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I cant understand divine lol especially since I only watch stuff on at least 1.5 speed. OME is overrated. UW is fire as always. And i agree my step 1 knowledge has carried me far on these comats so far
the official COMAT shelf thread
Started by Arthroscope
Yeah I can agree on Step 1 knowledge being way more helpful for 3rd year than a lot of comments on SDN and reddit led me believe.
Even when doing dorian, I Feel like there only 20% of the cards I don't know already from Step 1 and even then I can usually get most of the way to the answer using step 1 knowledge.
Yes, scores on the clinical shelf exams and step 2 are correlated to step 1 scores.
Likewise, scores on the clinical shelf exams are correlated to step 2 scores.
He has a specific set of videos on YouTube for the IM shelf. Go on his website and find them so you can download the audio.
OME is pointless. Don't waste time except maybe right before a rotation of you are truly out of your element.
Anyone else getting nervous about being pulled off rotations again? Hella nervous my IM months become online or something, especially since one of them is supposed to be really good with a lot of student autonomy 🙁
Yes, I've heard of 10 KCU people getting COVID this past week, not including myself.
I'm hoping it will be site dependent if it happens.
I'm more concerned about individual hospitals starting to kick out students which will lead to the school just pulling everyone again. The hospital I'm at now is apparently planning to stop allowing visitors again next week so I feel like it's only a matter of time before they kick out students.
Oof
Absolute hell if that happens. Idk what even to say, I do not want to entertain the thought.
Being locked up away from rotations for only 1 week has already been too much.
Yeah, I'm really trying to keep a positive mindset but I'm starting to get nervous. I'm hoping that since we are not allowed to see COVID patients anyways they'll keep us, but I just don't know what to expect. I'd feel more comfortable if we had our own home hospital, but I doubt all of these outside institutions care too much about us and that's what makes me nervous.
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Yeah guess all we can do is pray.
Also I got a notification too for that old KCU MSK thread. I spent one of my breaks reading through and it is just wild to think that was only 2 years ago and how absolutely miserable I was in M1.
I did the same thing! I can't believe how far we've come.
It has been quite the journey. I remember how much self worth I put, and sometimes still do, into those pre clinical exams. If you told M1 me that I would even make it to M3 I would probably have been doubtful lol.
Makes me incredibly curious to once what Post match and intern year me will think of my past self and the journey to those stages.
I had the crazy realization a couple of weeks ago that we'll be actual doctors in 1.5 years. It's insane.
lol not if my lack of self confidence gets it's way
yes! I’m super concerned about that. I mean we got pulled originally when there were zero cases in my hospital and 4 confirmed cases in the whole county. Now I’m hearing that nationally cases are surging again. Although I used to check the state and county data every day in the beginning, I’ve long since gotten pandemic fatigue and have no idea locally how it’s going.
I've stopped monitoring too. I got concerned when I heard they were stopping visitors again at my hospital. I'm trying not to think too much about it because it makes me super stressed. I (admittedly, very incorrectly) thought we would be out of the woods by this point.
I cant wait till the day when I dont have to worry about my grades/board scores/making myself competitive for the match anymore. Oh well at least Step 1 is over lol
I hate how different comquest is than UW. Was actually starting to do well on UW psych questions then started doing comquest and getting owned. What sucks is that my comquest predicted has been spot on for shelves and I did UW first this time and have 4 days until my shelf to do comquest fackkkk
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Eh, I'm kind of iffy on this. I agree we shouldn't be seeing COVID/COVID-suspected patients (which I have not been), but considering how essential rotations are to us becoming competent physicians, I'm not sure pulling us is the right move. I see both sides of the argument for sure, though.
@Neopolymath or anyone else who's had OB-- did you do the UWise questions and find them helpful? I've heard a lot of people use them but I'm planning on doing all of UWorld so trying to squeeze another qbank in will be challenging.
I finished UW but did some UWise questions as well. I don't really feel strongly about them. Some seem a little too advanced for our training but a lot of people swear by them!
I’ve never even heard of Uwise. OB/Gyn was my highest COMAT. I did a sprinkle of Uworld, half of comquest, and studied via reading related to my patients every day.
