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As an incoming OSM1, I'm curious as to what things you upper classmen would've done differently if you could do it over again? Tips, tricks, recommendations, advice?
What's something you wish you knew/did as an incoming OSM1?
- Thread starter shur711
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How to use anki, how to use brosencephalon along side school studies. If you don't know what that is, search anki for med school on youtube. Also search for Bros 2.1 or something along those lines. Learn how to use hierarchical tags, so that you can target a very specific topic that you are learning in your curriculum
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Here's a list. I'ma do a whole new thread in a few weeks or so about what I've learned as a new third year ... but here's a list of stuff for now.
- If you don't want to study with anybody.... DO NOT DO IT. Don't be afraid of being called a "loner" or "gunner". Eff 'em. You do what feels right to YOU.
- Do NOT give your "friends" answers to any practicals. I did this only ONCE in the beginning years and this guy would call me EVERYTTTIMMEE before his practical to get info... when he would ignore me in class or in the halls. When I asked him for some help for lecture stuff... didn't return my text or call claiming that his phone was "messed up"... but wait up... he was just using his phone 2 hours ago in lecture while on IG and texting people...??? People only care about themselves and are selfish as a motherlover.
- Stay away from gossip. Do NOT discuss who you are dating or who is dating who with ANYBODY. If anybody talks about OTHERS and THIER love life... you stay away from it. Change the subject. Leave the convo.
- DO NOT discuss grades with anybody. It is none of their business and it is none of yours either.
- DO NOT put others down and call them "dumb" because you may have found out that he/she barely passed a class. Chances are that same person will knock it out of the park in 3rd and 4th year because they have more common sense and may not be good at the relentless memorization that some of the gunner douchers are and know how to read people better than you ever will.
- Be cool with the smart gunner people. Give them compliments. Bake them cupcakes. Ask to have them maybe tutor you or clarify stuff and what they are using to study and that you would be happy if you could do as good as they are (or as they "claim" to be doing"). Remember... these people love to have their ego fed. They wanna be known as the top dog. I got super cool with a couple guys that were clearing 90% in classes (our advisors were the same and they let me know what was up...) and they gave me access to materials I have never even heard of that helped in small ways to help clear up misconceptions.
- There will always be somebody smarter than you. Nut up and give them their props when due. You are not a special snowflake anymore.
- for god sake's... don't randomly QUIZ people for the hell of it. If nobody asked to be quizzed... then don't do it. You look like a doucher.
I remember this chick tried randomly doing it to me once on material that I hadn't even started lecture for (she'd always be 3-4 days ahead on stuff).. and I said "sorry..I haven't covered that stuff. I'ma look at it later this week." and put on my headphones and resumed listening to music. Didn't bother me the rest of the year.
- Don't butt into convos when there is a group of people that are having a talk about something. If nobody asked for your opinion, just stfu and listen.
- DO NOT DISCUSS POLITICS or RELIGION or SEXUALITY and try to push your crazy ass views or whatever views you got onto others.
I really DGAF about your views on abortion because you know why? It can wait. I don't want your big mouth stopping lecture for a 15-minute spiel on your life story and your views when I can be out of here and get back to studying.
Seriously. There's more important crap to do than listen to stupid debates. More time listening to your crap is less time that I can spend doing things like studying... or eating... or watching netflix.
Grow the eff up.
Use COMMON SENSE.
Oh wait...
common sense isn't COMMON anymore. forgot about that.
Honestly... the studying part isn't HARD in medical school. It's the multiple personality types you have to deal with. I have never met so many entitled, bratty, spoiled princesses and princes before med school and am praying I don't have to work with any of these specific types of people in the future.
It is what it is though.
Wouldn't be doing anything else.
- If you don't want to study with anybody.... DO NOT DO IT. Don't be afraid of being called a "loner" or "gunner". Eff 'em. You do what feels right to YOU.
- Do NOT give your "friends" answers to any practicals. I did this only ONCE in the beginning years and this guy would call me EVERYTTTIMMEE before his practical to get info... when he would ignore me in class or in the halls. When I asked him for some help for lecture stuff... didn't return my text or call claiming that his phone was "messed up"... but wait up... he was just using his phone 2 hours ago in lecture while on IG and texting people...??? People only care about themselves and are selfish as a motherlover.
- Stay away from gossip. Do NOT discuss who you are dating or who is dating who with ANYBODY. If anybody talks about OTHERS and THIER love life... you stay away from it. Change the subject. Leave the convo.
