Surgery , Pediatrics

Hey, sorry I have been missing since a couple of days. I had to travel for some personal reasons and have been super busy. But I have been doing my topics for the day according to my schedule.

I have finished Surgery Kaplan notes. I thoroughly enjoyed these notes. The layout of the book with review questions in the back is very good. I have been doing a block of Kaplan questions simultaneously. I have finished 47% of Kaplan Qbank so far. I am at 60% average.

I have started Pediatrics today. I did a block of Surgery and Pediatrics(Score-75%).

I hope everyone is doing well.

Thats it for now.

Cheers!

Surgery - 5

Today I did Pediatric surgery, Vascular surgery and Skin Surgery sections in Kaplan notes. Then I did a couple of questions in the clinical review section of the book.

I did a block of OBGyn questions from Kaplan Qbank. I was wondering if it required to do Kaplan notes for OBGyn. I have done it from MTB 2. Wondering whether it is worth spending time on OBGyn Kaplan notes.

Was at the library till 7 45 pm. I did a couple more of the surgery cases from Kaplan notes after dinner. I am so exhausted. Gonna crash now.

Hope everyone had a great day.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Surgery-4

Finished General Surgery. Did a couple of review questions at the back of Kaplan lecture notes. Did a block of Psychiatry Kaplan Qbank questions.

I had a study group meeting in the afternoon. It went on for over 2 hours.

As I mentioned yesterday I had to attend a dinner. It was unavoidable. So I couldn't study after 6 PM. Tried to study after coming back but I was too exhausted. I have 15 pages of today's syllabus left for tomorrow. What an exhausting day! Gonna call it a night.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Surgery - 3

Finished Orthopedics and started General Surgery today. Then I did a couple of questions in the back of Kaplan notes. I did a block of Kaplan Qbank of hematology and psychiatry questions.

I have a study session and a dinner that I have to attend tomorrow. So I am doing a few of tomorrows topics today. Somehow my weekend turned out to be very busy.

I hope everyone had a great day. Nothing very interesting happened today. One of those regular days.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Surgery-2

I finished orthopedics and pre-op/post-op care. Then I did the relevant questions in Kaplan notes at the end. I am loving surgery after Internal Medicine.

I did a block of Hematology and Psychiatry questions in the Kaplan Qbank. The questions in Hematology regarding ITP, TTP and DIC can be so confusing. Hopefully I got a lot of concepts cleared up today.

I had to attend a dinner today. So I finished today's syllabus after coming back from dinner, at almost 10 30. I had quite a tight schedule today. But I finished whatever I had planned. Have to hustle right!

Very exhausting but productive day.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Surgery day 1

I started Surgery Kaplan Lecture notes today. I did Trauma and half of Orthopedics. Then I solved related questions in the latter half of the book which has clinical vignettes. The layout of Surgery Kaplan notes is pretty interesting. There is much more information than MTB 2, so I would definitely recommend to do Kaplan Lecture notes for this subject.

I solved a couple of questions in Kaplan Qbank in Dermatology, Hematology and Psychiatry.

That is pretty much my day. Could not work out today because it was pretty late by the time I finished today's syllabus.

I am gonna call it a night. Hope everyone had a great day.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Psychiatry,Ethics And Epidemiology

Hello! Long time, no see!

I am back after a week. I had an amazing family reunion. Spent quality time with family and friends. It was a good break. I did not have a break after I started preparation in January. So it was nice. :)

I finished the remaining of Psychiatry, Ethics and Epidemiology (Kaplan Lecture Notes). Had a great study group in the evening. I attended a Hematology Kaplan Live lecture. As I am registered to the Kaplan Qbank, I get a few free lectures. So that was good.

I will be back with my preparation updates regularly. I hope everyone is preparing well.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Psychiatry

I needed a break from Internal Medicine for a bit to clear my head. I started psychiatry two days ago. I am done through half of Kaplan Psychiatry notes. It is pretty much a repetition of STEP 1 notes. So if you were strong in STEP 1 in this topic you can skip this section. I however felt that I needed to brush up a bit.

I have been doing Psychiatry, GI and dermatology questions from Kaplan Qbank. Have to say, GI is hard! The topics seem pretty straight forward while you are studying for them. But when you are solving questions, it is really hard.

I am taking a small break from Feb 12 to Feb 15. Have a very exciting family event coming up. I will be back on Monday.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Cheers!

Emergency Medicine -2 ,Dermatology

Done with Emergency medicine. There was so much more information overall as compared to MTB 2. Very much worth investing time in giving a read through Kaplan notes. I did Dermatology. But I have to say that neither MTB 2 nor Kaplan does a good job with Dermatology because there are so many questions in the Kaplan Qbank that are not covered in the notes. So for the minor topics such as Ophthalmology and Dermatology I guess one has to learn by doing questions.

