 Hi everybody, my name is Boris. I'm a physician-assistant student. I'm just wrapping up my didactic year of PA school So I wanted to make this video to share the things that I learned that really helped me get through didactic year of PA school So here's four things I wish I knew before starting didactic year of PA school the four commandments of success in didactic year of PA school number one Thou shalt not treat a test question like a real patient So this is true especially on those long Vignette type questions where you get all kinds of patient history Family history about the patient all their medications lab reports may be even imaging They give you all this information and like 99% of it You probably don't even need to answer the question and from what I've heard the pants is full of these kinds of questions So they're really training you to get good at these So what do you do when there's a long question and you only get about one minute per question on your exams in PA school You have to have a really solid strategy to get through these kinds of questions So what do you do? The first thing you do with something like this is you read the end of the question first So the question might be a whole paragraph full of all kinds of information like I just told you But what they're actually asking you is in the very last sentence of that very long paragraph So you read that sentence first then what do you do? You don't go back and look at all the information I'm assuming this is a multiple choice exam like a lot of your exams will be and like the pants will be So you read the last sentence first to see what you're actually being asked then you read your answer choices and then you go back into the Vignette and Kind of skim through it and see if you can rule out any of those answer choices until you're finally left with a correct answer So this is something I was actually much better at in the beginning of didactic here And I actually progressively got worse at as didactic here continued because we were trained to think about everything with a patient Think about their history think about all the meds think about any possible drug interactions You're supposed to think very holistically with all the information you're given But that's just not really practical with a long paragraph in a one-minute time limit So you have to be strategic and instead of thinking. Hey, this is a real-life patient and I'm gonna hurt them if I miss something That's a good way to think about real patients But with a test question the way you want to think is hey the person who wrote this question the PA who wrote this question What are they trying to ask me? What are they trying to see if I know? So I'm gonna say it again because it's very important Do not treat test questions like patients treat them like test questions Ask yourself what you think the writer of the question is trying to get at see what they're trying to see if you know and Pick that answer Read the last sentence in a long question first then look at your answer choices and then look at all the other Information very quickly to see if you could rule out some of those answer choices Trust me. This will save you a lot of time and a lot of stress on those long exams number two Now shall honor thy mentor So I'm not sure if everybody's PA school does this I assume that they do because it's a great program My PA school has a mentor program whereas in coming first years We were set up with a second year student who had just gone through didactic to answer all of our questions and just see if they Could help us out in any way so before starting the didactic year I actually had about a half hour maybe 45 minute conversation on the phone with my mentor And I asked him all kinds of questions some of the questions were pretty general like how many hours did you study per night? What should I expect things like that? But then some of them were really practical and these were the ones that I'm really grateful that I asked and that my mentor Answered honestly some of the more practical questions were hey How do I study for this class and then what does this professor expect us to know and things like that and some of the answers were like Hey for this particular class everything you need to know is on the PowerPoint slides Don't get the book don't freak out about writing down everything in lecture The test is almost completely based on the PowerPoint slides and that saved me a lot of worrying and kind of already Developed a strategy for me to study for that class and it actually worked the entire year Then for another class my mentor told me hey just about all the questions on the exams come from this one book So PowerPoint slides are good lectures are good But you really need this book and really focus all of your effort on reading this book and again All of that turned out to be true for that particular class I read the chapter in the book and took notes on that then I kind of just skim the PowerPoint lectures And I did great so things like that were really useful And I know that because some of my classmates didn't get information like that from their mentor And so they experienced more stress than I did at least at the very beginning Because so much material is coming at you so fast and plus there's all these additional readings And so I can only imagine especially if someone's a slow reader like me It's overwhelming because you literally don't have enough hours in the day to go to lecture take notes Review the notes read the chapter take notes on the chapter. There's literally no way I could have done that So I'm really thankful that I asked my mentor for that specific advice and that that advice was accurate and it worked So definitely ask your mentor every question you possibly might have and definitely ask them things like hey How do I study for each of these classes? Where do they pull the material from for exams? What should I expect in this kind of exam and so on? Number three thou shalt read pants prep pearls before and after every module This is the biggest gift that was ever given to PA students and Dwayne Williams is proof that not all heroes wear capes Unless Dwayne Williams actually wears a cape in which case I'm completely wrong and I'm sorry Dwayne We've all heard that didactic gear is like drinking information out of a fire hose There's just so much coming at you constantly that it's really hard to keep