- DO NOT discuss grades with anybody. It is none of their business and it is none of yours either.
- DO NOT put others down and call them "dumb" because you may have found out that he/she barely passed a class. Chances are that same person will knock it out of the park in 3rd and 4th year because they have more common sense and may not be good at the relentless memorization that some of the gunner douchers are and know how to read people better than you ever will.
- Be cool with the smart gunner people. Give them compliments. Bake them cupcakes. Ask to have them maybe tutor you or clarify stuff and what they are using to study and that you would be happy if you could do as good as they are (or as they "claim" to be doing"). Remember... these people love to have their ego fed. They wanna be known as the top dog. I got super cool with a couple guys that were clearing 90% in classes (our advisors were the same and they let me know what was up...) and they gave me access to materials I have never even heard of that helped in small ways to help clear up misconceptions.
- There will always be somebody smarter than you. Nut up and give them their props when due. You are not a special snowflake anymore.
- for god sake's... don't randomly QUIZ people for the hell of it. If nobody asked to be quizzed... then don't do it. You look like a doucher.
I remember this chick tried randomly doing it to me once on material that I hadn't even started lecture for (she'd always be 3-4 days ahead on stuff).. and I said "sorry..I haven't covered that stuff. I'ma look at it later this week." and put on my headphones and resumed listening to music. Didn't bother me the rest of the year.
- Don't butt into convos when there is a group of people that are having a talk about something. If nobody asked for your opinion, just stfu and listen.
- DO NOT DISCUSS POLITICS or RELIGION or SEXUALITY and try to push your crazy ass views or whatever views you got onto others.
I really DGAF about your views on abortion because you know why? It can wait. I don't want your big mouth stopping lecture for a 15-minute spiel on your life story and your views when I can be out of here and get back to studying.
Seriously. There's more important crap to do than listen to stupid debates. More time listening to your crap is less time that I can spend doing things like studying... or eating... or watching netflix.
Grow the eff up.
Use COMMON SENSE.
Oh wait...
common sense isn't COMMON anymore. forgot about that.
Honestly... the studying part isn't HARD in medical school. It's the multiple personality types you have to deal with. I have never met so many entitled, bratty, spoiled princesses and princes before med school and am praying I don't have to work with any of these specific types of people in the future.
It is what it is though.
Wouldn't be doing anything else.
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--It'll feel like you're the only one struggling. You're not. Everyone does at some point.
--If how you're studying isn't working, change it! Get advice from second years (they were you last year), colleagues who are doing well, and/or faculty. Don't get in a hole.
--If how you're studying is working, don't change it. There are as many ways to study as people in your class. Don't freak out because somebody else has a different strategy.
--Be friendly. Medicine's a team sport. Studying by yourself 100% of the time and only ever talking about medical school will get lonely really fast. Note that this doesn't mean you have to be obligated to go to every event, or be a social butterfly, or group study, or like everyone you meet. But find your people, because living in a bubble's no good for anybody.
--If how you're studying isn't working, change it! Get advice from second years (they were you last year), colleagues who are doing well, and/or faculty. Don't get in a hole.
--If how you're studying is working, don't change it. There are as many ways to study as people in your class. Don't freak out because somebody else has a different strategy.
--Be friendly. Medicine's a team sport. Studying by yourself 100% of the time and only ever talking about medical school will get lonely really fast. Note that this doesn't mean you have to be obligated to go to every event, or be a social butterfly, or group study, or like everyone you meet. But find your people, because living in a bubble's no good for anybody.
A
AnatomyGrey12
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Yeah. But sometimes those teams are goddamn horrible and you would be better off being traded.
<3 good luck in residency btw Ortnakas. <3
the answer to this is to just never go to campus unless you absolutely have to
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First year in a traditional curriculum here so I'll throw a couple extra tidbits.
- BE PREPARED TO GUN ON DAY ONE. Have your apartment ready. Meal plan set, Gym routine figured out. You don't want to spend your first couple weeks of medical school getting situated to a new area.
- Do the best you can do on your first test. Get an idea of what you need to do and understand what will work and won't work in medical school.
- If you do well (Higher than the average). Then you can decide to dial back to an extent and reach a point where you have a life. Slowly dial back. For example, if you had 5 passes of material and you do well. Change it to 4 passes. etc etc
- If you don't do well (Failing grade). TALK TO SOMEBODY. Change your study habits and find out what you did wrong. You need to figure out the "medical school game" better
- For first term focus only on the material. Don't try to determine what is "board relevant". Most of the info before systems is such a small portion of boards I wouldn't worry but if you fail 1st year you can't sit for boards
- OMM isn't as bad if you figure out the "game" behind it. The goal here is to be as efficient as you can. Spend as little time on it and focus on your main classes.
