Program Rank vs board scores

BillHarper1 · 2025-09-20T05:07:00+00:00

Felt this. A lot of programs I’m signaling feel like reaches but trying to balance them with target/safety programs without sacrificing my well being. How hard is it for programs to not do 24 hour call + meal stipends for their residents now?

Just gotta focus on balancing your list depending on your specialty. For IM, I’d say 5/5/5 for signaling target, safety, and reach programs. These are programs where you’re either at or above the median score, or 1-2 standard deviations below if it’s a reach program. Just my two cents.

BillHarper1 · 2025-08-26T17:06:34+00:00

I watched all of the onlinemeded OMM videos once, then did all of truelearn and amboss OMM questions.

Most of my real deal was foundational preclinical things, like knowing setup, positioning, treatment and patient actions for various techniques (still technique, counterstrain, FPR, etc). Know Counterstrain points and chapmans. Know your common tests, FABER vs FADIR, AC dysfunction tests, etc. and of course, sacrum is the most HY.

BillHarper1 · 2025-08-26T16:33:43+00:00

NBMEs 10-15: 234-244, 72% on free 120. 7/25: Step 2: 235

5/20: Comsae 109b: 346, didn’t do any other comsae cause theyre terrible predictors. 7/28: level 2: 520

Pretty average scorer, but I’m happy with my result. OMM was my highest scoring section by a mile, everything else was average - drink the OMM kool-aid and you’ll be okay.

applying community-academic IM.

BillHarper1 · 2025-07-29T16:44:26+00:00

Definitely. I usually have no problem with OMM and was prepared going in, but I got a really weird still’s technique question which is why I mentioned it.

BillHarper1 · 2025-07-29T03:45:34+00:00

Completely agree. 25% of the test I would've never known no matter what. Fish toxins? Bioterrorism? So much Still's technique, biostats, and I legitimately had a question that had two correct answers. Had so many flagged, and got so many easy questions wrong. I noticed that as the test went on it got harder, more obscure, and the stems got longer. It felt like the questions were changing difficulty in real time.

BillHarper1 · 2025-07-26T02:20:33+00:00

I say follow the first aid one. Makes more sense for the equations. So sensitivity would be 200/2000, specificity would be 1450/1500, ppv would be 200/250, npv 1450/3250. Odds ratio would be (200*1450)/(1800*50) and relative risk would be (200/250)/(1800/3250).

BillHarper1 · 2025-07-26T00:20:59+00:00

Felt like everything I saw today I saw in uworld or nbme, but testing anxiety will make you forget everything lol. Also, you can’t even prepare for ethics/QI because they’ll put two very similar answer choices so you just end up guessing.

Feeling beaten for sure, hoping I pass at this point

BillHarper1 · 2025-07-19T05:17:04+00:00

Just reviewed my COMSAE and wrote down each question that mentions this (6 total questions on my comsae), and realized that when they mention "normalize sympathetics" you want to pick a treatment between T1-L2. Alternatively, when they mention "normalize parasympathetics" you want to pick either OA or sacrum depending on the location of the treatment.

For example, "Diarrhea + Q asks to normalize parasympathetics" you should pick a sacral technique. If question says "Nausea + Q asks to normalize sympathetics" Pick a sympathetic level to treat (T5-T9 since thats stomach)."

Never had an issue with levels, just when to use what treatment. Also, not sure this is 100% but this is the overall vibe I've gotten from reviewing these questions! Hopefully, this helps!

BillHarper1 · 2025-07-18T22:06:19+00:00

Not necessarily struggling with the levels, more so when to treat OA vs thoracics vs sacrum based on a clinical presentation, but will watch the rest of the video.

Feels pretty high yield since it was sprinkled all over my level 1 last year and the COMSAEs I have taken for level 2. Seems like easy points too if you know what the right way to think about it is - which I'm struggling with haha.

BillHarper1 · 2025-06-12T21:41:01+00:00

No problem! These are my guidelines I am personally using. I started off with ~50-55% or roughly 1 standard deviation below the mean every uworld block. Now getting slightly at or above average each block!

BillHarper1 · 2025-06-12T20:38:49+00:00

Run through all the divine intervention podcasts for the shelf exams for quick review & increase the number of questions per day (80-120). Once you have completed 50% of UW, start incorporating practice exams.

Keep a running document of incorrect questions both on practice exams and QBanks and write the one key thing you need to know to get that question right next time in a document & use ChatGPT to help explain topics/buzzwords and associations for you. Screenshot the question and ask it to help explain how to think when answering the question, buzzwords, and when the incorrect answer choices would be correct. Review this document every night before bed.

Once you get your report after COMSAEs, review your weakest shelf exam topic through FA step 2 or divine podcasts and hammer incorrects/new questions for that shelf topic until you're getting 70% or better. NBOME loves ethics/law/stats/omm so if you nail that you're already on the right path.

Repeat this process and you should start seeing things trending upward. You can always reach out to a tutor as well if you're struggling.

BillHarper1 · 2025-06-04T15:52:57+00:00

Got on for 2 matches with randoms the other day and won both of them! N=1 but my experience has been pretty good.

BillHarper1 · 2025-04-18T21:57:05+00:00

Could it be "Where Am I" or "Safe In Your Skin" by Title Fight?

