<p>Just wanted to apologize for comments I've made in the last week or so, or that I may make leading up to June 20th which may come across as mean or disrespectful. Studying for Step 1 has made me a little crabby, a little amped up, a little discomposed. Preparing for the MCAT put me in a similar state of mind, but I didn't realize it until well after. I've been apologizing to people all day, and that should include all of you on this board.</p>
<p>it's OK, we forgive you.</p>
<p>It's okay. And I'm sorry about calling you premed. I accidentally typed it, realized it after the 20 minutes was up to edit it, and acknowledged that I indeed made a mistake. It was finals week for me and I was extremely stressed out. </p>
<p>Hopefully you'll forgive me.</p>
<p>I forgive you too ;)</p>
<p>Have you gotten you 3rd year rotation schedule yet? If so, what you starting with? Do you have an idea of what specialty you might apply to next year?</p>
<p>Yeah, we got our third year rotations back in February.
Surgery (july/aug)-->Peds(Sept/Oct)--> Family Practice (Nov/Dec)--> Medicine (Jan/Feb/ March) --> Psych (April/ 2nd week in May) --> OB/GYN (2nd week in may/june)</p>
<p>I haven't gotten my surgery schedule yet, but preffed Peds Ortho and ENT as 1 and 2 for my two-week selectives during that rotation. </p>
<p>I'm 95% sure that I will be applying for pediatrics residencies, most likely along the west coast and colorado. I've been in the midwest my entire life, and I think it's time to try something different.</p>
<p>Since you are starting with surgery and interns start the same time, the
senior residents and attendings might not expect too much from you since they are still trying to help the interns get adjusted. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm 95% sure that I will be applying
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You never know, things might change when you start your rotations. Dr. Au @ <a href="http://theunderweardrawer.blogspot.com/%5B/url%5D">http://theunderweardrawer.blogspot.com/</a> started her pediatrics residency when she switch to anesthesiology after her 2nd yr in peds.</p>
<p>Believe me, I know that things may change. I currently find my interests in peds' sub-specialties changing about every two to three weeks. But my interest in peds is strong, and even when I consider other things like surgery or ortho, i think about the strong possibility of peds fellowships. I really just don't like old people that much...</p>
<p>Technically your advice about initial clerkships applies to everyone except those students at my school who are starting with family medicine, since my school requires FP to be done in a rural town.</p>
<p>T-4 days and my scores on Qbank have started going down - a lot...this is really sucks. So much to do in the next three days (It's going to be hard not to study on tuesday...even though I know it's the best strategy)</p>
<p>
[quote]
T-4 days and my scores on Qbank have started going down - a lot...this is really sucks. So much to do in the next three days (It's going to be hard not to study on tuesday...even though I know it's the best strategy)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Has the decrease been in a certain topic or just in general? Maybe you could go back and quickly review the section in first aid or maybe in BRS. The good thing is that the basic science years are behind you now. Besides that, good luck on the exam.</p>
<p>So all done - ended up taking me about 6 hours for the whole thing with two ten minute breaks and one 25 minute break.</p>
<p>Some thoughts...</p>
<p>It's not bad, but I don't want to have to take it over again. </p>
<p>It's really easy to over-study for micro. I was pretty surprised how few micro questions I got. I'm also really glad that I didn't study parasites at all over the last 7 weeks - didn't touch 'em, and only had 2 questions about them, one of which was just identifying malaria.</p>
<p>I was super worried about pharm, but in the end it didn't end up too bad. Not sure if I got lucky or not.</p>
<p>I had what seemed like a lot of neuro questions - maybe just b/c those are the ones I struggled with most.</p>
<p>For the most part I was pretty pleased with Kaplan - I used their inclusive WebPrep lectures which included QBank and IV QBank. The IV stood for Integrated Vignettes - that was pretty much the only worthless part as the questions were way too easy and came based on a single clinical scenario which isn't at all like the exam. Regular QBank was a pretty fair approximation of the exam. That, along with the NBME practice exams meant for no surprises.
As far as the lectures, the Kaplan Immuno and pathology was pretty good. Path could have been better but was surprisingly sufficient. </p>
<p>1st Aid is a godsend, and I wish I had split my time up a little better towards the end to just focus on going through that. I also wish that i had used it in conjunction with my school work a little more - there were some great tables that I only managed to find with in the last 4 days. I'm telling all my soon-to-be M2 friends and the people I know who will be M1s in the fall to pick up 1st Aid and use it everyday.</p>
<p>Also, while I have books like Board Review Series for Anatomy and Neuro, and the Illustrated Review: Biochem book - they're all way too in depth for boards review in my opinion. </p>
<p>I probably should have pushed myself at least once or twice in the weeks leading up to the exam to have done a full, 7 section practice exam. I knew it was going to be a grind and had planned accordingly with the stuff I was bringing (ie: gatorade, protein for breakfast, etc), and I was taking pretty frequent breaks within each section, but there were definitely some times when I caught myself not really reading the questions and letting my mind wander.</p>
<p>This was my first time taking a computer based test like this...I would have preferred pencil and paper I think, but it wasn't bad. The software is pretty good at letting you highlight and cross out and so on...Being a true Gen Yer, i think meant that looking at a computer screen for 6 hours wasn't that big of deal either...</p>
<p>As for how I did...I don't care. Scores don't come back for 6 weeks so it don't matter. Time to start dulling the days with booze. BRM out...</p>
<p>
[quote]
So all done .....
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Congratulation Red! On to the wards now.</p>