How do you set a schedule? Well, how much time do you have?
For the US medical student, I think 5-7 weeks is the standard break from last class to next, and it’s in this time that they have to prepare. Of course, knowing this heading in means you can start reviewing material during your regular classes, but I think most just put it off. In the Caribbean (with SGU at least) it’s a little different.
As a January student, I’m off from Dec 17th (end of 6th term) till the beginning of my clinical rotations (end of May). For those counting at home, that’s 5 months. This should sound like 3 months too long for even the most dedicated, and it is. If you’re in the position where you need to cram information for the Boards (which describes most of us) then whatever you crammed weeks ago has fallen out well before that week when you need it.
The courses that are set up to prepare you seem to know this already. Kaplan’s program takes place over 6 weeks and they recommend taking one week off between the end of the course and the USMLE to conduct a “rapid review” of the most high-yield material (whatever that is at the end of two years). Talk to the people that have gotten antsy and delayed the test for an extra two weeks after the course and most of them will tell you that it was a mistake. So let’s believe them and not repeat it.
My plan was to relocate to Cincinnati where I knew no one, stay with my medical school roommate, and live in a library from Jan 4th until test day, March 14th. That comes to one day shy of 10 weeks, or 70 days (compare against 48 days for the average US student). To keep our sanity, we’re taking one full day off each week, bringing us down to 60 days. To build confidence, we’re finishing all material one week before the test to leave one week of “rapid review.” So with roughly 54 actual days of covering material, we had to figure how to divide it.
As always, I decided to fall on the First Aid for the USMLE. In the 2007 edition, everything has been rearranged. The second half of the book takes a systems-based approach, incorporating anatomy, physiology, pathology and relevant pharmacology into each. This is a completely alien way of learning for me as SGU is subject-based, and I decided to try something knew if only to make old information new again. The first half of the book contains the fundamental concepts like biochemistry, biostatistics, pharmacokinetics, and other things that didn’t fit neatly into a system. After some back and forth, we decided to weight each subject according to the First Aid, down to the last page.
I counted every page in each section (omitting title pages, vignettes, etc) to get to the meat. I took the total number of pages (329) and divided them by my total number of days (54) to find that 6 pages each day was a good pace. In certain places I added or subtracted a day to reflect how weak/strong I felt in a subject, but for the most part I stuck to it. You can do the same calculation with however many days you have. These were my page counts per section with days allotted in parentheses:
First Half – 146 pages (26days)
- Behavioral/Biostatistics – 13 (2/1)
- Biochemistry/Molecular – 41 (5/2)
- Embryology – 8 (2)
- Microbiology – 47 (8)
- Immunology – 14 (2)
- Pathology (neoplasia and inflammation) – 7 (1)
- Pharm (kinetics and dynamics) – 16 (3)
Second Half – 183 pages (33 days)
- Cardiovascular – 27 (5)
- Endocrine – 14 (2)
- Gastrointestinal – 24 (4)
- HemeOnc – 18 (3)
- Musculoskeletal – 16 (3)
- Neurology – 31 (6)
- Psychiatry – 13 (3)
- Renal – 16 (3)
- Reproduction – 13 (2)
- Respiratory – 11 (2)
We ended up going over our allowance and eating into some of our days off. If we stay on our original pace, we will earn those days back as reward, and I would rather earn a day off then lose a day to falling behind (perspective is so important). My schedule is available on Google Calendars (for those that are curious) as “USMLE Step 1 (topher).”
For those still couting at home, that leaves 9 weeks off between the Boards and clinicals in New York. What should you do with this time? You could always piss it away, or you could take the money you saved by not taking a Kaplan course and travel Asia/Africa/Europe/S.America for 6 weeks. Your choice.
Return to USMLE Step 1 page.
January 10, 2007 at 2:00 am
It’s cool to see how you set up your plan to study all the material. Do you feel like you have enough time to stay on that schedule? I know I’ll have less time than you do to completely devote to the USMLE on June 15th, so I’ll be cramming a bit more, but I think the idea of setting up a devoted schedule ahead of time is a good idea.
February 3, 2007 at 4:52 am
[...] your goals. Have a plan. Set a Schedule. Buy your books. Pick a QBank. Don’t crack. Have [...]
March 27, 2007 at 9:24 am
[...] This is a lazy way to weight things, but who cares? I have gone to the trouble of counting each page per section for you, and arranged the following. Here is the first two [...]