Oh what is up guys karma medic here and
welcome back to another dose if you need
to the channel hi my name is Nasir and
I'm now a fourth year medical student
studying tonight news College London now
I know my hair it is a bit ridiculous I
don't trust anyone who isn't a licensed
barber or hairdresser and since none of
those are available you're gonna have to
deal with this I feel like my hair is
taking me full circle back to some of
the earlier videos that I've uploaded
onto this channel anyways all that aside
I'm making this video because I have
finally done it I finished the first
pass of my first aid book the Potomac
book boys and beyonds online video
lectures and I'm sketchy farm on micro
whoa damn it's been a long journey it's
been a difficult one but I'm so happy
that the first pass is over with and in
this video I want to walk you guys
through my experience of what it's been
like studying for the step one exam so
far what it actually took and what was
needed in order to complete that first
pass and everything else in between
okay so I started studying for step 1
towards the end of my third year of
medical school right in the middle of my
clinical rotations and this was my
schedule at the time you guys can see it
on screen somewhere over here basically
on Mondays Thursdays on Fridays those
are the days that I had clinical
placement and so I finished at around 5
p.m. and head straight to the library at
the hospital that I happened to be on
that day and I'd study for somewhere
between 3 and 4 hours and this basically
depended on how tired I was after that
day of clinical placement and at what
time my clinical placement finished
since I had my full medical school
curriculum at the same time as studying
for the USMLE exam I dedicated my
Tuesday's to doing anything that needed
to be done for medical school so this
included things like assignments working
on the research project that I'm a part
of or preparing and studying for my
upcoming auskey exams if I had any time
left over I'd study between one to four
hours for the USMLE step one and then
finally Wednesdays and Saturdays were
entire days than I could dedicate
towards studying for step one and on
each of those days I was studying for
eight hours
I took one day off which was every
Sunday and that's because you need to
take a little bit of time off you need a
day off to sort of reset and relax in
order to then go back and repeat the
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday etc
that you're gonna have to do 9:00 p.m.
on any one of these days is when I would
stop studying and dedicate the rest of
the time in that night towards relaxing
and also exercise on top of that I was
of course filming and editing YouTube
videos to upload on to this YouTube
channel once a week and as you can see I
made this timetable on the 10th of
February now I'm not gonna lie this
schedule was quite tough especially
after a long day of clinical placement
the last thing that I wanted to do is go
to the library all by myself with no
friends in sight sit down and just have
to study from this big fat textbook
since I'm an international medical
student no one in my class is taking the
USMLE step one at the same time as me
and so all the studying I'm doing is
unfortunately by myself now keep in mind
back in February I was so scared of the
USMLE step 1 exam I didn't really know
how big it was and how much content
there was to learn it was just sort of
this huge mountain in front of me that I
felt like had to climb and that I knew
was gonna take so much effort and
motivation and time to get through and
that's why I feel so good now that I've
done my first pass because I've actually
seen all of the material once I now know
how much
material there actually is and in my
head I have some context as to how big
different chapters are how much material
there is for different sections etc and
that really helps you work through
studying for this exam anyways it didn't
take long before a global pandemic
kicked in and all of us medical students
were told to stop going on our clinical
placements so after about one month of
following about us Emily's study
schedule that I showed you before my
schedule basically completely freed up
because as you can see most of my time
was being taken up by clinical
placements and now that clinical
placements were cancelled I had a lot
more free time and so it was at that
point that I entered the dedicated
period from my step one studying which
was studying for about nine hours a day
and that's what I've been doing for the
last two and a half months if you guys
are interested in what my nine hours
study day looks like I just made a video
on that and you can click over here or
over there and you can watch it alright
so that's my general update about what
I've been doing to study for the USMLE
step one so far and I want to take a
deeper dive into the specific resources
I've been using the ones that I've
completed my first pass on and tell you
guys about my experience using them what
I wish I had done differently and what
I've learned from doing my first pass so
this part of my studying where I
complete the first possible of my
resources is what I like to call phase
one
I have phases one two and three I'll get
into phase two and three later on in the
video but let me focus on phase one for
