Sakina Batool USMLE STEP 1 Experience

Stuff

Everybody is a different person and different resources work well for different people. I’m no expert, not even close, but this is the little that I know and have experienced. Hope it helps!

My timeline:

Core concepts major textbooks se ban jatay hain for any subject but for MLE-specific prep and to supplement my knowledge and practice I used BRS and Kaplan for the 1^st and 2^nd year subjects. Even if there wasn’t time to go through the chapters themselves (that’s not really necessary), I practiced MCQs from these books for whatever chapter I did for med school exams and stuff. In 3^rd year I revised Anatomy, Physio, and Biochem, and made sure I used MLE books in conjunction with the recommended textbooks for Gen Path, Pharm, Microbiology, Immunology, Ethics and Behavioral Sciences; in fact I did stuff from these books first and then the textbooks, which helped me know what stuff was really high-yield and aided in learning stuff from the textbooks and classes faster and better. Also did Neuropathology in 3^rd year. Practiced questions from Kaplan, BRS, USMLE-Rx, and First Aid USMLE Qbank (the book) for all these subjects. In 4^th year I revised these subjects again, did Biostats, completed Special Pathology on my own prior to stuff being taught at college, bought and practiced UWorld (I bought the 6 months subscription, was a reasonable duration, and then at the end I bought an extension for 7 days to practice some stuff and to review some flashcards), and the other Qbanks and all, will mention all of those below InshaAllah.

RESOURCES

First Aid

In 1^st year I got the 2018 edition, and made annotations on that. For the next two years I used the same book but kept checking the latest editions that came out every year (there was additional stuff always), and just did the extra stuff from the ebooks. There’s no need to buy a new edition every year. However it’s definitely necessary – at least in my humble opinion – to get the FA edition for the year you plan on taking your exam in, because you won’t have to keep checking ebooks for additions and this will thus save you time, plus you can make all the UWorld annotations on it instead of making the previous one a resource with an overload of information.

Videos

· Kaplan Biochemistry – Lionel Raymon’s + Dr. Turco’s videos (made annotations on the book)

· Randomly watched KenHub videos sometimes when I had trouble understanding some Anatomy correlations

· Sketchy for Microbiology (absolute gold. This is the reason I was confident about my Micro even in 4^th year Alhamdulillah). Btw there’s a book version of all Sketchy videos too. This is great for when you’ve watched the videos once/twice and don’t have time to watch them again but want to review stuff the same way. Facts associated with every part of the sketch as explained in the videos are written below a picture of each sketch.

· Sketchy Pharmacology (most videos are too long and there’s really no need to watch all of them – unlike Sketchy Micro, please watch all of them, they’ll definitely help IA – but they helped me for CVS drugs, some CNS drugs and especially for Antimicrobials and Anticancers, because for these the mechanisms/spectra/adverse effects are super important, heavily tested and highly confusing otherwise)

· Pathoma for General + Special Pathology

· Used Goljan’s audios very little for Path, but a senior told me he found them helpful and easy to listen to

· Kaplan for Pharm (I used Lionel Raymon’s 2010 lectures since I found them much more helpful than 2019’s Steve Harris ones despite the updated information as per the 2019 edition of the book, but ofc see what works best for you. But I’d highly suggest using Kaplan for Pharm regardless.)

· BnB lectures really helped me understand Immunology.

· BnB helped me build my initial Biostats concepts.

· Sometimes I didn’t feel like studying stuff directly from the books themselves so I started off by watching a BnB video for the topic and then moving on to the books. This helped expedite the process and get me started but this was random and just an extra push.

· Watched Osmosis videos for some Biochem topics + some extra topics I came across that I couldn’t find better explained elsewhere.

· Dirty Medicine (this guy is the best and great to listen to) – all subjects. He has a YouTube channel.

· Randy Neil (same as above). Taught new stuff plus helped develop question-solving skills.

Books

Anatomy

· (Gross) Anatomy Shelf Notes – absolute gold. The pdf is available online but let me know if you’ll want me to send the link.

· For my 3^rd year Gross Anatomy revision I used High Yield Gross Anatomy. It’s a good book.

· Kaplan Neuroanatomy. I don’t remember but I think I watched the videos as well, at least some of them.

· I practiced most questions from BRS for Gross Anatomy, Embryology and Histology. Not really necessary.

· Going back to an atlas when doing practice questions can be a helpful way to correlate stuff.

Physiology

· BRS is the best (for the subject matter + practice questions).

Biochemistry

· Kaplan Biochem (with the videos)

Pathology

· Pathoma

· Goljan says ‘rapid review’ on its cover but it’s a huge book. You can read up stuff if you’re using the audios but I used it very little.

Pharmacology

· Kaplan (regardless of the year of which you watch the videos, I’d suggest using the latest edition of the book while watching them. Almost all stuff is the same.)

Microbiology

· Sketchy + FA buss. Levinson was a compatible textbook.

Immunology

· FA after BnB worked for me. Disorders from Pathoma, no need to watch BnB for these if you choose to watch them at all for this.

Ethics

· Medical Ethics for the Boards by Conrad Fischer

· Khan’s Cases

Biostats

· I watched BnB to make my initial concepts.

· Randy Neil’s videos helped solidify them + acquaint me with questions.

