Everyone has a strategy, everyone has advice. The important thing to ask yourself when studying for the USMLE is what study strategies work for you. I stayed very true to what works for me. Here are the 5 questions I asked myself when deciding how to approach the study.
#1) What kind of student am I?
There are visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners. A visual learner learns by seeing information in diagrams, tables, graphs, etc. An auditory learner is the annoying people who can just sit through lectures and remember everything. They also learn well in group study sessions, repeating things out loud, listening to podcasts, etc.). The kinesthetic (or tactile) learner likes hands-on learning, practicing, teaching someone, asking questions, etc.
While many people are a combination, I knew that I was a visual learner. If I’m trying to get somewhere and the elves have dismantled my GPS on my phone, if someone tells me directions I’ll get lost (so clearly I’m not an auditory learner). Even if I’ve driven somewhere before, I can get lost (so I’m not a kinesthetic learner). However, draw me a map and I’ll never forget where I’m going. Not in a million years. Knowing this I knew how to proceed.
#2) Realistically, how much time can I spend in a day studying?
The answer for me was 6 hours. I knew this from medical school. No matter how I slice it, whether doing 6 hours in one go or 2 hours morning, noon, and night, my mind would start to shut down after 6 hours. That was just me.
#3) What are the resources I have time for?
Time is your most valuable resource before the USMLE. Therefore, I went with one main resource: First Aid for Tables. Theoretically, if you know every word in that book, you’ll be fine. I supplemented this with two other books. The books were (1) BRS Pathology and (2) Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple. Some people use Guillon audiotapes, but I’m not an auditory learner, so I ignored them. Then of course you need a question bank (Qbank or USMLE World).
#4) Which strategy will guarantee memory retention?
There is no point in studying something if you are going to forget it the next day. As a visual learner, the key to my learning is writing things down and rearranging them so I can see them visually. So I did my tried and true 3 exposure learning technique that got me through most of the M1 year:
Exhibition 1: read and highlight
Exhibition 2: Write tables, graphs, mnemonics, etc.
Learning theory says that this step must occur within 24 hours of Exposure 1.
Exhibition 3: Try questions to test knowledge.
Keep track of persistent errors.
Rinse and repeat for areas where you continue to have poor results.
#5) What will my schedule be? So when should I schedule my exam?
The USMLE study schedule is a heartbreaking thing to write. I found strength in two things: Mathematics and Flexibility.
Math: After listing all the topics (essentially the Table of Contents in First Aid), I calculated how long each topic would take me. For example: The Cardiology section has 30 pages.
Exhibition 1: Reading and highlighting will take me about 1 hour to 2 minutes per page.
Exhibition 2: Writing, writing, writing will take twice as long (2 hours)
Exhibition 3: The questions for me were 50 questions = 3 hours to review
I review only a few questions, but in great detail. So if I wanted to do the reading and at least 150 Cardiology practice questions, it would take me two 6 hour days. I repeated this scheduling method for each topic and put it on a calendar. And yes, time spent organizing is never wasted time.
Flexibility: After 2 NBME practice exams (one at 1.5 weeks and the other at 3 weeks), I adjusted my schedule to allow myself more time studying subjects I was weak in. For those topics, I would go back to deeper resources like BRS Pathology and Microbiology Ridiculously Simplified and double the number of practice questions (I would usually fill out about half of the questions available).
Finally, I always scheduled 1-2 days a week as pop-up valves for the issues that needed the most attention.
Schedule your exam based on the estimated time you estimate you will need. Adjust your schedule based on your weaknesses, but try not to linger too long on any one subject. If you run out of endoc day, for example, go ahead and write it down for “valve open” day. Near the end, a lot of people run out. Eventually, your brain reaches its limit and the stuff that goes in pushes other stuff out. At this point, there is no point in delaying the test. Trust your method and stick with the strategies that work for you.
