all right how are you feeling today hey
guys I'm Justin Ling I'm a recent med
school graduate from the Medical
University of Lublin in Poland and I'm
also one of the video creators currently
at osmosis just to give you guys a
little background about myself
I'm originally from Southern California
I went to UC Irvine for my bachelor's
degree in biological sciences and then I
went to Cal State Channel Islands for my
master's in biotechnology and
bioinformatics after that I worked for a
few years in a few different industries
including academic research medical
device companies and pharmaceutics but I
eventually decided I wanted to go back
to school and pursue medicine so at my
university our basic sciences were
talking Poland fortunately in English
and I had the option to do my clinical
rotations in the US so I ended up doing
most of my rotations in the Chicago area
even though I enjoyed my time in Chicago
and also Poland I know it can be pretty
tough to study for exams while doing
rotations whether it's your and BA me
exam your Shelf exam or your step exam
these are all pretty tough exams and
also you're limited on time and I also
personally believe that everyone learns
in a slightly different ways and it's
important to figure out what works best
for you but having said that these are
my own top three tips for studying for
the Shelf exams or step to wall in
rotations so tip number one is to study
at least a little every day or at least
most days I know can be pretty tough
sometimes when if you're really tired at
the end of a long day but if you can do
as much as you can every day and be
consistent about it over a long period
of time you're gonna be able to retain
that information a lot better and
personally I'd like to to create a study
schedule if I know what material I want
to cover I'll have a spread out over
that time period so I know every single
day what I need to do whether it's a
certain number of pages from a book or a
certain number of questions
I'll also schedule and catch up days and
just days to relax the catch-up days are
just days that I used to catch up on
things I I didn't get to you over the
last week but if I am caught up I'll use
that time to review topics that I know I
have trouble with
and help you with this also oh my I
definitely recommend you take advantage
of the downtime that you have during
rotations instead of just pulling out
your phone and playing with it or
chatting with your friends you can use
this time to knock out a few extra
practice problems I personally like to
do this during my psychiatry rotation
just because they had us around real
early in the morning by ourselves and we
would have maybe fifteen thirty minutes
of downtime before the attending would
come in so during that time I would
always pull out my phone and do a lot of
questions of course you want to make
sure you only do this when it's
appropriate you don't want your
attending to think that you're not
interested in your rotation or that
you're just goofing off and tip number
two is to take advantage of every
learning opportunity you have during
rotations so this includes all the
resources around you whether it's free
lectures shadowing opportunities or
simply just talking to other residents
or attending doctors and letting the
people you work with know that they can
contact you if they need anything and
you're willing to learn new things
whether it's new procedures new
techniques as long as they're
appropriate for you to do and whether
you think you know you need to know them
in the long run or not I think it never
hurts to have a better understanding of
what your current and future colleagues
and co-workers have to go through so not
only will the medical staff appreciate
your help and probably notice that
you're hustling
but hustling a good way home but you'll
end up being more engaged and learning
more from the additional hands-on
experience and it's gonna help you
remember the right answers more often
than not when you when it comes to exam
time just because you can pull from your
real life experience in the wards
compared to just what you remember from
textbooks tip number three is to do what
you think is best for you I know that
sounds pretty basic but I think it's
something that we often forget about and
it's it's always good to look to our
classmates and upperclassmen to to see
what they did to be successful but I'd
say you have to think about the advice
and to see if it really applies to you
or not
basically don't take anyone's advice as
a hard-and-fast rule and that includes
mine so just as an example I know in med
school
I've had a lot of classmates that tell
me if I want to do well on a specific
exam
I have to study from this book only or
that book on me and use only certain
flashcards so what I realized is like
while those things may have been really
good for those students they may not be
the best thing for me because I might
learn better with the different style of
studying than them and I'd be wasting my
time if I just blindly followed what
they did some people learn better with
specific types of studying so for
example with myself I know that I'm much
more engaged when I'm watching a video
about a topic compared to when I'm
reading about it so if I have the option
between the two I'll usually pick the
video and something I really wish I knew
more about earlier in med school was
flashcards that I used with spaced
repetition
I noticed that once I started using them
that I was able to retain information a
lot better and a lot longer over a
longer period of time than before so if
you don't know what spaced repetition is
I highly recommend you look into it if
you google osmosis spaced repetition we
actually have a video that explains what
it is and how it can help you retain
information better so I totally
recommend you check that out so to recap
the tips tip number one was to study at
least a little bit every day tip number
two is to take advantage of every
learning opportunity you have during
rotations and tip number three was to do
what you think is best for you studying
while completing rotations can be pretty
challenging but I hope some of these
tips helped so thanks everybody
bye start your free trial today at
osmosis org
you