect but I define it as a curriculum where students need to do better than a certain cut-off to Pass. At the end of the day, if one gets above that cut-off, he/she receives a Pass on their transcript and no numerical grade. But Passing and getting say 90% are 2 different things. Some of the class material is just minutia that the Prof wants students to know. With that, once students can have a little more time to focus on what they want and what matters-- studying material for Step 1.
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I'd argue that to be a successful medical student, irrespective of the type of curriculum (i.e. pass fail or graded), you need to have a strong internal motivation to learn medicine. Not to study for step one.

If you think you're going to magically be able to parse the important and clinically relevant information from the minutiae...you're wrong.

There's a reason that nearly every school that has shifted from a graded to a P/F curriculum has had essentially no changes in their mean test scores - it's because the students' motivation to study and learn was unchanged.
 
People who narrow their focus too quickly on Step 1 are missing the forest for the trees. I personally think it stunts their development. They focus too much on small USMLE-favorite factoids and miss out on intimately learning the physiology and pathophysiology of disease.

Take home point: learn the material in M1/M2 that your school wants you to learn. Do well on your exams. Tackle Step 1 when it's time to tackle Step 1.
 
southernIM said:
I'd argue that to be a successful medical student, irrespective of the type of curriculum (i.e. pass fail or graded), you need to have a strong internal motivation to learn medicine. Not to study for step one.

If you think you're going to magically be able to parse the important and clinically relevant information from the minutiae...you're wrong.

There's a reason that nearly every school that has shifted from a graded to a P/F curriculum has had essentially no changes in their mean test scores - it's because the students' motivation to study and learn was unchanged.
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Obviously I do not know as much about this as you, but then what was the benefit of the curriculum switch? Was it to promote more collaboration and less stress?
 
bluefalcon32 said:
Obviously I do not know as much about this as you, but then what was the benefit of the curriculum switch? Was it to promote more collaboration and less stress?
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There are lots of theoretical benefits. Less sense of external pressure for students makes them less stressed/competitive is one of the general ideas. The reality is that a lot of the reason schools do it is to keep up with the educational jones's.
 
P/F only helps so much when it comes to "oh I get to kick back and relax -- just learn to learn -- it's all P/F now, baby!"

You will find that there is so much material, and so much uncertainty of what will be tested (at least for most professors), that studying still takes a lot of time unless you are one of those gifted individuals with super memories.

I'll put it this way:

My school is P/F and coming in I had similar thoughts ("this is gonna be awesome, just gotta pass, I'm gonna have so much time to study for step1/do research/relax/etc")

Wrong-o.

Overall, I ended up sitting a little bit better than average (but, really, it's more like average). It took a lot of studying and a lot of changed plans. Even though I did well enough on exams, there was never a point when I said "welp, I know it all. there is nothing left to study. I know all the high yield material and am guaranteed to at least pass". At least at my school, you just don't know the things that will permit you to make that conclusion with any validity behind it.

In essence, P/F is better than grades for everyone that isn't going to rain down A's on their exams. However, P/F is still a ton of work due to uncertainty. For some it will be easier -- for some, more challenging. Everyone has different skills/abilities, maybe you will be one of the gifted people -- maybe not. It is fine to plan out your success now (I will study step 1 material tons, etc)...but don't let it bother you if/when these plans drastically change.
 
Thanks @Frazier. I appreciate the dose of reality. So with that you recommend using the first few months to acclimate to school and not engage in too many activities or time-consuming activities until one gets their bearings. But at the same time, it seems that with each block, the bearings may change with you having different profs. and studying different things. With that in mind, did your study techniques/approaches change between each of the blocks?
 
bluefalcon32 said:
I will be attending a P/F medical school for the first 2 years. Such a curriculum allows one more flexibility with their studies as they do not have to focus so much on the nitty gritty low yield details of their profs but can use their time more efficiently to study for what truly matters-- Step 1. I fully understand that I do not comprehend medical school yet, what details/things are more important than others, etc until I start school. But from those of you currently in school, what would you advise me to do to get the most use out of my time as I review?
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Why on earth would you choose that username?
 
bluefalcon32 said:
Thanks @Frazier. I appreciate the dose of reality. So with that you recommend using the first few months to acclimate to school and not engage in too many activities or time-consuming activities until one gets their bearings. But at the same time, it seems that with each block, the bearings may change with you having different profs. and studying different things. With that in mind, did your study techniques/approaches change between each of the blocks?
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Definitely ease into things and don't spread yourself too thin until you have your feet under you.
It's true that professors change across blocks and therefore the bearings do change...however, upper classmen talk. Some classes will have bad reps, others will have good reps. Some profs will have reps for giving a good indication what they test, others give poor indication.

