Milestone: 1st subscriber on youtube.

Yay. I got my first subscriber to youtube channel. Awesomeness.

Why Christmas holds a special place in my heart!

Christmas time is a special time for me.

This has nothing to do with gifts. I am not a material kind of guy. There are, usually, not that many things that I am interested in buying. Also, if I want to buy it I would’ve bought it already. I won't wait for Christmas. When I do buy something, it is likely to a cheap a book that I just can’t wait to devour. Otherwise there isn’t much that I anticipate getting.

To me Christmas has meaning because two related reasons.

The first is that it is my father’s birthday. My father holds a special place in my heart. He’s a cool dad. As a result of it being his birthday, we as a family spend it Christmas together always, which brings me to my next point.

The second part of Christmas that I enjoy is that I get to spend it with whole family. The food always tastes good in great company. We get to talk and eat and relax. Not a bad combination that can be beaten.

I had a great time this Christmas. The spreads for the day were dished up my sister. She flexed her cooking skills in the kitchen, conjuring up something special. We ate and ate and ate. Whew. I’m sure I gained an extra 5 lbs this day.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas as well, and if you do not celebrate Christmas I hope you had a good time off from work. 

Why do I succeed?

I heard this quote while listening to a video on youtube. I thought it was awesome. 

“Why Do I Succeed?
I succeed because I am willing to do the things you are not. I will fight against the odds. I will sacrifice. I am not shackled by fear, insecurity, or doubt. I feel those emotions drink them in and then swallow them away to the blackness of hell. I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride. Pride consumes the weak-kills their heart from within. If I fall, I will get up. If I am beaten, I will return. I will never stop getting better. I will never give up, ever.

That is why I succeed.” - by Anonymous

The two most important resources for passing the Step 2 CS

If you disrespect any of the step exams you will fall short and fail the exam. The most important thing for these exams is to prepare in the right manner. My focus for now will be on the CS examination. I will give you the two basic resources to pass the CS exam.

The first thing use is the right book. There are a few books out there. The two most commonly used books used are the Kaplan CS and the First Aide Cs books. I used first Aide to study.

I found First aide to be more than sufficient as a resource. It is divided in a way that covers all the necessary aspects of the exam. If you use First Aide in the right way you should have all the knowledge needed to pass the examination. If you are interested in me writing about how to use first aide let me know in the comments or via email. 

The second most important thing for the exam is… Guess. If you said fish and chips you are wrong. Lol. Just kidding. It is having a LIVE practice partner. The key word is live. You want to run through the whole clinical encounter, from taking history to doing the physical examination, as realistically as possible.

This is where I went wrong. I studied on my own and did not give this exam the respect it deserved, as a result I failed my first attempt. I rectified this and got multiple LIVE partners. I would drive for miles just to make sure I had someone to practice with. On a few occasions, I would drive to a friends place early in the morning, and wake him up to practice. I had to make the effort to practice. If I did not put in the effort, I would not have a practice partner regularly, and if this resulted in another fail I would have only myself to blame.

During my second attempt at the CS, it was difficult to find a consistent study partner. This is the case for most people, and might also be the case for you as well. I had to be creative. I used multiply people to practice. I worked with some for only one day. Luckily for me, I had multiple friends around. All that was necessary was to make the effort to go to them. I did this. 

Finding a book to use is easy, finding a consistent partner is hard. Knowing this I started to help others by serving as their practice partner. I first worked with friends and then with other people as a practice partner. I share with them what worked for me in passing the exam and helped them prepare in the right way. If you are interested call the number in my bio.

Good luck. Crush that step!

The anxiety of applying to the match

Its 10/26/16 and I have not received a single FM interview yet. Tic toc. Applications opened in September 15,2016, tic toc. Many have received numerous interview invites, but I have received nothing yet. Tic Toc. Some programs have already filled all their interview slots. Tic Toc.

The nerves as time goes by. I am in the same position as last time. Well not necessarily the same since I have at least one im interview. I want family medicine interviews. Will I get any interviews? Will I even get the opportunity to match.

No matter, what my nerves do, I know one thing. I will push to the end. I will contact these programs over and over. Why? I am interested in them. 

Edit:

I wrote this on 10/26/16,  at a time I had no interviews. Today, 12/14/16, I am sitting on 5 interviews. The Match is getting more and more competitive now so interviews are tough to get especially when you have a blemish on your USMLE transcript. I pray I do well in my interviews. Practice, Practice, Practice is the name of the game. 

What did I do after I got a 185 on UWSA to boost my score.

I get numerous questions from residents as well as img’s trying to take the step 3 exam. The most common question so far is what is it that I did after I scored a 185 on the UWSA test?

Unlike the other exams –step 1, 2 ck- which have numerous self-assessment exams, the step 3 only has 2 self-assessment exams currently. They are the 1 nbme exam and 1 uworld self-assessment exam (UWSA). As such you have to judicious in your use.

The self-assessment exams only test you on one portion of the main exam, and that is the multiple choice section. There is no CCS portion to the nbme and the UW self-assessment.  

The passing score of Step 3 is 196 at this point- it will most likely go up soon so make sure to check. As such a score of 185 is failing grade if you assume that the nbme and the UWSA exams correlate with the score you will get on the actual exam. Honestly, the only way to use the self-assessment exams is to assume they correlate. This brings me to my next point.

You must take your self-assessment exam early enough so that if you do not do as well as you want you have time to study and boost your knowledge or consolidate all the info you get from the different sources you used.

Last piece of advice before I share my routine is that the Step 3 is a really hard exam. If you have a low score I would advice against taking the exam soon after getting a poor self-assessment score. 

What I did after my UWSA score of 185?

I had between 3-4 weeks between my UWSA exam and the USMLE Step 3 exam. Also, I spaced out my 2 days over 10 days. Each day of the 3-4 week period before the main exam followed the snap shot I’m going to paste below. This is what I did on 8/30/16 but the other days were similar.

Routine:

8/30

-        4am- 5am: exercise-> review of ccs flash cards

-        5-550: step 3 notes

-        6-650 stats and ccs review:

-        7-750: mtb

-        8-850: questions: 2 UW blocks. Was soo tired that I could barely concerntrate. So I stopped and slept till 1 and then did the last block.

-        Reviewed questions till 630

-        630-730 relaxed

-        730- 11 archer videos  (2 hrs and 45 min)