Taking time off for boards?

[Dr Dazzle]

Hi guys,

Do you guys have any insight about if a student wants to take time off after 2nd year to study exclusively for the boards. Assuming that the practice scores haven't been high and there is risk of scoring low. That could really hurt chances for competitive specialties.

Anyways, how would residencies look at breaks in medical education and potentially starting rotations later? Is it worth it? What are the pros/cons of maybe doing this?

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[rc4ch]

How much time are you thinking about taking off? How about just use your vacation month?

 

[Dharma]

Hi guys,

Do you guys have any insight about if a student wants to take time off after 2nd year to study exclusively for the boards. Assuming that the practice scores haven't been high and there is risk of scoring low. That could really hurt chances for competitive specialties.

Anyways, how would residencies look at breaks in medical education and potentially starting rotations later? Is it worth it? What are the pros/cons of maybe doing this?

Gaps in medical education are most definitely a red flag.

http://www.nrmp.org/data/programresultsbyspecialty2012.pdf

Prioritize time and make the time to study for boards.

 

[GUH]

How much time are you thinking about taking off? How about just use your vacation month?

I don't think second-year med students typically get to choose a month to take off.

 

[survivordo]

We had about 2 months off between 1st and 2nd year. I started HARD for about 4 weeks, took the exam, then had a month to relax. Seemed adequate.

Survivor DO

 

[Trogghunter]

you could also take them during clinical rotations if you have an easy first two rotations

 

[Makati2008]

I thought all schools took them prior to rotations? Ours did.

 

[Dr Dazzle]

We had about 2 months off between 1st and 2nd year. I started HARD for about 4 weeks, took the exam, then had a month to relax. Seemed adequate.

Survivor DO

Between 1st and 2nd year?!

 

[survivordo]

Between 1st and 2nd year?!

My bad, 2nd and 3rd! Been a long day!

 

[Dr Dazzle]

How did you guys manage studying with classes during second semester? Do most people just study in the summer for about a month?

 

[as1212559]

How did you guys manage studying with classes during second semester? Do most people just study in the summer for about a month?

I suspect a lot of people crap out on pre-clinicals as boards approach. Every curriculum I've seen that was systems/block based had things like psych/geriatics/pain+palliative etc. at the end. One faculty member said they do this intentionally as they know that people will quit coming to lectures so they put the easier blocks last so people don't have to fight boards and say, endo at the same time.

 

[calvinhobbes]

No, do not do this.

 

[racerwad]

Our last day is 5/17 and we have to report to our rotations on 6/24. It's my understanding that this schedule is how the school has run their schedule for a while. The last few months are relatively fluffy classes.

 

[cabinbuilder]

Hi guys,

Do you guys have any insight about if a student wants to take time off after 2nd year to study exclusively for the boards. Assuming that the practice scores haven't been high and there is risk of scoring low. That could really hurt chances for competitive specialties.

Anyways, how would residencies look at breaks in medical education and potentially starting rotations later? Is it worth it? What are the pros/cons of maybe doing this?

Is this even allowed? Usually the school gives you about a month or so to study for step I. I don't see you getting more than that. You are expected to start your rotations on time or you will be off cycle. I have not heard of this being granted.
For step II you don't get any time off. You have to study during rotations and on weekends. Get used to it. Step III is worse with no time and you just go take it.

 

[longjourney]

Speaking from personal experience, if you think you need the extra time, take it. Schools are able to grant a leave of absence. It looks worse on your application to have failed a board then to have taken time off. I know most students are able to handle everything in the standard short time, but if you think chances are high of not doing well, take some time off.

 

[Dr Dazzle]

Speaking from personal experience, if you think you need the extra time, take it. Schools are able to grant a leave of absence. It looks worse on your application to have failed a board then to have taken time off. I know most students are able to handle everything in the standard short time, but if you think chances are high of not doing well, take some time off.

This is what I was talking about. How long can the leave of absence be for? Aren't you really delayed as far as rotations go?

 

[Dharma]

Speaking from personal experience, if you think you need the extra time, take it. Schools are able to grant a leave of absence. It looks worse on your application to have failed a board then to have taken time off. I know most students are able to handle everything in the standard short time, but if you think chances are high of not doing well, take some time off.

I guess if you're gonna fail, take the time off? Who plans on failing though? I was just looking at that PD survey I posted above and many specialities show that gaps in education hold a significant amount of weight, almost on par with Step 1 scores (assuming one doesn't fail of course). PDs are pretty aware of the fact that a student could take time off to study for the boards; it doesn't take much investigation for said PD to put it all together and realize a higher score was the result due to such time off.