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AnatomyGrey12
Good comment. Made me think of something else:
I am constantly hearing classmates say stuff like, “well this won’t be on boards” or “this isn’t board relevant.” Don’t fall into this trap because surprise, it’s all board relevant. Literally every little minutia detail is fair game on USMLE. Just learn the material, don’t try to favor one thing over another because you think something “isn’t relevant.”
Learn to relax! take one day off and dont feel too guilty! Continue to maintain friendship outside of school and contact your family+friends. but take this advice AFTER you become adjusted to medical school load of course. school > friends/family (for now).
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This is a very truthful statement. Most of the people you will encounter will have had very little life adversity. I could go on forever about this--but yeah.
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Dude, maybe you are lucky and a have a good curriculum. At our school, we are CLEARLY and FREQUENTLY being taught material that will NEVER show up on boards. It has actually progressively worsened with each class we've taken. The last course of our 1st year had so many nonsense classes in it. Probably 10 hrs of lecture that was complete add-on nonsense. We also have a few PhDs who love to go super in depth on anatomy and cel bio material that is so far from relevant. In general, I agree though. I hate it when people say things like "Low Yield" or "High Yield" in regards to material. If there is yield to be gained from material, it is indeed always "High Yield" in my opinion.
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AnatomyGrey12
Lol no I hate our curriculum. But as I do practice questions and get more and more into board material it’s obvious that even the rando minutia I thought was pointless actually has merit. However I learn directly from textbooks and other sources, I don’t use class material at all.
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So, would you advise students to not use pathoma, sketchy, FA etc. to study for Step 1 (little sections at a time) during first year? I keep on hearing that it’d Be best to do this, but I don’t see how it’d be feasible at all 🙁
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yes you do this.
god I wish I could slap myself.
Technically... the SMART thing to do is to spend 3-4 days doing board prep. Get DIT or USMLE-RX flash fact videos and start working on getting through FA.
The other 3-4 days, you cram the lectures and aim for a 75% or higher in class.
Get kaplan or USMLE-RX qbank and get through it.
I have my step tomorrow and goddamn it I wish I had prepared starting in year 1 instead of waiting for summer.
***EDIT: Just want to add... that YES... there will be things from lecture that are on boards. I got some insider info recently from somebody that their STEP exams had stuff they hadn't seen since first year... like actual THEORIES behind certain things. so take that how you will. Bottom line is to just work your ass off every single frickin' day. That's all you can do.***
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Aww, Im sure you’ll do great. Thanks for answering and good luck!!
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AnatomyGrey12
I would use those as you go through whatever topic you are doing. Example: as you are studying Biochem, take 30 min and read the correlating Biochem in FA to get a grasp on exactly what they want you to know. I use those to supplement my preparation for class exams and I do well so take that for what it’s worth. I personally think Pathoma is overrated, as it is all in FA anyway. Sketchy is gold for micro and pharm.
This is also why I suggest doing the Zanki deck. All of those resources are in it.
I literally don’t even open class PowerPoints. I use the textbooks and then the sources mentioned above, but I gain a lot from reading so that’s just me.
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Pathoma, B&B, physeo, and sketchy all solid resources to use from the get go. Theyre helpful in solidifying high yield points to every unit, regardless of their (great) utility for boards.
Dont buy FA unless youre big on reading books, wait till the newest version comes out prior to boards. If youre using FC/zanki youre basically learning FA for now. Besides a few references all year my copy is just collecting dust at this point.
Pick up FC/Zanki. But dont be surprised if you hate it for the first year, atleast w FC i didnt understand 50% of the sequelae/symptoms/etc for conditions we had learned because they has parts of the info that were systems/classes i hadnt learned yet. Idk how zanki does it, but theres a lot of connecting the dots between systems in the way FC quizes you. Feels like youre just memorizing words without meaning early on. But it helps out big time if you google/look up in FC what those new things mean.
Advice i wish i had, dont compare yourself to others. Set your goals and you do you. You cant possible use everysingle resource, study method, or do every single extra thing you think will help you. Find what works best for you and stick with it. I switched my study methods 10’s of times during 1st year without any change in my grades, waste of time and stressful. Find whats most efficient for you so you can do other shiz.
