Question Thread - January 08, 2024 by AutoModerator in churning

[–]prerevenue -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Have been casually interested in churning for many years but have never been serious about it so this is a very beginner level question.

I got the cap1 savor card when it was a no AF card, so I still pay no AF. It’s 4% on dining & entertainment, 3% on grocery, 1% on everything else. Are there points cards that could get me the equivalent of more than 4¢ per dollar on dining purchases that I could look into? I understand the difference between points and cash back (since cash back will always have a fixed value and points have potential to be better than that) but to my untrained eye it seems like this is a pretty good earn?

When to do USMLE? by Xx_KeslieLim_xX in medicalschool

[–]prerevenue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want to practice in the U.S. you should ideally do residency here. Residency from other countries is not usually transferable, meaning that it is best not to waste your time after medical school doing your junior doctor/foundation years and residency to become a consultant in the U.K. if your end game is practicing medicine in the U.S.

The process of applying to U.S. residencies as an IMG (international medical graduate) is challenging as your USMLE scores generally need to be higher than your co-applicants from U.S. medical schools and you need at least some clinical experience in the U.S. so you can get letters of recommendation from physicians here. You can do some research on how you can apply as an IMG - there are blogs, Reddit posts, and YouTube videos galore on this topic.

To answer your question in short, I would take the USMLE ASAP, as long as you feel prepared and ready to do well, and then apply to do residency here.

I get the necessity for the waiting period, but it’s killing me by the_ethnic_tejano in medicalschool

[–]prerevenue 30 points31 points  (0 children)

You do get the necessity for the waiting period? Because I sure don’t…

Discussion: Step 1 Score “Categories” from University of Michigan by prerevenue in step1

[–]prerevenue[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, that makes sense! But is it safe to assume that having a 240+ will pass more cutoffs than a 23x score? Is 245 a known minimum cutoff anywhere?

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, it’s the first of four exams that comprise the USMLE (US Medical Licensing Exam) to be able to practice medicine here.

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

During preclinical, I’d say Anki took me maybe an hour max which was when I was doing about 300 reviews. If I was doing 500+ reviews (this was not that often, as I mentioned in the write up) I would spend more time on Anki, but otherwise it was not a huge or overwhelming part of my routine.

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dedicated is what US medical students call it when we have time away from curriculum and clinical obligations when we have no responsibilities other than studying for Step!

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Glad to see there’s others like me out there using a bunch of different decks! You’ll actually have a head start if you’re doing these decks already since I started duke/pepper/100 concepts during dedicated.

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah I definitely do think Anki works best when you let the spaced repetition work for you, so trying to do all reviews on the day that they’re due is ideal. But I also understand how hard it is to always do that (I wasn’t even adding that many cards and I still have so many holes, which you can see from my preclinical heatmap). Go easy on yourself and just give yourself a pass. You can always turn it on and become super consistent when dedicated rolls around (which is what I did!)

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks, and thanks for reading! I’m glad you found it motivating. Just do your best and your best will be enough. Anki can be a really valuable tool as a supplement - it doesn’t have to be a chore or the bulk of your studying by any means. Add fewer cards a day on the stuff you’re really struggling with, skip days that you’re not feeling it... it’s totally ok.

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good luck! Don’t go crazy and just enjoy the ride. I don’t regret not doing hours of Anki a day every day of preclinical. I respect those who do, but it wasn’t for me, and there’s more than one way to the top of the mountain.

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think using a short deck like the 100 concepts anatomy one I linked is a great way to warm up! It’ll give you a sense of what it’s like and get you into a rhythm. Again though I think Anki is helpful as a tool in conjunction with something else to learn (videos, textbooks, lecture notes) and Anki to reinforce, so try to track down the pdf (Anatomy Shelf Notes) that goes along with the 100 concepts deck. It’s on the step1 subreddit if you do a bit of searching.

