 Now for me going through a question is more about an opportunity to learn instead about an opportunity to get the question right. I know in med school it seems like we have to get that question right or else it seems that it signifies level of ignorance or lack of comprehension. So I've definitely made you guys wait but we're finally going to talk about step three. Alright guys, welcome to the MD journey channel completely dedicated to helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. My name is Laksh. I'm an internal medicine physician and resident in training and in this channel we make videos about helping you on your medical journey through studying productivity you name it. So if you're new here consider subscribing. But finally I've been making you guys wait long enough. We're finally going to make a video about step three. Now as I'm making this video I am about a year and a half into my residency and through the last 18 months I've been getting tons of emails asking for tips and advice on step three. Unfortunately I was not able to take the test during that period either through busy rotations and or COVID. We finally got past all those obstacles. Today is finally scheduled and now I can make videos to help you on your step three journey. In this video I'm going to give you a breakdown of how I'm studying what step three is like and spoiler alert it's actually going to be a multi video series where you can follow me on a weekly basis through my prep so you can understand what kind of things are working how I'm making changes. So if you're watching this in the future date or if you want to go ahead and just bookmark that playlist I'll be linked down below. So let's quickly break down what step three is like. Now if you're unfamiliar there are multiple different steps or exams that you'll take for your medical licensing. Step one and step two you take during your medical school four year duration and then step three you take at some point during your residency usually during your first year or sometime early during your second year like I'm doing. You have to pass these exams to get your medical license here in the United States and each exam kind of builds on your medical foundation and it goes from very nitpicky pieces of detail to more into actually managing and taking care of patient. Now unlike step one and step two which are typically one day exam step three is actually a two day exam. Maybe they should have made step two a two day and a step three a three. No definitely not three. But all jokes aside step three is unique because there are two different days two different parts. The first part is basically what most people are used to. It's a multiple choice exam. I believe it's about seven to eight hours where you have about 40 to 45 questions per block and it's basically a seven hour brain dead kind of session that we're all used to on our medical journey. Second day is a little bit different. This is where you actually have clinical cases and scenarios and you actually have to do different things. It's kind of like you're doing an online simulator of being a physician in the emergency room or in the internal medicine awards. We have to order certain labs. You have to make sure the patient has a diet and make sure they get transferred to whatever floor or bed that you want them to be in the hospital. You order the imaging. There's a lot of more of an intuitive kind of process of taking care of a patient that we have to practice and make sure we don't miss the most important thing. In addition to being unique because it has two parts, step three kind of covers all the material you probably use from med school, pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery, OB-GYN. And for somebody like me who's been pretty far removed now about 18 months away from any kind of knowledge of pediatrics or OB-GYN because I just don't use it as an internal medicine physician on a daily basis. For me, it's going to require a lot of refreshing on things like, you know, contraceptions and deliveries and all the different diseases that a baby can have that I just totally forgot. So I'm going to have to do a little bit of review. And so with that, I'm tailoring my study schedule to make sure that I can review those old topics that I haven't seen in a while, as well as make sure that I can prep for those clinical cases. So let me give you a breakdown of how I plan on studying what resources I plan on using. As I mentioned earlier in this video, about five to six weeks away from exam day, about 38 days. And so really the approach I took is to make sure that I simplify my resource and I've chosen basically to stick to your world. I feel like it'll give me all of the information and review that I need in terms of old and new material, as well as avoids making my residency life even more complicated. And so to lay out my study schedule, I basically tried to figure out how many questions I'd have to do on your world. There's roughly about 1600 and I had about 38 days left until test day. So essentially what I decided to do is I wanted to give myself a little bit of a buffer for the days that I'm on and overnight call or the days that I just don't end up studying, as well as a few days before the exam where I just want to kind of be able to review all my weak points. So set up 38 days. I told myself, well, you have 28 days to review. It's about four weeks. And that basically broke down to about 40 to 50 questions of your world that I had to do daily basis. And for me, it's not hard to get through those 40 questions. I'll explain the second of how I make sure I get through them really quick by still being able to get all the knowledge. But I have to get through those 40 to 50 questions on a daily basis. And that's kind of the breakdown. And every about four to five days, I'm going to do a few of those clinical