Like others said earlier, there is plenty of fluff time in spring of year 2. Plan well, prepare well, and just nail the test. Taking time off is taking a risk and there will be programs that will look at it as a negative in your application.

 

[Dr Dazzle]

I guess if you're gonna fail, take the time off? Who plans on failing though? I was just looking at that PD survey I posted above and many specialities show that gaps in education hold a significant amount of weight, almost on par with Step 1 scores (assuming one doesn't fail of course). PDs are pretty aware of the fact that a student could take time off to study for the boards; it doesn't take much investigation for said PD to put it all together and realize a higher score was the result due to such time off.

Like others said earlier, there is plenty of fluff time in spring of year 2. Plan well, prepare well, and just nail the test. Taking time off is taking a risk and there will be programs that will look at it as a negative in your application.

Building on that...does it take longer when preparing for both USMLE and Comlex? Or prepare for both exams at the same time in the time period.

 

[laconfidential]

I cannot even explain what a terrible idea it is to take extra time to prepare for boards.

Isn't it March still? I probably would have done pretty poorly on any practice tests at this point too, given that most students don't take the test for another couple of months.

If you take the extra time, prepare for those competitive specialties to just go ahead and take the students who didn't need said extra time to prepare and still did well, regardless.

 

[sylvanthus]

Building on that...does it take longer when preparing for both USMLE and Comlex? Or prepare for both exams at the same time in the time period.

Study for USMLE and add in a couple days of OMT review and youll be fine.

 

[buccsmf1]

Building on that...does it take longer when preparing for both USMLE and Comlex? Or prepare for both exams at the same time in the time period.

Dont take extra time off. Doesnt youre school give you a little time before the start of rotations? We had about 3.5 weeks between finals and the start of rotations. Everyone took their tests at the end of that time period.

As far as extra time for comlex and usmle, no. Schedule your usmle one day, then the comlex 3 days later. Study like youre preparing for the usmle, take the usmle. Then use those 2 days empty days in between to cram savarese omt. I actually had a week off in between, and it was wayyyyy too long.

 

[felix2929]

aren't you a pre-med still? why are you planning 2 years ahead to be behind?

 

[Dr Dazzle]

aren't you a pre-med still? why are you planning 2 years ahead to be behind?

I asked this question for a friend who is going through this situation right now. The info has been helpful.

Thanks guys

 

[longjourney]

Reply to "This is what I was talking about. How long can the leave of absence be for? Aren't you really delayed as far as rotations go?"

That's why I mentioned if chances of failing are high, take the time off. Otherwise, you will end up having to take time off anyway if you happen to fail (and yes, you then become off cycle and potentially may have to graduate a year later). Only then you will have even more anxiety when taking the test with the prior history. As other posters have said, it's March, so use you current low scores as fuel to study really hard now so you can take it with everyone else. Of course the ideal is to take it without a break, etc.

 

[BigSib]

Do you guys have any insight about if a student wants to take time off after 2nd year to study exclusively for the boards.

If you're lucky enough to get an elective as the very first rotation during third year you can use that month to study and take the exam. If you're not lucky you may be able to persuade your administration that you require some extra time to study, to which they may switch your rotations up such that your elective is the very first rotation. Otherwise I would not recommend taking any other additional time as that will be significantly frowned upon.

 

[pattr]

If you're lucky enough to get an elective as the very first rotation during third year you can use that month to study and take the exam. If you're not lucky you may be able to persuade your administration that you require some extra time to study, to which they may switch your rotations up such that your elective is the very first rotation. Otherwise I would not recommend taking any other additional time as that will be significantly frowned upon.

I know plenty of people who planned their third year so that vacation/elective was first so that they could use that month for more prep... if you think this would help you, then by all means do it. If you are really crazy, you could try studying for step 1 and doing easy rotations (eg psych) at the same time but even that is really difficult. I elected not to do either of these things just b/c I absolutely hated studying for Step 1 .

 

[NeurologyDO]

I studied for a month before both steps/comlex exams.

My school gives us a "vacation month" that we can schedule whenever we want, and pretty much everyone just scheduled that month before the exam.
A month is more than enough, towards the end everyone gets kind of burned out and just wants to take the dang thing because they are sick of taking practice questions

If you make effective use of your time, then a month should be good.