now phase one is simply going through
all of the material this is why I just
collect collect collect all of the
information I don't particularly spend a
lot of time on any one topic and I don't
try and understand everything fully or
commit everything to memory so I've been
learning the step one curriculum by
going through the board's and beyonds
online video lectures and annotating the
first-aid book at the same time one
thing that really surprised me is just
how much annotating I did in this book I
mean if I open to any one page you'll
see that I've written so much on the
sidelines and in the bottom and white
spaces and everything like that and yeah
it just surprised me how much additional
information I wanted to add from the
boards and beyonds lectures on top of
the writing that's already included in
this book now the reason that I did this
is because when I'm studying it's so
important for me to have the context
that's surrounding the piece of
information or the fact that I'm trying
to learn and since this book is largely
a collection of high-yield facts I felt
that it was necessary to write down all
that context for when I go through it a
second time during phase two of my study
this lack of context is why I'm not the
biggest fan of Anki and
that's why I haven't been incorporating
it as much in my studying techniques but
I'll get into that later on in the video
so yeah I annotated the hell out of this
book and now everything that I need from
the boards and beyonds video lectures is
on these pieces of paper so I never have
to watch them or look at them again the
only thing I'm gonna return to boys and
beyonds for is to reduce some of the
quizzes that I found particularly
difficult the first time Palma is a very
similar story I've also gone through the
online video lectures I've done quite a
bit of annotating but not as much as the
first book this Panama book is much more
concise it's much more focused on just
the high-yield facts I'm very happy that
I bought it and I'm very happy I've gone
through it because it's gonna be a great
companion when going through the first
aid book alright now let's talk about
sketchy Oh sketchy you know what guys
have now done over 200 sketches between
sketchy form and sketchy micro and if
you're wondering what 200 sketches looks
like I'll put up a screen recording on
the video right now but as you can see
there's so many different drawings so
many different characters and scenarios
that need to be learned memorized
there's actually no way that I would
learn all of this information about the
drugs and the microbes that we need to
know if it wasn't for sketchy for every
single one of those sketches that I
showed you I've copy pasted them into
notability I've put them on the left and
then written down all my notes on the
right hand side I think the hardest
thing about sketchy is going to be
learning which of the microbes or drugs
is associated with which sketch because
once you figured that out and you have
even the slightest image of that sketch
in your head you can quite easily recall
so many different facts about that
microbe or that drug so yeah there's
absolutely no way I would learn all of
those facts and details without sketchy
so I'm very thankful for it and I highly
recommend it now besides those resources
I've been doing practice questions using
the USMLE rx question Bank I definitely
haven't done as many questions as I
would like to have done by this point in
my studying so that's something that I'm
definitely gonna focus on in Phase two
okay so now having completed my first
possible of these resources and having
been in my dedicated studying period for
two-and-a-half months studying about
nine hours a day I can honestly say it
has been a challenge as motivated as I
am and as much as I enjoy the medicine
that I'm learning about two-and-a-half
months of studying nine hours a day is
really really difficult and I'm so
thankful that I have my twin sister
living with me in this house because if
I was living alone and having study for
this exam I honestly think that I
couldn't
I really need that social interaction on
a daily basis with another human I need
to see and talk to other humans every
single day otherwise I will go crazy
I've also been going for runs as much as
I can to keep up with my exercise and my
fitness I've actually run 70 kilometres
this month which is the most I've ever
run in a single month and I'm really
really happy with that at the same time
as all this intense studying of course
I've continued to upload weekly onto
this youtube channel that's something
that I focus on in my evenings and then
on my day off on Fridays I love having
this amazing hobby where each and every
week I can produce something that's
almost physically tangible and I can say
hey look I made this now don't get me
wrong it has been quite difficult and
quite challenging to study for the step
1 exam and make these weekly videos at
the same time but it's something that
brings me a lot of happiness and it's
something that I enjoy doing so I just
make sure that it gets done during the
study period my standing desk has
actually been really really helpful I
alternate between standing and sitting
while studying at my desk either within
the same day or between different days
and that really helps relieve the
pressure on my lower back from sitting