cases and we'll see in this series, how well I'm able to stick through them as well as any changes that I make. So with that breakdown, I want to quickly just share a few tips that I've been using, already been studying for about three to four days on how I'm able to kind of get through those 40 questions, especially with the busy residency life. Now, for me, going through a question is more about an opportunity to learn instead about an opportunity to get the question right. I know in med school, it seems like we have to get that question right, or else it seems that it signifies level of ignorance or lack of comprehension. For me, I look at every practice question as another opportunity to just gain a little bit of knowledge. And so for me, it doesn't make sense to spend a minute or two minutes on a question, especially if I have 1600 of them to do in a busy residency life. So instead, I like to give myself a timer and basically say that if it typically took me a minute to do a test question, I'm going to try to answer each question in about 30 seconds. Sometimes I can answer them much quicker. I'll link down below a video of how I explain how to approach question banks and how to make sure you can take multiple choice exams really well. Basically, my approach to answering multiple choice questions is I read the question first, look at the answer choices and already get an idea because of familiarity of what kind of things I should be looking for in the question bank. If the answer choices are a variety of different organisms and microbiology, but I already kind of know to what clues to look for, whether it's travel history or the type of a rash a patient may have, that I need to start looking for in the question bank. Often, I don't even bother reading the entire vignette. I just try to look to see how quickly I answer a question based off of some of the clues that I'd be able to get within the 20 to 30 seconds. Now, most of the time I'm able to find those clues to be able to answer the question correctly. But there are instances where I'm still trying to answer the question quickly and I may get it wrong. And that's usually because of two reasons. One, I didn't know it in the first place. So spending an extra 30 seconds to an extra minute and a half wouldn't have made a difference. But two, if I can answer that question incorrectly quicker, I can get the answer quicker and be able to make the review and just be able to process, OK, what am I forgetting? Or what did I not know in the first place? So, for example, it's been a while since I've taken a pediatrics rotation or an OB-GYN rotation. So about five out of 10 times, 50 percent, I just don't remember the concepts, the topics, the schedules for prenatal care. Those are all out of my kind of brain knowledge of information I store. So I rather just go, OK, I get an idea of what they're trying to ask me. I honestly don't remember. Let me just answer what I think it is, is that I'm trying to decipher or try to guess and just quickly get to the part where they just show me that they answer it, so I can just move on after learning it. That was a long-winded way of summarizing, of using speed to just get to that review, get to that explanation as quickly as possible. If you have 1600 topics, you could potentially show up on your real thing. I'd rather see all of them as well as have time to review. So I make sure I try to answer them within 30 seconds. If I don't really remember the topic, I'm not going to spend much time on it. I'm going to give my best guess within that 30 seconds. Sometimes it's even within 15. Quickly answer the questions so I can see the explanation, say, OK, this is what I forgot from way back in med school. Let's move on. And as I'm doing this, I'm marking the questions so that way in those last seven to 10 days that I give myself as a buffer. Ideally, I can do those questions again. So that way every part of your world is something that I could ideally answer correctly on the real thing. And the second part of how to study for step three during a busy residency is to make sure that you're trying to do it during your highest energy moments in your day. Now, it's hard because in residency, your highest energy moments are typically in the hospital when you come home. There's a lack of it. But on your days off, so for example, every four days I'm currently on call, which means I'm in the hospital overnight, 28 hours total. But thankfully the next day I have off. So I'm going to use those days strategically not only to do 40 questions, but maybe 50 to 60 in case there are days where I either slack off or miss on a day. And this way I'm not getting far behind on the schedule that I've assigned for myself. But that guys is a breakdown of how I'm studying for step three. Hopefully you guys are excited for the series. And as I mentioned, there will be a playlist linked down below. If you want to be informed when these videos come out, then make sure you hit that subscribe button for videos like this as well as other tip videos to help you on your medical journey coming out to you two times per week. And make sure if you did make it to the very end, supporting the channel, also letting me know that you enjoy this kind of content by hitting that like button to do it. Thanks. Just just right there. Maybe I missed it. One of these two. But with all jokes aside, guys, I do want to make sure that the series and the content is helpful. So make sure you drop all your questions about step three and medical school in general down below in the comment section. Make sure to hit that like and subscribe button if you haven't done so already. And then last 20 second reminder that he has so much for watching as always. Hopefully I've been a little help to you on your journey. Thank you for being a part of mine. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.