For me, I most enjoyed when our exams were electronic NBME...I could largely ignore the syllabus and lectures and focus on review books since I wouldn't be at the mercy of the professor's homemade exam questions.

You will quickly get an idea of where you stand and what your abilities are by integrating your experience with what others tell you. For example, say upperclassmen reported that Block 2 is super tough -- but you ended up doing great and weren't stressed...that is a good sign for when Block 3 comes around (a block that has a rep for "being easier" than Block 2)...etc

I pretty much followed the same exact study method across blocks. For some classes, it served me VERY well (anatomy, pathology, etc)...for other classes, well, at least I passed those exams 😉 Hence, overall, it all averaged out to me being average. Which, I feel is quite an achievement in my book (my classmates always blow me away with how well they pick up and remember stuff).

I will probably adapt my study methods for MS2, because I hear the material ramps way up (hard to fathom)...my old method just takes too much time if that is the case.
 
bluefalcon32 said:
Such a curriculum allows one more flexibility with their studies as they do not have to focus so much on the nitty gritty low yield details of their profs but can use their time more efficiently to study for what truly matters-- Step 1.
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Like everyone else has said, don't approach med school with this mindset. Aim to learn things well, not skip the "nitty gritty details." Plus, how do you even know yet what's low-yield vs. high-yield? Just because something's not in First Aid or in a review book doesn't mean it's not "high-yield" and vice versa. Pay attention to @southernIM's posts; he's completely spot on.
 
It's been a few months since I took Step 1, but I seem to remember most of m1/m2 being covered on it. I'm not sure what anyone could study "for step 1" that wouldn't also be for classes, unless you mean using review books to supplement and make sure your school covers it all well (which is fine). Just don't make the mistake of feeling like if you memorize First Aid and a few other review books you'll be set for a 260+ score because that isn't the case. The NBME is working hard to remove buzzwords and material that can be answered by direct recall from such sources (see their many articles over the years in Academic Medicine and similar journals), focusing instead on conceptual knowledge that often incorporates minutiae. I saw it happen in my class and I see it happening in the class below me: people who decided to backburner classwork and focus on step 1 faced a rude awakening after their first NBME practice exam.

If you only want to pass and don't care about your score, yeah, take it easy and memorize First Aid and be happy with your 215.

If you want a 260, then nothing is low yield.

Work hard in your classes, learn everything you can as well as you can, and check in with boards review books along the way to make sure your school covers everything.
 
You will have a much better idea of P/F after you take your first test, see the class average, and see other classmates who are concerned about ranking (ortho, plastic boys and girls). You will realize that P/F is not really P/F. If you focus on 'high yield' stuff, you will do badly on your school tests. Your time is better spent studying slides/syllabus than studying FA.

But your experience may be different. From my observation, those who still say "P=MD" are usually NOT the people who are concerned about their long-term success. These people are not those who would rather spend their time preparing for step 1 early on. People who just "want to pass" are those who have not learned how to study (no motivation or discipline) and are on the verge of failing. I worry about them, because I have a feeling they probably won't do well on Step 1.
 
Thank you @operaman and @coffeesnob. I appreciate your advice and will work assiduously to implement it. I acknowledge that as much as I think I know about med school, I do not know much because one truly understands it by doing it. With that, I aim to study hard. I agree with what operaman said along the lines of supplementing my review. I have spoken to some upperclassmen and they have told me that they did not like how well pharm was presented. As such, I feel that my best resource is upperclassmen, esp those who have taken Steps to get their perspective about things that could have been improved or emphasized more.

