Half-way through all my mistakes || Dedicated || Sgu
Life
Life Without Lecture
It’s amazing. Now I just torture myself instead of an external pressure. It’s been an ironic experience. I had the choice to do a 6.5 week dedicated after a couple days of rest from Term 5 to get a scored Step. Classes before me had to scored Step, but I wanted it because I felt anxious about securing a California residency placement. I have a lot of roots here which was probably not a smart parameter to start international medical school with. So even though studying for Step was super painful, I couldn’t blame it on necessity. I picked my own poison.
I really feel for those who had this pressure on their shoulders. I ultimately decided against rushing towards scored Step because I really needed an 8 week prep. But in the 4 weeks that I was actively trying, my body and mental state completely fell apart. Here’s to crossing my fingers that I can do well on Step 2 and get to stay in my home!
Human moments: Christmas edition
Life doesn’t wait for dedicated to be over! My boyfriend and I hosted my family for the holidays for the first time ever. It was a huge step as an adult (shudders) and I’m trying so hard not to miss out on the once-in-the-life time moments.
Dedicated: A draft
Was i prepared for this?
Short answer, no. Long answer, is anyone (besides the naturally gifted who would never read my blog) ready? Sure! I can say after studying for 4 weeks that the skills that got me decent scores on SGU exams aren’t helpful in NBMEs and Uworld. For most of the time in basic sciences, I was in survival mode. I didn’t make space to understand concepts and then connect them.
What I was most surprised by was how much basic anatomy and biochemistry came up in NBMEs and how I did not touch them since Term 2. It’s been painful trying to reach back and collect all those fallen pathways.
My dedicated schedule
I started dedicated having reviewed Boards & Beyond, Sketchy, Pathoma, and most of First Aid at least once. That has been incredibly helpful because I spent less time rewatching whole videos and could go back for certain snippets. However, about 2 weeks in my bad habits kicked in and I started reviewing material too much. So much that there was little time for questions.
As far as practice questions, I did some Uworld in Term 5 but I still had about 2900 questions. I also planned to take an NBME every week, starting with the older versions in the last few weeks of Term 5. Then I planned to do the newer forms in order starting from Form 26 and inserting Form 25 in the middle (per Reddit advice). I also planned to do the Uworld forms (UWSA 1 & 2) near the end because I heard they overpredict and give you a confidence boost. If I learned anything from weight lifting is that a good mentality and momentum can take you far.
With a 6.5 week timeline in mind, I had about 4 days for each subject and I ran 2 subjects a day at a staggered schedule. If I could do it again, I would put more eggs in doing practice questions. However once I started seeing how much I didn’t remember, I started to get obsessive with reviewing.
Daily schedule
My template was starting the day with a workout at 7 AM to set the tone. Then I would alternate between Uworld and Topic Review (rewatching videos). I would aim for 4 Uworld blocks: 2 specific to a topic and 2 mixed. Then I would end the day with 5 concepts from 100 Anatomy Concepts, some BRS physiology because I’m terrible at physiology, and lastly Anki. My Anki deck was made of topics I got incorrect during my Uworld blocks.
To be honest, I would start at 7 AM, cook lunch around noon, dinner at 7 PM, and study again until 11 PM. It was grueling and totally inconsistent with how I work. Going forward especially with pass/fail, I’m going to follow a schedule more like the one below. I frankensteined a bunch of other spreadsheets I found on Reddit to make this spreadsheet as a calendar, NBME trackers, and resource checklist. Hopefully, it’s helpful to someone. There is a link to my google drive with all the spreadsheets as well.
How i reviewed questions
I tried every method like physical Uworld journals, a word document (because we love CTRL+F), and writing things into First Aid. What I ended up doing is taking the Uworld blocks in test mode. When reviewing, I would add the related Anki cards to the incorrect to a deck. I also ended up writing high yield things into a notebook which I tabbed out with topics. Maybe going forward, I’ll go back to annotating First Aid but sometimes explanations take more room than First Aid has. I also had an empty scrap notebook because my mind sometimes needs to write things out to learn them but I do that very sparingly because the time cost is great.
How my incorrect Anki deck looks
Outside resources for dedicated
Blogs I loved:
Sincerely Millie: I love this blog! I read the Step post before Term 5 to guide how I approached Term 5. It was incredibly helpful to get an idea of resources, timing, and what to expect.
StepsToUSMD: If you’re looking for a treasure chest of resources and study schedules, this is a great blog.
Cumulative Reviews I would listen to while doing chores/working out
Dr. Rahul Damania’s youtube videos: pretty good comprehensive reviews on systems. I especially love the high yield topic videos which were so helpful for tying in clinical features, imaging, and pathology.
Divine Podcasts: I definitely earned a couple of points each NBME from little tidbits Divine would work into his podcasts.
TL;DR my learning moments
More questions!
Now being pass/fail, it’s a balance of not losing yourself and not letting your guard down. From what I heard, Step 1 is very much foundational towards the other Steps which are not too far away! I also haven’t been briefed on what to expect beyond this point so I’m not sure how much study time I will or can get to study for the other exams so best to do the work now when I have time.
Comprehension > Memorization. These topics will follow me far into the future. There are also so many topics. Only so much will be included in one test and I’m sure there will be some things I have never seen. However, I believe if I understand enough I can reason it out or eliminate other choices.
My original test date was January 25th which was the absolute last day to take scored Step. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be ready so I moved my late about 2 weeks back to February 11th. Trying to manifest some abundance vibes here haha. So wish me luck!
Warmly, Rainee
Okay, halfway done with dedicated! Next time we talk, I’ll be free!