up and it's really easy to get behind so Why am I giving you extra things to read? Here's why like I said? There's information coming at you so fast that sometimes it's really hard to prioritize what you really need to know and What's kind of more FYI or ancillary information? So at least for me personally I found it really difficult to figure out what to focus on what would definitely be on the exam and What we would need for our boards and what is kind of like more of a rare condition that they brought up because we may see it We may not see it. We may need to know about it But it's not as important as the very critical very important and very common conditions That's where pants prep pearls comes in this book does an excellent job of outlining every module and most of the things That we need to know for those modules. Is it comprehensive? No, will it have everything that you need to know for the pants? Maybe will it have everything that you need to know for your exams definitely not but at the very least Let's say your cardiology module starts on Monday on Friday Saturday Maybe Sunday just take a look at the cardiology section and pants prep pearls and just skim it You know spend maybe 30 40 minutes cardiology is kind of a long section So maybe an hour don't like take notes and don't try to learn or memorize everything but just skim it and get the idea Then go through your module. Maybe your school teaches it in a week two weeks Whatever it may be and as they're teaching you the module You'll just remember little bits of information from pants prep pearls like oh, yeah, that's how that works I remember reading that I was a little confused about that and now I get it Either way learning is all about repetition and starting by at least skimming the major concepts that you're going to be tested on Before the module begins will help you so much and then As if you don't have enough work to do once you're done with the module and once you've studied all the information for your module exam Take a look at pants prep pearls again Skim it again and a lot of stuff you'll find that you just know But like I said if you're confused like I always was on what's critical for you to know And what's maybe more ancillary pants prep pearls will help to focus your study on things that you really really need to know number four Thou shalt diversify those study methods So you may have already heard that some things that you did in undergrad may not work for you in pa school And also that study methods that work for one class may not work for another class Depending on how your pa school is structured. You may have one two three even as many as four or five exams in one week And when there is that much information coming at you and you're expected to retain it and be testable that quickly It can get really tempting to do the same thing for every single class But I'm telling you it doesn't always work You may not feel like it but try doing different things for different classes For example in clinical medicine, which will usually be your biggest class There's a lot of in-depth information lots of concepts and also lots of rote memorization So with that much information you're going to have to do a lot of repetition and a lot of conceptualization I personally found it helpful to skim the powerpoint before class I think the rule of thumb is like 15 to 20 minutes per hour of material something like that So not in depth studying just kind of skimming kind of like what I said about the pansprout pearls book It's just so that you have the initial idea of the material in your head before you hear it a second time in lecture Then in lecture, take really good notes clarify the things that you heard that you maybe didn't understand And then that's a second time you've heard the material Then I would go home and condense all the material that I've taken notes on and heard now a second time in class I'd handwrite it on these really solid pieces of paper with different color pens and markers and things like that And just really make great notes that are a condensed version of the material from the powerpoint slides And from the notes that I took during class and then I'd go to the whiteboard and condense my notes even further And basically turn them into just one or two word descriptions of every concept and everything that I need to know And then just be able to look at those words and test myself and see if I know everything that I need to know So that's what I did with clinical medicine Like I said where there was just a ton of concepts a ton of information lots of stuff to learn With anatomy, which honestly felt like a foreign language to me because some of the words are so long And they're just so foreign sounding and you just don't really know all the little word cells and pieces and parts that make up Those words until you learn them. So for instance, the salpingo pharyngeal fold is in your nasopharynx Nasopharynx like right there, but salpings usually refers to the ovary So that's something that's just really confusing until you realize why it's named that way So anyway, not to make this a long study tips video But what really helped me with anatomy is first off getting the list of all the terms all the body parts that you have to Learn for the module that you're studying for and before even going to the cadaver lab Or we call them donors not cadavers a little bit more respectful to the people that gave their body to science So that we can learn but anyway before even going to the donor lab or opening the book and seeing what everything looks like What I would do is I would make a list of all the things that I have to learn all the terms all the body parts And just write that list hand write it several times And what that did was it made it so all those body parts and terms were like right on the top of my head Right at the tip of my tongue. I just knew them. I was ready to apply them Then I would go to the donor lab or use the book or even draw out the anatomy in my notebook Either way once I finally saw the body parts and I already had the list kind of in my head It was a lot easier to make those associations and learn those terms and learn the anatomy But again anatomy is really all about rote memorization and just repetition Get those terms down and then go associate them with the body parts in the donor lab or out of your book One other thing that I just mentioned that I