I want to do well on Steps and am sorry for my nativity. I obviously do not understand how the exam works and am grateful to all of you guys for helping to set my straight. There are obviously a ton of resources and many study approaches and I think that now would be a good time to focus on study approaches and then speak to upperclassmen when school does begin to get a survey of the best books to use for each class.
 
bluefalcon32 said:
I will be attending a P/F medical school for the first 2 years. Such a curriculum allows one more flexibility with their studies as they do not have to focus so much on the nitty gritty low yield details of their profs but can use their time more efficiently to study for what truly matters-- Step 1. I fully understand that I do not comprehend medical school yet, what details/things are more important than others, etc until I start school. But from those of you currently in school, what would you advise me to do to get the most use out of my time as I review?
Click to expand...
Do you know whether your school is a "true" P/F school in the first 2 years (and there are quite a few), or is it a P/F school, where grades are still kept internally for ranking purposes?
 
bluefalcon32 said:
Thank you @operaman and @coffeesnob. I appreciate your advice and will work assiduously to implement it. I acknowledge that as much as I think I know about med school, I do not know much because one truly understands it by doing it. With that, I aim to study hard. I agree with what operaman said along the lines of supplementing my review. I have spoken to some upperclassmen and they have told me that they did not like how well pharm was presented. As such, I feel that my best resource is upperclassmen, esp those who have taken Steps to get their perspective about things that could have been improved or emphasized more.

I want to do well on Steps and am sorry for my nativity. I obviously do not understand how the exam works and am grateful to all of you guys for helping to set my straight. There are obviously a ton of resources and many study approaches and I think that now would be a good time to focus on study approaches and then speak to upperclassmen when school does begin to get a survey of the best books to use for each class.
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You have absolutely no reason to apologize for your birth.
 
@DermViser, at 2nd Look weekend, the Dean said that there were no grades or rankings in YR 1 and 2. However, I have learned to take everything that ppl say with a grain of salt. In addition, the only individual who would probably tell me the truth would be a residency director who had accepted students from my med school into his/her program. I am interested in finding out but I feel that the only way to "know" for sure would be to get a hold of the actually Dean's Letter and we all know that this will never happen. Thus, I am going in with the following mentality:

Winged Scapula said:
I'd advise you that your school will keep track of how well you do on those "nitty gritty details" and rank you against your classmates, releasing that information when you apply for residency. P/F does not mean you can just focus on Step 1.
Click to expand...
 
bluefalcon32 said:
@DermViser, at 2nd Look weekend, the Dean said that there were no grades or rankings in YR 1 and 2. However, I have learned to take everything that ppl say with a grain of salt. In addition, the only individual who would probably tell me the truth would be a residency director who had accepted students from my med school into his/her program. I am interested in finding out but I feel that the only way to "know" for sure would be to get a hold of the actually Dean's Letter and we all know that this will never happen. Thus, I am going in with the following mentality:
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With all due respect, your Dean of your medical school is probably not someone you should ever trust with respect to interpretation of academic policy. That being said, based on your prior posts it looks like you will be attending Case Western Reserve for med school, which if that is the case, is a "true" P/F school in the first 2 years.
 
Winged Scapula said:
:bow:
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Thank you. I'll be here all night. Be sure to tip your waitress.
mlfw2219-c36.gif
 
@Psai, how would graduating seniors know exactly what is in their Dean's Letters? Are they allowed to see them? Last I heard, and I may be wrong, no one sees their Dean's Letter. It's kind of like no one seeing their pre-med Committee Letter for medical school.
 
don't worry

First Aid is a review book

if you focus only on review material you won't understand anything and will end up studying your textbook and ppts anyways
 
I go to a P/F school and the class averages are usually mid-high 80s, and it isn't because the tests are easy. You still need to work your ass off or you will be left way behind. Most of what out professors teach that isn't tested on Step 1 is clinically-relevant stuff that will help you 3rd year, which absolutely is not pass fail. Also Step 1 scores are highly correlated with your M1/M2 grades. Work hard and learn the material - everyone else will be. The difference between medical school and undergrad is that the slackers are mostly weeded out, and being smart isn't enough. I listened to some Pathoma with each class, did U-world and would do a pass through first aid before each test, but did no dedicated step 1 study outside of the material that was currently being covered, and my baseline NBME score PRIOR to crunch month was already above the national Step 1 average. What I'm saying is, actually learn material and the Step 1 score will come.
 