· UWorld Biostats Review (Qbank)

QBANKS

· UWorld (Take it as a learning tool and not a test tool during your first pass. Percentages will be low at the beginning because it’s meant to gear you for tougher stuff but ultimately you get the hang of it and anyways this helps with learning + building of essential concepts. Remember, a second pass is not necessary. I’ve heard people who scored 260s say they didn’t want to waste their time doing the questions they’d more or less memorized, and I agree. I did 52% of my second pass and I’d already started practicing from other Qbanks after my first pass was completed to familiarize myself with unseen questions that tested my concepts. Some people recommend doing only your incorrects/marked questions instead of a complete second pass; that tends to work well too. Initially I did blocks in tutor mode and topic-wise and then moved on to timed and random.)

· UWorld Biostats Review (it’s a 3 month subscription for $25)

· USMLE Rx (definitely not as good as the other question banks but I started using it in 3^rd year and it really helps with FA memorization plus obv the practice questions do help. I did all Micro, Pharm, Immunology, Gen Path and Neuro questions in 3^rd year, and then did Ethics questions in 4^th year near my exam since that was being heavily tested. Especially interpreter questions. Didn’t have time for communications questions but I’d recommend doing them. In my last few days before the exam during my final go-through of FA I installed the app in my phone and tested myself on the topics which I’d always found challenging.)

· First Aid Step 1 Qbank (book) – a few questions are the same as USMLE Rx since the authors are the same and it’s FA oriented but this was good practice during 3^rd year.

· Amboss – definitely second to UWorld. I did a little over a thousand questions, predominantly from topics I personally found challenging or the ones that were being heavily tested. This and USMLE Rx have free 5 day trials which is what I used. It’s a hassle but saves money. Amboss also offers scholarships which can be applied for.

· I bought Kaplan Qbank ki books but honestly just did a few questions; the answers were right below the questions and I just didn’t find it conducive to learning.

· I used to do Kaplan’s Question of the Day series (online and free) on most days.

· Dirty Medicine’s video Qbank series – absolutely amazing for dead time usage and maybe before going to sleep when your brain’s just done with books/UWorld. Did all of this and it helped significantly.

· Watched some of Kaplan’s Qblast series on YouTube.

· Did a few BnB Qbank questions. The ones I did were good questions.

· Baaki with regard to books, the questions in Kaplan for Pharma were good, and in BRS Physiology and Gross Anatomy (the latter can be a bit too detailed for 3^rd/4^th year).

Flashcards

· I didn’t really use Anki because of a shortage of time. But different decks definitely help people.

NBMEs

· Don’t get disheartened with your first few practice tests. Many of the questions on NBMEs are shit. And you don’t know some of the options at all. But the purpose is to teach a strategic elimination of answer choices and it gets better with time.

· I did NBMEs 21, 18, 24, UWSA1, 27, 26, 25, 28 (just reviewed this), 23 (just reviewed this to go through more questions), 29, 30, UWSA2, and free120 in that order. They can easily be found online, but if you need me to send any links please let me know. For NBME 26 I couldn’t find an unsolved version so I bought it, and also to familiarize myself with the interface.

High Yield Images

· Many images especially from the new NBME forms tend to get repeated on the actual exams. I think I had like 5 repeats (a couple of other questions also tend to get repeated from these forms). I went through this 2 days before my exam. You can find a compilation of these pictures here: https://pdfcoffee.com/new-nbme-high-yield-images-pdf-free.html

· https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zK8KqdWvyL0IB8DC8CXbQCp3Fv2FRDW8_OvaaJ9aGHE/edit#heading=h.v7s8nmdzy6fz

· https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5rTEahBdxV54cZpVjhJKqOL6huEMW4hY

Stuff to know before the exam

· https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJgjMZk8_To

· Talk to people who’ve been through the experience and learn about the exam environment so you have a mental image in your head of the specific testing centre; it reduces anxiety. And also stay in the loop with Reddit threads and forums by asking people with exam dates near yours what topics were relatively heavily tested on their exams.

· The curve can be insane. It’s very uncertain. Just try your best to not get unnerved and let your practice and knowledge give you the confidence + help you maintain it regardless of how you seem to find the exam at the time. And very importantly, time your breaks well. Ideally I’d suggest increasing break times because you tend to get more fatigued with time.

IMG Advisors to Follow if you use Instagram

· Nina Lum

· Malke Asaad

· I’m sure there are many others but these help(ed) me the most. And generally, following former Pakistani med school students who are residents atm keeps me motivated.

Facebook groups

· Different universities have their own USMLE Forum groups, and those for KE and FJ helped me. Other than these, I’d definitely recommend joining the APPNA YPC group, for now and for the whole journey ahead.

Research

· Try to get started with this asap, and work on whatever type of medical research you can get your hands on. Starting this with friends helps in the long run, and over time you can network with people from other institutes and via research forums to work with different people and add to your publications (obv with the effort that’s required). Keep bugging doctors for case reports. Keep reading stuff to know what topics would be ideal areas to explore and easy to get published. Ask your seniors to include you in their works if possible. When submitting your work, remember to include international journals as an option too. They usually accept work more easily, especially some Indian journals (they’re great, just more accommodative about the whole thing). Remember than only articles published in PubMed-indexed journals will hold substantial value. https://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/pubmed/J_Medline.txt

· Some seniors told in a CMH USMLE webinar that although they obviously don’t hold as much value as actual research work, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) from edX and Coursera pertaining to medical research count as well. I’ll share an example for reference: https://www.coursera.org/learn/systematic-review

Something relevant to these courses: if you choose the verified track (certified and paid) for any of these courses, make sure you apply for financial aid. I found this out very late but you can actually get a 100% fee waiver on Coursera MOOCs and upto 90% off on edX ones.

Electives

· https://www.doctorsebas.com/post/internal-medicine-programs

· https://www.doctorsebas.com/post/3cf89da0