How to Prepare for the USMLE: Desperation

I’m in a rut. For the past five days, I’ve just been going through the motions, not really getting excited by the material or finding any joy in it. Pulmonary was boring, Renal is annoying with all of its ridiculous buzzwords and “subepithelial humps of bullshit” on electron microscopy that I can’t imagine I will ever see in my life, and this has lead me into the slow agonizing march that is endocrinology and reproduction.

I haven’t finished any of the sections. I spend a day on the embryo/anatomy/physiology, a day on the path, and a day on the pharm (if it needs it). Where cardio had me excited, doing questions in WebPath, Robbins Review of Pathology, and in the Usmle World Qbank, I’ve just limped through each day for the better part of this week.

And this is just feeding on itself. Doing well makes you want to continue doing well, and the converse is true. As it stands I look back on all the subjects that I’ve read but haven’t really “finished” and I’m thinking too much about being behind to concentrate on not falling further behind. At this point, I think the only way out is to completely skip the current section and use these days to tie up the loose ends in other subjects.

Maybe I’d rather be completely behind in one subject than a quarter behind in four subjects. Who knows. I’m just writing this here out of desperation. I need this rut to be over before it swallows more than it already has, and I thought writing it down would get it off of me.

Hope it works.

Return to USMLE Step 1 page.