Isn't Pass ~70% for most schools? It's not like there's a huge difference between being an average B/C student and a Pass student.
 
bluefalcon32 said:
@DermViser, at 2nd Look weekend, the Dean said that there were no grades or rankings in YR 1 and 2. However, I have learned to take everything that ppl say with a grain of salt. In addition, the only individual who would probably tell me the truth would be a residency director who had accepted students from my med school into his/her program. I am interested in finding out but I feel that the only way to "know" for sure would be to get a hold of the actually Dean's Letter and we all know that this will never happen. Thus, I am going in with the following mentality:
Click to expand...
You can either ask graduating 4th years, who get to preview their Dean's letter, or ask your Student Affairs office how exactly class ranks or nomination for AOA are calculated. They may also be able to show you a sample Dean's letter. Some medical schools are transparent on their websites of whether they are in fact "true" P/F in the first 2 years.
 
@DermViser, thanks for your advice. I will take that into account as soon as I get on campus.

@Packman2003, thanks for your post. It seems that the best strategy is to believe in the med school system and study hard. When Step 1 comes around, study harder and all will hopefully fall into place.
 
Med school and undergrad are not even close to the same thing. 4th years preview their letters and sometimes they have interviewers who read parts of their letters to them.
 
circulus vitios said:
Isn't Pass ~70% for most schools? It's not like there's a huge difference between being an average B/C student and a Pass student.
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I think at University of Wisconsin which is P/F the first year - passing is 80%.
 
I go to a true P/F school and while I certainly don't waste too much time learning things I don't find important, I've never "just passed". The advantage of a true P/F school is that it allows you to have less stress over reaching for being in the top 10 range since a pass is a pass. That doesn't mean you should be lazy and just get by.

The way I took advantage of my P/F curriculum is that I used sources I thought were a lot better than my class material. RR path and pathoma for pathology, BRS physiology for physiology, Kaplan Microbiology for microbiology learning. I always made sure to go over anything that was in class materials that wasn't covered in these sources.

Even though I wasn't learning the "nitty gritty" details professors liked to teach, I always scored very high on my tests. So my advice to you, is that its a good idea to familiarize yourself with review books as you go along your course work (I honestly think RR path is the best pathology resource out there and probably a better learning source than most teachers can create), but never let yourself just barely pass. Doing well in M1/M2 is important even beyond Step 1.
 
Last edited:
gregoryhouse said:
I go to a true P/F school and while I certainly don't waste too much time learning things I don't find important, I've never "just passed". The advantage of a true P/F school is that it allows you to have less stress over reaching for being in the top 10 range since a pass is a pass. That doesn't mean you should be lazy and just get by.

The way I took advantage of my P/F curriculum is that I used sources I thought were a lot better than my class material. RR path and pathoma for pathology, BRS physiology for physiology, Kaplan Microbiology for microbiology learning. I always made sure to go over anything that was in class materials that wasn't covered in these sources.

Even though I wasn't learning the "nitty gritty" details professors liked to teach, I always scored very high on my tests. So my advice to you, is that its a good idea to familiarize yourself with review books as you go along your course work (I honestly think RR path is the best pathology resource out there and probably a better learning source than most teachers can create), but never let yourself just barely pass. Doing well in M1/M2 is important even beyond Step 1.
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Agreed.

P/F schools help you to personalize your education and understand the material better rather than cut corners.
 
Wow. I love this thread. Normally I give my usual "everything matters, P/F is a disadvantage because there is no opportunity to demonstrate that you are capable of H grades" spiel, and have to defend it a million times. I'll try it here and see how it goes:

Everything matters. AOA is a huge benefit if you are capable of getting it, and some programs (yes, a small minority consisting of mostly the top places for surgical subspecialties) screen applicants based on it. Residency program directors actively screen based on number of "Honors" grades. MS1/2 are not as critical as MS3, but everything matters to some degree.
 
