mmm Brownies

Liz baked brownies from scratch for the whole class. They werevery delicious. The best brownies I've ever had.

Legal Limericks

There once was a man from Nantucket...

The poor get poorer The Rich get richer. Or do they..?

What is Mike eating?

Pictures of Lake Michigan

 
 

 


The shore of Lake Michigan 

Campus Water Tower

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USMLE study tips

So we started learning test taking skills this week, and we had somebocy come in and talk to us about improved studying methods. Unlike what we got back at Drexel these seemed pretty good, so I'm posting them for you. Also a fun self test at the end.


A key theme was time effectiveness adn that it makes more sense to study less material and know it well rather than more material but not know it very well. The big statistic was that students who reviewed the same day retained 80% of what they knew after several days, but students who didn't only retained 30%. So basically, even if reviewing made you cover half as much material (which won't happen) you'll still be much better off AND at least you'll know what you know instead of forgetting random bits. So what else made effective studying?:

1. Review the SAME DAY!
2. Having done that reviewing a week later is also helpful. Otherwise its just a temporaty boost again.
3. Active learning is key. Whether you're reading a book or watching a lecture ask questions (to yourself or professor) or try to anticipate what's being said or anything to stay involved. It's hard but do you want 80% or 30%. That's double the studying with worse long term results.
4. Most medical schools teach people to just do recognition or link two words together. You want to know it well enough so you can explain it and have a bunch of facts together.
5. In that vein, group studying is good. If you're by yourself and you think you know something, but really don't you won't find out until the test (boo). In a group other people will provide a check.
6. People can only really memorize about 5 things at a time so if you have a drug or microbe with more than 5 qualities, just pick 5 to study for one day. You can do another 5 the next day if you want. If you try to memorize 10 features at one time you'll just get confused and remember 1 or 2 2<5. Wish I had known that one.
7. If you have two subjects that are very similar (e.g. nephrotic syndrome-nephritic syndrome or glaucoma-cataracts) study them on separate days. If you do them on the same day you'll just get confused.
8. A lot of times covering less material but knowing it really well can be better than covering more material but forgetting half.
9. People seem to need 7 hours of sleep for full long term memory. Sorry, wish it was different, but that's what the studies say.
10. Vizualizing a picture while memorizing is way better than just repition. see quiz below.


Some more USMLE specific stuff that might apply to you anyway.

So one of the big differences with the USMLE is that pass is 58% and high scores are 75%. So basically to pass they only expect you to know maybe 48% of the questions to pass or less if you can do a decent guess on the remainder. In fact the people who get high scores don't really know many more questions straight out. What they can do is cut the remainder down to 2 choices. 50%-known + .5*50% educated guess = 75% top score. This is a good thing because the material is way too much to know it all.

So for the USMLE its particularly imporatant to know less volume, but know it really well.
Example: A few years ago CMS was teaching thousands of drugs and getting lousy pharm scores on USMLE. So one year they cut it down to the 200 most prescribed drugs and scores improved. The next year they took a RANDOM sample of 100 those drugs and taught those and scores went up again! Even though, no moatter how you looka at it they were missing half the important drugs.


They also gave us a little fun quiz to test how you learn best. Basically, they said 3 sets of 7 word pairs alouds one after the other, and for each set of 7 pairs we'd try memorizing it a differnet way. First by visualizing it, then by repeating it to ourselves and finally by forming sentences with the words. Then they read the first word from each set and we had to try to write down the other word. So you can tell yourself what worked best for you. So you don't have to make up your own list of random words I'm putting one here. If you have someone to help you you can do it just like that. Otherwise, I guess read the words yourself and then you can either try remembering them without a hint, or I'll put the hint words in the comments and you can check there. Have fun!