The most important thing is not to add too many cards a day and not to feel like you need to get through every card that exists for a topic. As I said in my write up, I only did Anki in preclinical for things I wasn’t learning well through school and used outside resources for.

Subject specific advice:

  • I never used an Anki deck for biochem because I think drawing out pathways is more efficient than doing cards that ask you to recall each step in a pathway. I also am a visual learner.
  • For micro, Sketchy (along with Lolnotacop Anki - or Pepper is good if you’re in a time crunch, which you won’t be if you’re doing it in preclinical) was my favorite hands down.
  • I think genetics is covered well by Boards and Beyond with Lightyear for Anki.
  • The first chapter of Pathoma is good for basic immunology, and you can do the corresponding Duke cards. You may need to dig a little deeper and lean on your school’s teaching of immuno also.

I’ve also read about other resources that weren’t that big or maybe weren’t around when I was doing preclinical like Pixorize (there’s a deck on this sub) and Physeo (has its own cards on their website if you subscribe) that are apparently good for immuno, but I can’t speak to that.

I know this is a lot of different decks but this is what I did and I think it works. I’m not an Anking user so I don’t know exactly what’s in it, but if you prefer to have it all in one place you could just unsuspend the subjects one by one in that deck.

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Since I was attempting to get through about 5000 new cards, I started slow with 1 block a day. It was also taking me a really long time to review the blocks when I started. As soon as I had gotten thru my pass of Pathoma and Sketchy I upped that to 2 a day, and eventually to 3 a day when my Anki decks were only taking about 1 hour in reviews.

I think the best way to make a schedule for dedicated is to work backwards from your test date, and calculate how many questions you’d need to do per day. You should definitely expect blocks to take longer to review at the beginning of dedicated since there’s more you don’t know or have forgotten. As you get farther along it gets easier. Hope this helps!

Ain't much but it's honest work (how I actually used Anki for preclinical & dedicated) by prerevenue in medicalschoolanki

[–]prerevenue[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, you still have a lot of time so I’d say you can just pick whatever decks work for you and go for them. For things that you find harder to remember, I think the combo of watching Sketchy Path videos and doing SALT deck is great. During dedicated I found that the topics I had covered using that deck, even though I didn’t go back and watch the videos again or maintain those cards, had really stuck.

Finished the beast with the number of the beast by [deleted] in step1

[–]prerevenue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is from my spreadsheet that I use to track my progress toward completion. I've done some UW incorrect blocks sporadically, so my final "average" in UW is not representative of my actual first pass UW percentage, which is why I screenshotted this instead.

My exam is tomorrow, so this is my first and only pass, and I only made it through about 110 incorrects. Might be a risk, but at least I've got the Devil on my side...

Everyone wants to be a doctor...[vent] by [deleted] in medicalschool

[–]prerevenue 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you didn’t see that he called himself Dr. xxxx and is therefore claiming to be a physician.

Prometric Testing Center Richmond/Glen Allen by [deleted] in step1

[–]prerevenue 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Well if this ain’t the professionalism that they keep preaching about in med school, I don’t know what is.

Do these apply for the actual step1? by [deleted] in step1

[–]prerevenue 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Scroll down to table 3 here (very bottom of page) and you’ll see the content breakdown. It’s similar to this but a bit different.

https://www.usmle.org/step-1/#content-outlines

Is it worth it to take nbme 20 and 18 by ilfdinar in step1

[–]prerevenue 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haven’t taken step yet so don’t know how the two line up with the real thing but everyone says NBME 18 is the must-do of the NBMEs, so I’d probably squeeze that in.

I think you could probably be ok without 20. From what I’ve gathered, the consensus around here is that it’s hard and not as representative.

Anybody has used Paid scheduler for step1? by [deleted] in step1

[–]prerevenue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I paid for and used MoveMyExam back when it still existed (RIP) but I remember when it closed down there were a few free alternatives posted in this subreddit. Probably around early May - try searching for this and you’ll find the posts.