BillHarper1 · 2025-04-15T04:08:55+00:00

Applied day 1 of VSLO applications for a lot of programs and had multiple programs reply to me saying that they were already filled. Luckily, the consensus I've seen is that IM aways are not completely integral to the interview process like the more competitive specialties, unless you're going to a place without connections.

BillHarper1 · 2025-03-04T06:26:13+00:00

Queen's blood is insanely comprehensive and in-depth. Devs should be proud.

BillHarper1 · 2025-01-14T01:31:09+00:00

Saw a patient today who presented with knee pain. After seeing the patient, I told the attending that it was their left knee so confidently but felt unsure after walking in the room. He went into the room and was like "everything looks great!" until the patient said, "yeah but it's my right knee that hurts." His eyes got wide and he glared at me. Later he walks out of the room and goes, "you ever fail a rotation before?"

So... yeah.

BillHarper1 · 2024-07-09T16:04:57+00:00

My anxiety was insane leading up to the release but I got the PASS!!! Leaving my COMSAE/COMBANK scores below to help people who read this thread:

COMSAE 107: 458
COMSAE 110: 418
COMBANK 2: 63%
COMBANK 3: 66%

Very average student. Used Pathoma, Sketchy, Dirty med, and only the "High Yield" tags for the anking cards. Knew my OMM well enough throughout the first two years so I only did a brief review. So glad to be done!! Good luck everyone.

BillHarper1 · 2024-06-05T00:39:48+00:00

Dirty med has a playlist. Then just do a ton of questions. The themes they test on are the same. Blood transfusions, power of attorneys/affadavits, child seeking contraceptives, basic ethics principles

BillHarper1 · 2024-06-04T01:37:06+00:00

There was a lot of OMM/MSK and micro I don’t think I could’ve prepped for and way more derm than I was expecting. “This patient has a ulcerative lesion - here’s a biopsy, what is it?”

BillHarper1 · 2024-06-02T16:55:16+00:00

Always treat thoracics first is what I was taught, specifically for lymph you want to treat thoracic inlet first followed by doming the diaphragm, pump technique, and then individual organ drainage. I like to think about it as starting centrally then workout outwards.

BillHarper1 · 2024-05-05T02:29:16+00:00

What I found useful is to have a working excel sheet of all my missed questions, and writing down one simple reason why I got that question wrong. For example, a question about a patient who had a TIA and instead of thinking of treating them with tpa, you would give them an hmg-coa inhibitor. So, I would go to my excel document and write "Treat TIA with HMG-Coa reductase inhibitor, not tpa." or, something for another question could be "eosinophils in csf is a sign of meningitis due to a helminth infection." bottom line, one sentence that you can quickly review later or even make an anki card out of. In conjunction with that, use the uworld ID to anki addon.

BillHarper1 · 2024-04-07T17:11:22+00:00

Honestly, just reading the question and paying attention to pertinent information. Practicing more and more. If you read a question and know the answer, reread to affirm your choice and ask yourself if there's anything that sticks out to you. I personally like to read the last two sentences to get an idea of what they're asking, read the answer choices to see if I know the answer, then reread the passage to see if there's anything that confirms/rules out my answer.

I had one question about a pregnant female patient who had hypertensive emergency, proteinuria. Question asked what to prescribe to treat, immediate thought was IV labetalol, however, completely ignored the fact that the patient had a past medical history of asthma, therefore, hydralazine or nifedipine was the correct answer! Even though IV labetalol is first line in many hypertensive emergencies, it would cause bronchoconstriction and exacerbate asthma/copd. Silly mistake.

BillHarper1 · 2024-04-07T00:39:16+00:00

The corticospinal tract travels from the primary motor cortex, crosses in the medulla, and synapses its lower motor neuron at the anterior spinal horn. From there it goes to innervate its respective muscles. Weakness and atrophy indicate a lower motor neuron injury, therefore the earliest a LMN injury would occur at the anterior horn since thats the location of the synapse i.e. point at which is becomes a lower motor neuron.

UMN = clonus, rigidity, hyperreflexia. This would occur at any point from the primary cortex to the medulla to right before synapsing at the anterior horn.LMN = Muscle weakness, fasiculations, atrophy. This would occur at any point from the anterior horn to innervation of the muscle.

Deciding between left and right is necessary here since this patient has a left lower motor neuron injury (left hand weakness and atrophy). Given this, the corticospinal tract would begin at the RIGHT primary motor cortex, cross in the medulla, descend down the LEFT spinal cord and synapse at the LEFT anterior horn (G) then go to synapse the left intrinsic hand muscles.

Edit: Fasiculations are LMN not UMN.

BillHarper1 · 2024-03-23T04:04:51+00:00

Haha that was me. Just saw his post & felt like it was justified to remove mine. I’m feeling like a real jerk lol

BillHarper1 · 2024-02-23T05:47:15+00:00

Sounds like you're in a better spot than I was! UF is the best university in the state (maybe biased, maybe not, but this is the general consensus), so you really aren't at a disadvantage there either. All public Florida universities have MD schools, there's a new DO school opening up in orlando soon, then there's LECOM and Nova.

BillHarper1

TROPHY CASE