I have had the craziest last two days. I was barely finishing my syllabus for the day. Somehow I was overloaded with work. I had to catch up with so many people. Had a couple of family commitments. Basically, the last two days were a blur.

I had a study group session today. It was amazing! I am seriously learning so much while discussing with these guys. Was the best part of my day today.

At this point I need a little change of subject so I am going to do Psychiatry, Epidemiology and Ethics for the next couple of days.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. It would be so cool to know what other people opinions are on the topics I mentioned. So be sure to comment if you have some helpful tips.

Thats it for the day.

See you soon.

Cheers!

Emergency medicine-1

I started Emergency Medicine in Kaplan notes. Kaplan notes are much more detailed in this section than MTB 2 was. So I did feel like I learnt a lot of new information which was not the case with the other specialities. I would say if anyone is short on time and cannot read the whole Kaplan book for Internal Medicine, I would definitely recommend them to go through Emergency Medicine section once.

I did a couple of Ophthalmology questions in Kaplan Qbank. There were so many questions with topics which were neither covered in MTB 2 nor in Kaplan notes. So it was more like learning new topics rather than answering questions. That is why I guess people recommend doing as many questions as possible for STEP 2, because their is no reliable text.

Did manage to go the gym today. Attend a Turbo Kick class. Not my favourite but I got some good exercise.

Thats it for now. See you tomorrow.

Cheers!

Pulmonology-2

Finally done with Pulmonology. My Everest! Feels good to done with it. Then I solved the remaining Neurology questions in Kaplan Qbank. Answered 63% of them. It is an average score, but certainly an improvement over yesterday.

Had a study group today and had a really good discussion. I never thought I would like study groups but I feel like I learn a lot from others and it is a great way to reinforce what you have studied. It also keeps you informed as to what others are doing. We studied for almost four and a half hours due to which I could not make it to the gym today. I really need to go tomorrow!

It was a pretty busy day but I learnt a lot.Super tired.

It was a good day! :)

See you tomorrow.

Cheers!

Bad day! Radiology,Pulmonolgy -1

It was one of those days! The day started with a Kaplan Neurology block where I scored 52%. Seriously?! I don't know if the block was hard or if I was really bad at the topics in todays block.And to add on to my irritation, most of the observership positions that I wanted to apply for this July need both Step 1 and 2 scores. The applications of which will be closed by the time I finish Step 2. I had a minor panic attack. Took a while for me to be 'okay' again.

Then I started doing Pulmonology Kaplan notes. This is one of my least favorite subjects. But, had to do it. Made myself do two-thirds of it before I just could not do it anymore. I decided to do radiology. As it is a small topic I thought it would be a light read. Finished that really late. Did not have time to go to the gym(which maybe contributes to my irritable mood).

Sorry if it was a 'rant' kind of post. There are all kind of days. It it not always rainbows and sunshine!

Anyways, hope everyone had a great day.

See you tomorrow.

Cheers.

Gastroenterology-1

I started Gastroenterology in Kaplan notes today. Almost done with it, just a few topics left. MTB does a pretty good job with Internal Medicine actually. Once you do MTB, Kaplan notes are pretty much a repetition. The new edition has some new drugs though. I don't know if those are essential to know. I guess we will get to know about that while doing UWorld and NBME.

I did a block of Neurology questions in Kaplan Qbank. I got 70% right. There were a couple of questions in the Qbank which were not in MTB or Kapaln notes. So I would definitely recommend checking them out.

Had an amazing Zumba class in the evening. Dancing feels so good. Anyways I don't have time to go out much with CK preparation, so these classes are my release.

Was a good day! See you tomorrow!

Cheers!

OBGyn questions, Neurology, Ophthalmology

Hey! It has been a couple of days since I last posted. I had a lot of boring work these past few days. I had to get my CV ready, make some appointments etc. I also had to help out my mom for some event coming up this month. So basically, I started studying today.

From today till mid march I am going to do a block of Kaplan Qbank everyday and a couple of topics in Kaplan Lecture Notes. Today I did a block of OBGyn questions. I scored 70%. Then I started Internal Medicine lecture notes today. I did Neurology and ophthalmology notes. After studying MTB 2,  I am getting through Kaplan lecture notes pretty fast.

Went to the gym in the evening. Did a pretty mild exercise today. There was no class in the gym today. When I have to work out on my own, I find it really boring. Managed to do a little bit of treadmill and stair master. Tomorrow is Zumba class. Excited!

That is pretty much what my day was. I will see you tomorrow!

Cheers!