Best of luck OP
Dont buy FA unless youre big on reading books, wait till the newest version comes out prior to boards. If youre using FC/zanki youre basically learning FA for now. Besides a few references all year my copy is just collecting dust at this point.
Pick up FC/Zanki. But dont be surprised if you hate it for the first year, atleast w FC i didnt understand 50% of the sequelae/symptoms/etc for conditions we had learned because they has parts of the info that were systems/classes i hadnt learned yet. Idk how zanki does it, but theres a lot of connecting the dots between systems in the way FC quizes you. Feels like youre just memorizing words without meaning early on. But it helps out big time if you google/look up in FC what those new things mean.
Advice i wish i had, dont compare yourself to others. Set your goals and you do you. You cant possible use everysingle resource, study method, or do every single extra thing you think will help you. Find what works best for you and stick with it. I switched my study methods 10’s of times during 1st year without any change in my grades, waste of time and stressful. Find whats most efficient for you so you can do other shiz.
Best of luck OP
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For starting? Study groups wont work, just learn the concepts on the slides and look up anything you dont know.
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Med school is very doable. It takes some grit, thick skin, common sense, and respect for yourself/ your abilities.
OMM is a crapshoot. Cool when it works though.
Go to social events early to learn who to associate yourself with and who to avoid.
Don’t let yourself go during the year (in terms of health)
Work hard and don’t slack and fall behind.
DO = MD in terms of education and pay. Really the only things that matter.
At the end of the day Medical school is a business that is engineered to create doctors. You can do it.
OMM is a crapshoot. Cool when it works though.
Go to social events early to learn who to associate yourself with and who to avoid.
Don’t let yourself go during the year (in terms of health)
Work hard and don’t slack and fall behind.
DO = MD in terms of education and pay. Really the only things that matter.
At the end of the day Medical school is a business that is engineered to create doctors. You can do it.
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Kept up with my Zanki cards. 1030 undone reviews and counting hehehe. Might end up resetting my progress and do it by systems over the summer. Doesn't help that I'm still in the last 2 weeks of class basically learning everything on SketchyMicro (and more).
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All the people who said "This won't be on boards" or "This is low yield" tended to be the weaker students in my opinion. I feel that the people saying their lecturers add in a ton of non-relevant crap is grossly over-exaggerated on SDN and is probably a coping mechanism for doing poorly on an exam. Learn, understand, and/or memorize everything from your PowerPoints and life will be easy. I didn't bother with Step 1 resources until the fourth semester and it didn't affect me.
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AnatomyGrey12
Yep, or if you do join a few don't do it based on interest. Join the free ones (ie free stuff and food) and the one that will do the most and give out the coolest things to members (like cool jackets). Thats the extent of club usefulness.
Everyone joins the surgery club lol, and then magically by second semester there are only about 8 people that show up to club meetings and are still interested. I'm sure anatomy and cardio have absolutely nothing to do with that of course
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Remember to not be a miserable POS for 4 years. Remember it's a marathon, not a sprint. If you need to take an evening off, then do it.
Likewise remember that you're studying something that directly impacts other human being's lives. Take it seriously, don't blow it off by saying this is too hard or I don't want to do it. Your goal should be towards self growth, not mediocrity.
Likewise remember that you're studying something that directly impacts other human being's lives. Take it seriously, don't blow it off by saying this is too hard or I don't want to do it. Your goal should be towards self growth, not mediocrity.
What a funny contrast; my interview days stressed the importance of study groups.
Thanks for that reminder; I felt that on the MCAT. The high-yield/ low-yield advice everyone gave was totally wrong for my test.
A
AnatomyGrey12
Yeah I got that too at interviews when I was doing that. It’s a complete lie. Study groups are a huge waste of time.
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To add to the study group comment. Your school will likely have presentations on how to study/be efficient in med school. Take these with a grain of salt bc these people doctorates in education and have never been to med school.What a funny contrast; my interview days stressed the importance of study groups.
Thanks for that reminder; I felt that on the MCAT. The high-yield/ low-yield advice everyone gave was totally wrong for my test.
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I think study groups help but not the format like in undergrad. Study the material first on your own, then find some people to come together a couple days before the exam and go over topics and quiz each other.
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Personally, I do study groups for the really easy classes (OMM, statistics class or a public health course) and for the really hard lectures.
It is usually only 3-4 people at max. Everyone has had a first pass of the material before getting together. There is no distractions because we all want to get it over with.