Cool, thanks guys!
i just did anking+UW. didnt find it necessary to sprinkle in anything else for the 110+
Anyone have tips for psych? Haven't done a patient interview in two months so I'm a little rusty.
Don't start it for a week but I'm looking forward to getting back in game finally
Don't start it for a week but I'm looking forward to getting back in game finally
On psych rn and take my comat thursday. I basically just did 15-20 UW questions per day starting day 1 of the rotation which has left open about a little less than a week to rip through comquest leading up to the exam where I do blocks of 40-50 timed to simulate the comat since as everyone knows comats can be very different than UWorld (often easier but the wordage and HY is different between the two). I listened to Emma Holiday and Dr. High Yield the first week on my commute to get a brief overview for the rotation and will most definitely watch them again two days before my exam. I also listened to OME on 1.5 speed twice but didn't find it really that helpful tbh. Emma and Dr. HY are absolute fire though so I definitely would watch those at least once. Overall, get ready to chill a lot and have a life during psych lol these next few weeks will be a mini vacation (other than studying 2 hours per day which I do at the hospital I am literally chilling HARD and get to come home everyday (sometimes at noon lmao) and watch netflix/workout and do whatever i want its actually so awesome
I don't know if this is just a me thing, a KCU thing, or a DO thing, but I feel like 3rd year is so chill all-around because the expectations are practically nothing of me. Most of my rotations are just me following a doc around while they do their thing. I had one semi-difficult IM rotation in the hospital, but FM and OB required basically a pulse from me. I just grind though the anking deck between patients or while I'm sitting around doing nothing and that was enough to gets honors at our school in FM and OB (haven't taken IM yet). I almost feel like a fraud at this point lol
Sounds all too familiar. My IM rotation was wards based on teaching service with residents and they expected a lot of me but it was a great learning environment. Other than that its been basically a joke. I didnt mind the challenge on IM because I want to do GI so IM is realy the only rotation I care about. I am pretty nervous about my aways at places I actually want to go to because I feel like i am going to look like a doofus with the low expectations and poor quality of my rotations (minus IM). I rotate with some of the M4s who are MD students from other hospitals who come for electives and they are rockstars with presenting and their overal knowledge. Like i love that my mental health rn with how chill everything is superb but like I dont want the chill level to bite me in the ass for auditions. Also those med students that say M3 sucks and it rivals M2 in terms of sucky-ness can literally gtfo lol there is no comparison. M3 is basically a vacation compared to M2. M2 was the worst year of my life lmao
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Yep, we're living the same life right now, haha. Great now but I'm pretty certain I'm going to look like a huge jackass come fourth year and beyond. I had some MD students on my IM rotation, who granted were a year ahead of me, but they were way sharper in all aspects. Just can't imagine myself there in 7-8 months. On the upside, you have good board scores, and after speaking with some IM residents from a local university program, auditions didn't seem to be that big of a deal in IM. One resident went as far as to tell me that if you look strong on paper, auditioning has little upside, but a lot of opportunities to make you look worse. N=1, but I'm hoping that's a generally true sentiment.
Yes! I have heard the same but my only thing is that doing an audition at these places gives me the opportunity to get a letter from academic IM faculty which can go a long way for a DO applicant at the upper tier uni IM programs. High board scores and honors grades will only get me so far since most people applying to those types of places have both. other than that it comes down to research and letters and i have zero research so lol
Fellow KCU student and I Agree that this year seems much more chill than I expected. I Get your concern after seeing those 4th years but honestly I thought the same of myself about for clinical rotations after talking to some third years last December/January. I was expected to be that knowledgeable and put together in only a few months? So far it has turned out alright, at least on paper.
I think part of the reason everything seems chill is because at KCU we had a massive exam every 2 weeks or so. Now I have a whole month to do anki cards or more, when I had only 2 weeks to do the same amount at KCU. Couple that with only one exam a month, there is 100% wayyyy less work to do and a different kind of work. Sure pulling a few 16 hour shifts for surgery was rough, but work wise and what was expected was a million times easier than prepping for that first CPR exam second year.