did with anatomy is I would actually draw the anatomy And to be honest in retrospect that probably wasn't the most efficient way to learn the anatomy It took me hours to make these drawings So it did help me learn and I did really learn it well, but it just took too long So honestly, I'd really advise against drawing out the anatomy It's better to just learn the list and then go to the lab and just learn it that way And last but not least Pharmacology pharmacology was my nemesis my worst class And I'm sorry to say the only way I was able to get through pharmacology Was just to make acronyms out of everything. For example If I knew that there were four p.o. Which means taken by mouth p.o Multiple sclerosis or ms medications I would make an acronym out of the first letters of the medications either the generic or the brand name Whatever was easier for me to memorize because on the exam you get both for p.o. ms medications I use the acronym gART for g a r t for galenia albagio Ryleutek and tectavera And I still remember that even though our neural unit was like almost a year ago at this point That was just a really solid acronym and it really drilled it into my head And another thing that that acronym helped me do is not just to recall the medications But also to learn in order, you know g a r t galenia albagio ryleutek tectavera All the things about those drugs So instead of having to learn like oh, what are the side effects and what is the mechanism of action of ryleutek? I would just learn all four drugs side effects and all four drugs mechanisms of action and interactions And basically everything I had to know about them just in order So I don't know why it was easier for me to memorize things in order instead of just associating them with the name of the drug But it really worked for me So if you're having trouble learning everything that you need to know about the drugs and pharmacology Maybe try doing it that way So I know the method is kind of sloppy and it's probably not conducive to learning the drugs long term But you got to do what you got to do to survive and that method got me through pharmacology So I can't really complain Honestly, I think drugs are going to be easier to learn in clinical year And then of course while we're practicing because you just use them over and over and over again And in didactic year, you're presented with so many drugs that you're not going to use Their job is basically just to teach you all of them and also so you get the basic idea of all the different mechanisms and things like that So I can definitely see why they present so many drugs But for me personally who has trouble with rote memorization It was really a struggle and the acronym method of learning these drugs helped me tremendously And so I know I said there was going to be four commandments of success in didactic year of PA school But I'm going to give you a bonus tip and this is something I think is going to be especially true going through school during COVID-19 where a lot of your classes are going to be online or mixed, you know online and on campus There's just going to be a lot more logistics than there normally would be This tip will really help you out So one thing I honestly didn't expect coming into PA school that I'm sure is even more true now Is how much it and just general logistics there are in going through the program Whether your school uses canvas like my school or blackboard or just email communication Whatever it may be. There's a ton of communication. There's always emails. There's always updates deadlines getting pushed back or pushed up Additional slides more stuff. You have to know for the test That's like tomorrow even though you're getting the email now at like six o'clock all kinds of stuff like that happens And it happens often So you find that you spend nearly as much time just checking and updating your emails and updating your calendar as you do actually study And that can get stressful. So what's my advice for getting around that? Well, kind of like the joker said in the dark night We're able to accept anything even something terrible as long as it's part of the plan because it's all part of the plan So with all these emails and it issues and just the logistics of going through PA school What I really advise you to do is just expect to spend half an hour a day Every single day Maybe in the beginning of the day or the end of the day or maybe even both Depending on how many updates your school sends out Just expect that every single day you're going to spend half an hour to an hour Doing emails and updating your calendar. Just expect that that's going to be a daily thing for you And then every time an update happens, you don't get stressed out. It's just part of the plan Every time you get more slides the night before an exam It's just part of the plan expect that that's going to happen Study so well that you know you're going to get some new stuff That's going to take you maybe 20 30 minutes to get through and learn really well for the next day's exam That may not happen every week. That may not even happen once a module But it will happen eventually and if you expect it, you're not going to be as stressed out It's just going to be part of your plan. You're just going to knock it out move on to the next And before you know it, you'll be in my shoes and didactic year will be over and you'll be looking forward to clinicals And that awesome career that we're all striving for will just be that much closer and it's going to feel good So I just really hope some of this information helps people who are just starting pa school To feel a little bit more at ease a little bit more ready to take on the didactic year because like I said before You know what it'll be over So if you found this video useful, please subscribe to my channel Please like the video share the video comment on the video Let me know what you found helpful what you agree with what you disagree with Anything like that any engagement really helps the channel grow And my goal is to help as many people as possible get into pa school and then do well when they're in pa school I actually really have a special video coming. I interviewed the dean of admission at my pa school And she gave out some amazing information for pre pa students that video is coming next So stay tuned. Thank you for watching. Thank you very much for supporting my channel. I'll see you next time