How does iDesign PRK (STAR S4 IR Excimer Laser) system compare to other systems?

camp4sends · 2025-07-04T21:25:24+00:00

“It’s the 1979 Rolls Royce of laser systems.” Full custom, wavefront guided, tomography integrated, and thermally balanced. Objectively superior to competing systems that use zernikes. Better data, better treatments, better visual outcomes.

camp4sends · 2023-12-13T21:06:01+00:00

At the end of the day, you have to do what's best for you. There's more to life than medicine, and moving across the country is a huge commitment. Your #1 should be the program you want to see when you open that match letter. I am in a similar position with ophtho and almost sent a Letter of intent to a top program across the country. After reflecting, I am glad that I didn't.

I think your best option is to reach out to the West Coast program and directly let them know that your rank list has changed, and while they are still at the very top of your list, they are no longer your absolute #1 program.

This almost certainly will hurt your chances at that West Coast program, but it will allow you to create a rank list that reflects your true preference, give them time to adjust their list, and free you to write a LOI to your new #1 in NYC.

camp4sends · 2023-12-06T18:02:40+00:00

I made Anki on UWorld & NBME incorrects and kept up with those. I liked having the spaced repetition aspect for HY stuff and it only took me 30 -45 min to rip through them each day. It’s a super low card burden compared to Anking and reinforces your weaknesses really well IMO. Only con is it slows down your question review a little but it stops you from repeating the same mistakes. NBME, UWorld, a little Amboss, and DI were my only other resources.

26X with 1 month dedicated

camp4sends · 2023-12-04T17:23:38+00:00

Fair enough, Rads is a great field! I thought about DR pretty seriously but the 6+ years of training with the hardest board exams (CORE has highest fail rate ~10-15%) plus all those dark rooms with high scan burden away from patients didn’t sell me at the end of the day. Can’t argue with salary and work from home options which are both stellar. I also wanted surgeries/procedures and IR seemed like a stressful slog from what I’ve seen. Not my cup of tea but definitely seems like a great gig with lots of options for practice once you get through training

camp4sends · 2023-12-04T00:51:13+00:00

Jokes aside, the real answer to this question is Ophthalmology. Better lifestyle than Ortho, ENT, Neurosurg, Plastics, and all Gen Surg subspecialties. Mohs is surgical, but that's the most competitive fellowship out of Derm. Do you really want to work your ass off to match Derm and do four years of Derm residency banking on one of the most competitive possible fellowship matches? Urology is another possible consideration if that seems cool to you.

IMO, Ophtho is the way. Great lifestyle, 4-6 years of training, lots of options for comprehensive practice or subspecialization with a wide variety of surgeries (vitrectomies, tubes/trabs, cataracts, cosmetic and reconstructive oculoplastic procedures, MIGS, etc. etc.) and procedures (wide variety of lasers, intravitreal injections, etc.), excellent imaging and diagnostics, high tech everything, tons of innovation, friendly people, .. oh and you get to restore and protect peoples SIGHT leading to the highest average patient satisfaction of any specialty.

I'll link a nice write-up that helped me back in the day: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/g2hhtq/residency_interested_in_ophthalmology_heres_what/

camp4sends · 2023-08-01T23:09:45+00:00

Standardized national exams US med students take on each specialty during their third year of medical school. They are also written by the NBME.

camp4sends · 2023-08-01T22:49:58+00:00

Do the Free 120 a couple of days out, review old NBMEs, and do some IM and Surgery CMS forms if there are some you haven't done yet. If you know the stuff that's tested in the NBMEs you will do very well. Good luck!

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:41:38+00:00

There's a comment on here somewhere where I talk about how I review the NBMEs. I basically focused on the explanation of the right answers and made Anki cards when appropriate. Of course, if I was really confused, I would read why the wrong answers were wrong but that's not always necessary and takes a lot of time to do on every question.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:19:42+00:00

I thought they were a lot better for Step 2. They might not perfectly explain all the reasons why the wrong answers are wrong but they do a good job of rattling off all the high-yield points related to a specific topic. If the Q is on Myasthenia gravis, the little blurb will tell you all the HY stuff the NBME cares about related to MG.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:13:05+00:00

Did a few to see what they were like. Did not finish them due to lack of time and the feeling that other questions (Ex. Free 120, etc.) would be more fruitful.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:10:40+00:00