Regarding dean's letters and internal ranking: the dean's office at my institution was complete forthcoming when I asked about these things early on. They have us proofread our own MSPE and send out a generic MSPE ahead of time so we can see how it's done. There's clearly no LCME-mandated rule about keeping this quiet so you may find your school is more open than you think if you ask them direct questions. If you're thinking about AOA, go ask the faculty advisor about how members are elected at your school. I found that for us, there really is no internal rank that shows up on our MSPE. They do use an internal rank for a couple of scholarships after m1/m2 for "the top student in ___" and for determining valedictorian at graduation, but that's it. This has been true for those above me as well. The only thing that remotely resembles ranking on the MSPE for us is that each grade from the transcript for each subject/clerkship is accompanied by a graph showing the class distribution for that grade (ie. for internal medicine, 14 students earned Honors, 45 students earned High Pass, and 88 students earned Pass).

Moral of the story: make an apt with your dean's office and ask direct questions. They have no reason to hide anything.
 
operaman said:
Regarding dean's letters and internal ranking: the dean's office at my institution was complete forthcoming when I asked about these things early on. They have us proofread our own MSPE and send out a generic MSPE ahead of time so we can see how it's done. There's clearly no LCME-mandated rule about keeping this quiet so you may find your school is more open than you think if you ask them direct questions. If you're thinking about AOA, go ask the faculty advisor about how members are elected at your school. I found that for us, there really is no internal rank that shows up on our MSPE. They do use an internal rank for a couple of scholarships after m1/m2 for "the top student in ___" and for determining valedictorian at graduation, but that's it. This has been true for those above me as well. The only thing that remotely resembles ranking on the MSPE for us is that each grade from the transcript for each subject/clerkship is accompanied by a graph showing the class distribution for that grade (ie. for internal medicine, 14 students earned Honors, 45 students earned High Pass, and 88 students earned Pass).

Moral of the story: make an apt with your dean's office and ask direct questions. They have no reason to hide anything.
Click to expand...
Are you sure? No "code word" either?
 
operaman said:
Regarding dean's letters and internal ranking: the dean's office at my institution was complete forthcoming when I asked about these things early on. They have us proofread our own MSPE and send out a generic MSPE ahead of time so we can see how it's done. There's clearly no LCME-mandated rule about keeping this quiet so you may find your school is more open than you think if you ask them direct questions. If you're thinking about AOA, go ask the faculty advisor about how members are elected at your school. I found that for us, there really is no internal rank that shows up on our MSPE. They do use an internal rank for a couple of scholarships after m1/m2 for "the top student in ___" and for determining valedictorian at graduation, but that's it. This has been true for those above me as well. The only thing that remotely resembles ranking on the MSPE for us is that each grade from the transcript for each subject/clerkship is accompanied by a graph showing the class distribution for that grade (ie. for internal medicine, 14 students earned Honors, 45 students earned High Pass, and 88 students earned Pass).

Moral of the story: make an apt with your dean's office and ask direct questions. They have no reason to hide anything.
Click to expand...

A lot of schools only show you parts of the MSPE...they leave out the concluding page which includes the not-secret secret code word, and they leave out the appendix which gives the key to the code
 
bluefalcon32 said:
@alpinism, thanks for your insight. How did you personalize your education if I may ask?
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Well for example with our pathology lectures we had some great professors and some really crappy ones.

It ended up being much easier to go through RR and Pathoma before each lecture to better understand the material and go over anything they didn't cover in lecture. Then I'd just fly through the recorded lectures at 2x speed to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Both books ultimately did a better job of explaining most diseases better than most professors. Also, in some lectures our professors had a bad habit of leaving out important material so they could have more time to go over their research, talk about public health statistics, discuss current events, or go off on some tangent about their personal views on healthcare/politics/human nature etc.. Instead spending time memorizing this stuff for our next exam I focused on the important material or other material that I found interesting.
 
gregoryhouse said:
The way I took advantage of my P/F curriculum is that I used sources I thought were a lot better than my class material. RR path and pathoma for pathology, BRS physiology for physiology, Kaplan Microbiology for microbiology learning. I always made sure to go over anything that was in class materials that wasn't covered in these sources.
Click to expand...

Did you use any other sources for practice questions? What sources did you like for anatomy?
 
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