We basically write on the white board what we think is important and what the professor is probably going to test on. If there is something we need to memorize we'll try to make "sketchy-like" pneumonic for things we have to memorize.
Sounds crazy but personally for me it works.
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I feel as if these were always more about getting people to be social than anything. You really need to make some legitimate friends. I can honestly say that if I didn't have the friends I had, medical school would have probably been a far more unbearable process.
It is really true though. At KCU it's pretty well-known that the minutiae is over the top. I'm talking about minutiae at the expense of board relevant information. Minutiae per se isn't harmful - when it's done at the expense of things we need to know, that's when people should get mad.
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QFT.
My school seems to make half of the material at least somewhat board relevant and the other half falls in the range of “Gee, wouldn’t it be cool if they knew this?” The latter won’t be anywhere in any resource except the class textbook and not even there sometimes.
One of our physiologists taught us a bunch of subtypes of K and Ca channels that are involved in the action potential. I could not verify the existence of these channels anywhere.
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preach
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I remember this too haha.
The problem comes when it becomes difficult to parse out what is minutae for the exam and what is minutae for the boards. Ex, knowing whether histo v.s cocc v.s blasto is the smaller one or which one is going to be in macrophages. Personally I thought it was such a random topic and blew it off, but then I had to learn when I actually got around to boards.
Overall the biggest issue is that we need to optimize the use of resources better for every topic. I think many different topics can be taught exquisitely well and even more perfectly for class and boards if you know the right resources for them. For example sketchy micro is still undoubtedly the gold standard in my book for microbiology. Pathoma is by far the best INTRODUCTION and REVIEW of a system path and makes for a great foundation to build upon. And so on...
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Things must have really changed the last few years.
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Would’ve used anki and rx from the get go.
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Sorry, might be a bit of a noob question, but what is FC?
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AnatomyGrey12
Firecracker. It’s a spaced repetition program that you pay for that many people use. The platform is easier to use than Anki and is more aesthetically pleasing but Anki is free and the algorithm is better.
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study study study. I wish I wouldve studied more first and second year and studied smarter for long term retention. Who cares if people call you a gunner. That's how you get into a good specialty. Even if you want to do family medicine- study and get good grades and scores as if you wanted to pursue plastic surgery. You never know when/if you change your mind and having a high score and good grades will always be beneficial .
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Your avatar pic is the most appropriate response to your post.
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And not only that, but Family Med is one of the only fields where you’ll actually constantly use all that info you’re learning.
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I always say to focus on the overarching concepts over the memorized minutiae. Not necessarily at the expense of ignoring minutiae, but you should develop a certain familiarity with the nuts and bolts of each system and/or clinical science course, such that you’ve got extra capacity for minutiae because you’re not desperately trying to keep the basics in your brain. Yeah, boards contain it all, but a solid understanding of the big picture concepts is an extremely powerful tool.
You can reason through almost anything that way, and you’ll be a MUCH better clinician.
You can reason through almost anything that way, and you’ll be a MUCH better clinician.
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I wish I knew how versatile zanki was so that during first year, I could've skipped all the classes and simply just zanki'd my way through every lecture. That way I'd have even MORE time to play video games and catch up on all my anime.
Eh, not that it would've been possible, since zanki was nonexistant as a first year for me but damn the upcoming first years will be lucky if they know privelege they're given right now...
Eh, not that it would've been possible, since zanki was nonexistant as a first year for me but damn the upcoming first years will be lucky if they know privelege they're given right now...
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1. You may not be getting good advice from the school about how to study. I tried their "study every thing, every day" advice and promptly failed exams. Which leads me to...
2. Don't be afraid to shift gears and change up study methods. It may take multiple attempts. What worked in OMS-1 may need to change for OMS-2.
One for the older students:
3. Get your health in order before it starts. It was November of OMS-1 before I realized I needed new glasses. My anatomy grade went up considerably, since I could discern smaller details.
4. There are other resources. I didn't realize that there were question books, supplemental texts, youtube videos, etc. until later than I should have.
2. Don't be afraid to shift gears and change up study methods. It may take multiple attempts. What worked in OMS-1 may need to change for OMS-2.
One for the older students:
3. Get your health in order before it starts. It was November of OMS-1 before I realized I needed new glasses. My anatomy grade went up considerably, since I could discern smaller details.
4. There are other resources. I didn't realize that there were question books, supplemental texts, youtube videos, etc. until later than I should have.
When you say older... how old are you referring ?
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Late 30's-early 40's. I was 37 during OMS-1
