PREP BEFORE
The best advice I can give you depends on how much time you have. If you have an entire summer of sitting around I would buy the FirstAid book for USMLE Step 1. Go through this ENTIRE thing about once a month. Just casually reading and looking up stuff. Memorizing some things if you want. If you don’t have any time then just go to class and study like everyone else. You might struggle and have to spend a little more time in certain areas but you will get through it, no worries. This is what the book looks like:
CURRICULUM
Most schools either teach the "Subject method" or the "Systems based method". Subject method is where you have certain classes / subjects during a given semester, usually around 4 or 5. Systems based takes all the subjects and teaches you all the material from each subject for a particular organ system (ex Cardiovascular, you would have all the pathology, microbiology, pharmacology, etc. for this one system and maybe another in a given semester).
I had the subject method and it was cool, others I know really enjoy the systems based method because of the extreme focus on one organ system at a time, it helps with understanding and correlating a lot of ideas and concepts.
These are the classes you will take during your first couple of years and the number of semesters you take them usually:
- Biochemistry
- Anatomy
- Physiology
- Histology
- Doctor's, Patient's, and Society (This is a how to interact with people in different situations)
- Neurology
- Pharmacology
- Microbiology
- Pathology
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine (Learning how to do physical tests like reflex's, blood pressure, etc.)
TIPS FOR STUDYING
There are all sorts of ways to study. Sometimes that's the biggest challenge in school is to find one that works for you. Sometimes it will change also from one style to another depending on your performance needs. So I'll just tip on some pretty sweet stuff that others taught me and some of it I used a lot and found a great deal of success from.
- Study Product: condensing the material that is covered in class / books to a quicker, easier to read and understandable format. This will make studying super efficient and help with recall on tests. Here are some that have really helped people:
- Condensed Notes: write your own shortened and understandable notes. I've seen people do it by hand and more and more by computer using programs like Word, OneNote, etc. Here are some tips to make your notes stellar:
- Organization: make your notes so that all the info you learn for a certain subject is in the same area. On tests, I've been able to knock out certain answer choices because they were not in a certain area on my notes, so I know they weren't right. Use general categories and subcategories to help with this, for example:
- Lung
- Alveoli
- Write something snazzy here for notes :)
- Pressures
- Blood flow
- Abbreviations: come up with abbreviations that YOU can remember :). There will be all sorts of random accronyms for abbreviating diseases and recalling information (ex. ADPKD = AutosomalPolycysticKidneyDisease). I would put AD-PKidD and that would help me remember that its something with the kidney and rest would follow quickly after studying multiple times.
- Doodles: use drawings instead of words to show a process. I'm a bigger fan of pictures than words (in books and in studying) :). An good example is the nephron found in kidney, its what makes urine and it also reabsorbs different molecules at certain places along its length:
- Flow Charts = use arrows, +, --, and other symbols to show effects and processes. I would use a + to mean something was activated or increased and vice versa for a --. Arrows were to show where the next step in a process was. This is helpful in allmost all the subjects. Hormones for example: + LH (abbreviated for leutinizing hormone) --> Ov (Ovulation) --> + Prog (Progesterone). It looks cleaner without the explaining brackets: + LH --> Ov --> + Prog.
- Colors = use highlighters to accentuate things. I would use pink or orange for names and then green would be for anything that is activated or increased and blue would be for inactivated or decreased. Like this: if -- O2 --> PyDH --> + Lactate. This helped when I was recalling on a test, I could remember seeing colors a lot easier than specific words or even symbols.
- Tables
- Flash Cards
- Group Studying
- Questions
- Routine
- Breaks
