Tag: third year medical student

My Scores

Okay.

So this is normally very private information. And people don’t like sharing their scores or their downfalls. In medicine especially, it is a very dog-eat-dog ideology. It can be cut throat (which makes no sense truthfully because you should be competing with yourself more and betting yourself) but stupid and immature people think cutting others down or their “competition” is they way to get ahead.

Dumbasses.

Anywho, I am sharing my COMAT or shelf scores with you. I am also going to share my board scores with you. I want you to realize that yes, these exams are important BUT THEY WILL NOT MAKE OR BREAK YOU.

Only you have the power to do that. Obviously, the better you do the easier it may be for you. However, you can have amazeballs scores and still not match. That’s right, I said it. A good or even a great score will not guarantee you match somewhere. Just as a poor score won’t prevent you from matching. The difference may be is a poor score (like in my case) may limit your opportunities, or at least make you work harder to find different opportunities.

So, here it is.

COMATs/SHELF

I will list each shelf that I took and the score report associated with my test. You can see the topics they test and how they score. It does not however give you any more information such as the types of questions or not. Since I am a DO, again, using COMQUEST is a very good practice test/resource. It gives you very similar questions if not the same questions and a simulated score. Use this if you are taking DO COMATs. I did not do this, because I’m dumb. But a lot of my classmates did. This is one thing I will continue to truly recommend to you.

The lowest passing score is an 82. Honors is I don’t remember. But the NBOME’s honors and KCU’s honors differ. And that is a can of angry worms I won’t open up.

Pediatrics: Score of 100. Score report.

Internal Medicine: Score of 103. Score report.

Surgery: Score of 98. Score report. This one was hard. Lots of fluids questions and had no idea how to answer them properly.

Family Medicine: Score of 105. Score report.

OPP/Osteopathic Medicine: Score of 102. Score report. Did not really study for this one, at all. I think I looked up ribs and sacrum, viscerosomatics. I did look up cranial but had like 2 questions.

Psychiatry: Score of 108. Score report.

Emergency Med: Score of 97. Score report. I did not study for this exam at all.

Ob/Gyn: Score of 98. Score report. First COMAT. Hella nervous for this one.

BOARDS:

COMLEX level 1. Don’t ask me how I did so well on this one. I have no idea.

COMLEX level 2. This was not so good. Notoriously not a ton of people did well on this one. I honestly think it was a bad exam.

STEP 1. I thought I did better on this exam than my level 1. Jokes on me.

STEP 2. Honestly thought I didn’t pass. I mean, I barely did but I truthfully thought I didn’t pass.

Additionally, I am writing this before Match day 2022. I have already interviewed. It is up to the universe now. I am hopeful that despite crappy scores, I interviewed at 2/3 places I did my sub-I’s. I showed who I was as a person in person. But this is in the past and I cannot change anything. I am hoping to be in a better headspace next time around when I take my level 3 boards at the end of my intern year. And despite whether I match or SOAP, I will find a way into the specialty of my choice.

Again, a score is only one part of you. Well not even a part of you, one part of your application. When you are a physician your scores won’t matter. A better score will open more doors for you, but will not guarantee you anything. What else you do (volunteering, extracurriculars, personal statement, LOR’s, etc) is what will help you.

Cheers and good luck!

Surgery Shelf

Hey ya’ll.

This will be a super short blog post but I’m currently studying for my surgery shelf and need a distraction. 🙂

Because surgery is a 2 rotation requirement (at least at my school) I didn’t need to study for a shelf when I did my general surgery rotation. However, since ENT was my second surgery rotation, I did need to study. I am incredibly thankful that I did have two weeks off to study, because ENT kicked my ass. See that post if you want to know what that was like!

The biggest topic that I thought I understood and clearly I didn’t were fluid questions. There are more on there than I thought there would be. So understanding fluids is a big topic. Otherwise, burns, trauma, and general surgery are what the remainder of the questions focused on. A lot of, what is the next step? How do you treat? What type of imaging is best? etc.

What I used:

So, I have required assignments in third year. It was my school’s attempt to equalize learning. On top of that as a 2+2 or hybrid student I have more assignments. The additional assignments really aren’t helpful. Sometimes the assigned topics are, but usually they aren’t.

Useful assigned content:

  • Online med ed (OME)
  • Case X (OME)

Initially I just did the assignments and hoped that it stuck. Some of it did, most of it didn’t. Additional resources I used:

  • Truelearn questions (good place to start but not sure they are very similar to the shelf questions)- COMQUEST are better
  • Dorian Deck from Anki

Not useful content:

  • Assigned standardized patients (useful in 1st and 2nd year, not useful at all as a third year when you start regularly seeing patients)
  • assigned powerpoints
  • assigned case presentations
  • aquifer cases – not much for the second surgery rotation, but wasn’t helpful from my first rotation in surgery
  • Wise MD and Wise MD on-call: these are videos. Some of my assigned videos would have been SUPER HELPFUL if they were assigned for my first month of surgery. Like what are the instruments you are using in the OR and how to suture… The rest were supposed to be case-based assignments but I just personally didn’t jive with the way they were presented.

How I studied:

So the first two weeks I was in ENT, and didn’t get much studying for my shelf in. I was mostly trying to stay afloat in ENT. Which my “give a shit meter” would drop significantly after 1.5 weeks- not going to lie.

After that I worked on my assignments. This was a good base, but I really wasn’t retaining as much as I’d hoped.

About 1.5 weeks out was the following:

  • 200-500 Anki reviews a day (brutal yes – probably should have spread that out more)
  • About 10-25 Truelearn questions a day (there are only like 140 total. Most of my classmates bought COMQUEST which gives you a simulated shelf score)

Few days before:

  • 2-3 days before I rewatched all the surgery videos and trauma videos on OME to refresh my memory (super helpful after doing so much Anki)
  • Watched the Emma Holliday presentation for surgery on YouTube. Even just listening to them or attempting to answer the question myself before she stated the answer was helpful for me.

I was going to add in some Uworld questions but didn’t have the time or energy. The procrastination game is strong on my end. I’ve always been a last minute blitz studier. Wish I wasn’t as it is stressful, but it is what it is. I’m 30 and I doubt I will change that habit.

Hope this was helpful!