I've also started to realize that my idea of what I'm supposed to be able to do is vastly different from reality. I talked to a few docs and they really do see a much bigger difference in 3rd and 4th years. This year is supposed to be spent getting acclimated to the hospital setting and interacting with patients, and 4th year is supposed to be spent doing all the things we think we should be doing 3rd year (managing patients more independently, treatment plans, etc)
Congrats on the honors! I have not been able to pull one off yet, hoping that Surgery will be the turnaround, Dorian seemed to work really well for some people here and I'm trying to get more Comquest done. I think I was doing Uworld too much for the COMATS. trying to do 75% or more of Uworld questions and then 100% of the Comquest ones. I have two months of electives at the before dedicated for Step2, so I plan to finish up any Uworld questions I might have left around that time.
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Stumbled upon this thread and sadly a lot of this reminds me of my third year. I strongly, and I mean strongly, urge you all to set up early fourth year (if you can) rotations at academic programs (even ones you know you have no chance at just so you can become a better student). On the other side you can 100% tell which students had joke third year rotations.
Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss things further/ you don’t want to ask on here.
Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss things further/ you don’t want to ask on here.
This is my plan for next year, I don't plan on being at my core site at all. I've started to gather where I want to do them, but the real issue is deciding the order.
I want to apply Med Peds and I'm unsure if I should do a IM and Peds rotation at an academic program before I do a Med Peds rotation with the goal of getting a good medpeds letter
After doing UWorld, I can't believe how poorly written these comquest questions are for psych. Most idiotic questions ever covering the most obscure and low yield topics
I yell at comquest a lot. the explanations are also ass
Do I need to IM GI questions for the Surg Comat, or do the comquest and UWorld questions cover everything pretty well?
EDIT: just found out I'm missing a week of my psych rotation because my preceptor is going on vacation.
EDIT: just found out I'm missing a week of my psych rotation because my preceptor is going on vacation.
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No, the surgery questions cover everything. This advice is from back when the surgery portion of UWorld barely had any questions, it's at like 500+ now. I just did UWorld.
Sounds good. I finish all of comquest today, I did about 60% of uworld, maybe i can finish those up too before friday.
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Whoever still has psych, the comquest psych questions are absolute garbage. Worst bank ive seen yet. Like expecting you do know the most bizarre facts that you couldn't even find on the internet. Either that or giving you a patient with MDD and giving you all SSRIs as answer choices and asking you to pick one. I just had a question where the patient went into torsades and they asked which drug was the culprit and they give you 4 different atypical antipsychotics (risperidone, ziprazidone, quetiapine etc all of which can cause long qt). So infuriating lol
Ugh. That's gonna be my first COMAT - I take it in January and I'm scared. It's gonna suck.
The UWorld questions are great. Theyre hard but fair and actually teach you psych. the DO banks are a ****show. Youll be fine though (youre obviously a good test taker-youre in the 700s club lol)
I heard the psych COMAT was stupidly hard and one where people tend to do below their average so I guess this makes sense lol
It makes a lot of sense now lol its weird because some of my friends who want to go into psych did horrible on step and comlex but honored psych. These comats are such a toss up
this is so weird because on the MD side I thought I've always heard that psych is the easiest one.
exactly! samesies
Whelp I did the math, missing 3 weeks of rotations (2 from COVID, 1 from preceptor being on vacation) comes out to about 5 grand in wasted money.
Got a 112 on the family med COMAT. I thought it was very random and kind of hard so I was happy that I honored it. Finally scored high enough on my preceptor eval to honor the rotation too!
I'm on psych now and am not at all looking forward to this rotation or COMAT (sorry to any psych people on here!). Just not my niche lol.
I hope everyone is doing well! The fact that we're nearing the halfway point of third year is crazy.
I'm on psych now and am not at all looking forward to this rotation or COMAT (sorry to any psych people on here!). Just not my niche lol.
I hope everyone is doing well! The fact that we're nearing the halfway point of third year is crazy.
yooooooo congrats bro! FM comat is tough thats a huge win
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