Visualize

ball rabbit

houe leaf

spoon orange

fish door

arm dog

desk year

mountain shoe




Repitition

coal horse

stone paint

ankle window

chalk spider

coin rain

wing river

table woman




Form a sentence with the two words.

car book

castle child

boat snow

hand night

square forest

wall job

flower bank

So now either jsut try to remember them without hints or go to the comments for hints.

The Punks of Zion: Close Encounters: Part I

The Punks of Zion: Close Encounters: Part I

What kind of Medical Student are You?

You scored 44% Xtreme Medical Student, 43% Normal Medical Student, 23% Annoying Medical Student, and 16% Halfass Medical Student!

**If you scored higher than 50% for Xtreme: You are a "gunner." Although, most people probably like you, you study a bit too much and also care more than you really should. **If you scored higher than 50% for Normal: You're one of us. You're totally normal and not annoying. Congratulations! You know the art of medical school. **If you scored higher than 50% for Annoying: I hate you. Your classmates and collegues will hate you. You need to drop out. You either care to much, act like you care to much, or a complete asshole. **If you scored higher than 50% for Halfass: You and I have a lot in common. You don't care about socializing nor your grades that much. You're more interested in graduating and becoming a doctor with as little bullshit as possible.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 75% on Xtreme You scored higher than 50% on Normal You scored higher than 56% on Annoying You scored higher than 31% on Halfass

Link: The What Medical Student Are You Test written by superwafle on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

hat tip: Goofy Girl

Top ten trivia about Mike

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Michael!

1. You can tell if Michael has been hard-boiled by spinning him. If he stands up, he is hard-boiled.
2. A rhinoceros horn is made from compacted Michael.
3. If you put a drop of liquor on Michael, he will go mad and sting himself to death.
4. Without its lining of Michael, your stomach would digest itself.
5. Louisa May Alcott, author of 'Little Michael', hated Michael and only wrote the book at her publisher's request.
6. If you chew gum while peeling Michael then it will stop you from crying.
7. Michael was originally called Cheerioats.
8. The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armour raised their visors to reveal Michael!
9. Michael cannot swim!
10. Michaelicide is the killing of Michael!

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Top

More snow!

 
 

Rosalind Franklin Chicago Medical School

 


Named after Rosalind Franklin, the real discoverer of the structure of DNA. (Note model of DNA in foreground.) 

My Chicago Apartment

 


It was cloudy and grey, but fairly warm. 

My Chicago Apartment

 
 

Highly medical bears

Geek Nurse has cutting edge info on the use of plush bears in modern pediatrics. You should go. You'll learn something.

GeekNurse: The Extra-Heavy Bear

Fame at last!

I'm #6 on MSN search for "Drexel Med!" Of course, MSN search sucks and I'm not even the top 200 on google, but I'll take what I can get.

Ha! That's funny.

The Punks of Zion: Jotd (joke not jew)

Admiral Dewey's Mansion

Our classes take place in Admiral George Dewey's (of Spanish-American War fame) former mansion. Apparently, Rosalind Franklin medical school and the Great Lakes Naval Center, next door swapped some of their buildings a few years ago, and this is what we got. It is on the national historic register.

Update: cool you can see my shadow. Let's see if it was the morning i would be facing west, but if it was the evening it wouldn't be, but chicago is north so it should face a little south... or north? aaarghh.

Philly plant photo

 


an old mural that I finally got up. 

Deer Detectors

 


They had these things lining the road form miles in Pennsylvania. I couldn't figure out what they were. It turns out that they are radar guns that detect deer coming onto the road and give you a warning. Now I can't decied whether I should say "those are great, we should get them in Jersey" or " they're probably so expenesive that they don't make any sense without some ridiculously wasteful federal grant." Any thoughts? 

Joe's Crab Shack

 
 
Update: the food was ordinary for seafood. They claim that the fish is flown in fresh. I couldn't tell, but than I don't normally have a very selective palate. Our waitress siad it was her first night on the job and, well, it showed so I can't give props on the service. The interesting part was really the incredible decor.

 
 

 
 

PA farms