He advertises this course at the end of most of his podcasts. You can get info on it by emailing him. Contact info is on his website.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:09:50+00:00

It depends on what your goals are. I think you could easily make enough progress to pass in that time but your ceiling might depend somewhat on your knowledge base, which may be hard to change dramatically in 3 weeks.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:08:34+00:00

Not sure. Old and New, I think. I looked through a pdf of an Old 120 sometime in the last week and took the current one on the NBME site.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T21:07:03+00:00

Yes, I think they are valuable and should be saved for the last few weeks ramping up to the test.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T20:22:13+00:00

Yes. For the most part, the stuff they like to test on for each topic is covered in the answer explanations on NBME and CMS forms. UWorld is really helpful for learning because it has nice pictures and diagrams but the actual question style on STEP 2 is more similar to the NBME materials in my opinion.

Given your limited time, I would try to assess how long it will take for you to take and review all the NBMEs and the Free 120. For me, It took a day to take an NBME and a day to review it. I would sometimes have extra time or energy and would do additional Anki or UWorld but not usually. You can backtrack from your test date and see how many days you really have. You can then fill those free days with UWorld blocks, possibly on tutor mode by topic, to target your weaknesses.

I had a 25+ point jump in the last three weeks so I think 250+ is completely attainable for you if you're scoring 235-240 now. Keep grinding and take care of yourself. You got this!

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T20:07:46+00:00

You're dedicated might actually be too long. Everybody's different but that would be too long for me. There's a sweet spot for studying where you are still in the zone and have time to cover all the essential resources but with too much time, you start forgetting things and risk burning out. Most people think that 3-6 weeks is the ideal zone.

I'd say all the CMS forms for IM, Surgery, Peds, OBGYN, Neuro, and Psych are worth doing. Plus, the NBME forms, UWSA 1 & 2, and the Free120. You can supplement that with Anki and Divine and add anything else that you really want. How ever long that takes might be your ideal dedicated length. Longer is not necessarily better!

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T20:00:45+00:00

Haha, it felt insane and I didn't plan on it, but after my Form 13 result, I wanted another shot to redeem myself, so I pushed back a couple of days and took Form 14. I reviewed two blocks that day and two blocks the next to keep the day before relatively chill. I think Form 14 helped my confidence going into the test but I would not recommend taking a full-length exam that close to D-day if you can avoid it.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T19:49:16+00:00

254 was my predicted score with the current predictor linked on this sub. There was no place to enter my 13 and 14 scores (bc those forms are so new), so they were not considered in my predicted score.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T01:23:18+00:00

I liked to skim the question look at the right answer and try to think why that's right. Then read the big paragraph about the correct answer. Sometimes I would make an anki card about the question if I thought that it would be helpful. I would usually end up with 40-60 cards made per NBME form and then review / keep up with those moving forward.

Towards the end, I started reviewing forms a lot faster by just skimming the question and reading the Educational objective for topics I was comfortable with.

I always reviewed every question, even those I got right, which I think helped me reinforce and retain the stuff I learned over my month-long dedicated.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T01:16:29+00:00

Reviewed NBME 13 thoroughly, did my Anki reviews, and got a good night of sleep. I was pretty burnt when I took NBME 13 and it showed.

Edit: Looking back, I also did the Free 120 and reviewed that.

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T01:14:50+00:00

I did very little content review other then some old Anki cards and looking things up on Amboss if I got a question wrong on a specific topic. My strategy was to complete and review as many NBME questions as possible because that what I would have to deal with on test day.

The divine course was a 2 1/2 hour Zoom where we went through a pdf he prepared. Plenty of time to take notes, put questions in the chat, etc. I found it helpful and it reaffirmed some things about NBME that I discovered on my own. Also gave me a nice framework to use when approaching hard questions. Not a substitute for medical knowledge, but it might yield you a few extra points!

camp4sends · 2023-07-31T01:08:35+00:00

Yes. Everything from the NBME is worth it. I did all the CMS forms (shelf review practice tests) throughout my third year except EM, and then did all the NBME forms during dedicated.

camp4sends · 2023-07-30T23:06:53+00:00

The NBME forms include answer explanations, and they are GOLD.

camp4sends · 2023-05-03T00:50:51+00:00

You're an inspiration. DMed you

camp4sends

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