down and studying for nine hours a day
and yeah other than that I'm just trying
to stay focused on my end goal I'm
trying to keep everything in perspective
I'm writing this exam in order to keep
my doors on my options open for the
future which is something that my dad
has really instilled into me into my
nature and into my character ever since
I was in high school when you have lots
of doors open you can choose which one
you want to go through but if not door
isn't open in the first place then you
never get to make that choice um that
was pretty deep so yeah overall my
motivation fluctuates from day to day
and I have better days and worse days
but I just try and stay as consistent as
I can and make sure that I do good and
hard work every single day and yeah just
take it one step at a time
all right so now that the first pass is
done and it is complete I can move on to
Phase two of my study so phase two of my
studying is where I actually take my
time to go through all of the material
and I make sure that I fully understand
what it is that I'm reading or memorize
the information if that's the type of
information that it is the reason that I
don't do this at the beginning of my
studying and that I have a phase one is
because if I try to do this at the
beginning then I get very worried
overwhelmed and anxious about how much
material there still is ahead of me and
how much I still have to do that I don't
really focus enough and learn what's in
front of me all right so here is my
timetable for Phase two of studying for
the USMLE step 1 exam as you can see
it's very appropriately titled
the plan for phase 2 so as you can see
I've broken it down into the different
resources that I'm using first aid
patthamas sketchy USMLE Rx and your
world question banks and as you can see
ticked in pink is that I've completed
the first pass of each of these sections
speaking of which sketchy should be
ticked over here so how I'm gonna
complete my second possible this
material is written down here I'd like
to write it out visually like this
because it helps me see things from sort
of a bird's eye view or from a macro
perspective so the big picture is that I
have 48 days of studying left and I have
a total of seven hundred eight pages of
the first date book to read through 212
pages of fátima 100 4 micro sketches etc
etc etc so if I divide those totals
across the 48 days I get this over here
and then I've altered those numbers
slightly into what I think I can
personally do in a day
and that's what you see on the far right
column so generally speaking for the
next two months or so I'm gonna be
reading my first aid and pathumma book
from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. I'm gonna be
doing my sketchy medical sketches from
12 p.m. to 1 p.m. then I'm gonna do and
review 40 practice questions from 3 to 7
p.m. and then do an extra 10 questions
or so from 9 to 10 p.m. now obviously
the schedule is prone to changes and I
will make adjustments depending on how I
feel and how things are going as I go
along but generally this is what I'm
gonna try and stick to you might have
also noticed that I wrote days of
holiday 8 over here I'm gonna try and
take 7 or 8 days off in the coming weeks
simply because I just honestly feel like
I'm burning out I've been doing about
eight hours of studying a day for 3
months and I have the same if not more
for the next two months so I feel that
slowly slowly I'm approaching the law of
diminishing returns when it's coming to
my studying I'll be able to completely
take my head off of the USMLE step 1
exam and then come back with a fresh
mind and just grind grind grind away for
the last two months you'll have noticed
that I haven't included Anki anywhere on
this page and the reason for that is
what I said before in this video which
is that I personally feel like it's not
providing me with enough context in
order to learn the information that it's
showing me I'm still gonna use Anki to
memorize all of those high-yield facts
and all of those sketchy little details
that come up in biochemistry but I just
don't want to use it as an underlying
foundation for how I'm going to learn
the content of these two books
so in conclusion that is it that is my
big life update surrounding studying for
the USMLE step 1 exam I'm pretty gutted
as the English would say that I'm not
gonna have a full-on summer holiday and
I'm not gonna be able to enjoy this time
with my friends and family and
everything like that but I'm hoping that
a mini holiday at some point over the
next couple of weeks and then maybe a
little one as well after this exam is
over will be enough to get me refreshed
and reenergize for a fourth year of
medical school I can't wait to start my
fourth year of medical school it's gonna
be so much fun and I know that I have a
lot to learn but I'm really excited for
it and I also can't wait to make all
kinds of videos about my experiences
during my fourth year of medical school
it's gonna be great
anyways I hope you've enjoyed this video
and that it's been somewhat useful for
you if you're preparing for the step 1
exam if you've enjoyed this video and
want to see more from me don't forget to
leave a like on this video and subscribe
to my channel to see more content from
me in the future that is it for now and
I will see you guys in the next one
peace whoa