 Internal medicine is arguably one of the most broad and thus difficult specialties to master in the field of medicine, but after being an internal medicine doctor myself for the past three years, here are my favorite resources that have made the process so much easier. Hey friends, welcome back to channel. In case you're new here, my name is Luxe. I am actually a full-time internal medicine physician, so I thought I'd make a full breakdown of the resources I use when I was a med student, but also things that I use on a daily basis now to help me learn, review, and retain all that information that you learn in medicine. Let's get into it. Now resource number one is emcrit.org. Now in addition to showing you this website, I'm also going to break down exactly how I use it, so stay tuned. Now while on the surface, this may not seem like an internal medicine blog and more of an emergency medicine, this is actually one of my favorite resources to use for some of the most complicated topics I have to understand in medicine. Usually what I'll do is actually we'll go up here to PumpCrit, and then the emcrit website nicely combines audio with very conversational blog posts to help you really understand why certain things are done. So for example, let's just say I've actually never seen a patient with catatonia, so I wanted to read about this. And when I get into the specific page, it has this nice beautiful breakdown where she has just the right amount of information, and all of this is kind of written as if your best friend was talking to you about why the pathophys of catatonia happens. And so they just don't BS you. They tell you exactly what you should know, what you shouldn't know, and most of this includes data and research if you want to click and pull up with the PubMed article that's associated with it. We're not going to do that. I really enjoy reading these for topics that I come across for patients that I've like never taken care of, or it's been quite some time, and just kind of having these in my back pocket. In fact, it's one of my go-to resources that if I'm learning about anything, let's just say we're going to take care of a patient with alcohol withdrawal, you can actually see that I've typed an alcohol withdrawal emcrit, and I'll find there's specific chapter on the topic. And then emcrit will take me to this big master topic, but also individual things that they've already talked about. So they talked about a chapter on refeeding syndrome, or if they talked about anything in medicine. Again, it's so broad, but once you learn something, you can learn about related topic, and it's a very nice illustrative way. You don't always have to understand these big tables, but they're useful if you actually care to learn them. And it's just something nice you can keep in your back pocket. Now, I promise I'd show you exactly how I use a website like emcrit. And I go over this in more detail in my episode of how I learn as a full-time physician step-by-step. So you guys can check out that episode in the video, I'll link it down below. But one of my favorite tools is to use Notion and essentially create a chapter for what I'm learning. So for example, as I was reading about cardiology, I was learning about LV afloat obstruction. It's actually a chapter within emcrit. And then I was able to just add in my own little definitions, what happens, and pictures that I found really helpful from their chapter, as well as other things such as how to treat it and manage it. And the nice thing is that in the future, if I ever come back to this related topic, maybe I read another journal article or somebody else is teaching me something about this, I already have a chapter in my Notion database, I can always add to it. And then because it's portable, I can pull it up my phone if I'm taking care of a patient with a specific problem. Now resource number two that I'm a big fan of is online meta. Now have a special place for OME because of how helpful was for me in medical school, but the nice thing is as they made more content, a lot of it is now free. And so for example, if you go to their website, I'll go ahead and add a link down below. You can go to any various topics. So here we're learning about coronary artery disease, and it's just a nice whiteboard description that's very nicely and neatly put together for you to understand how to manage it, how to stratify the patient, how to treat it, what type of decision making you have to do in internal medicine, doesn't matter if you're student or actual provider, you're going to be using these. And depending on what topic you want to go through, you can find the topics such as pulmonology and to find all the related videos, for example, if you're struggling with some things such as asthma, you can say, oh, does online meta to have a video about inhalers or asthma or COPD? And you're like, perfect. This first video is actually about asthma, let me go ahead and watch it. And particularly if you have a patient on your rotations or somebody who you're taking care of in residency, or if you're a nurse or a PA or a student, you can essentially watch these videos to get a better idea. You will have to sign up for their free access. If you want access to other things such as their notes, their flashcards and their practice questions, definitely it comes in their premium versions. I'll add all of those links down below. It was a resource that was very helpful to me when I was a student. Now the videos are more than enough for me to just get a nice, oh, I remember that now. And in a second, I'll share other video resources that are also free that have been super useful. Now resource number three is Medcram. Now I've gone over Medcram several times here on the channel, particularly in the episode that we did on my favorite YouTube channels for people on the medical journey. So you guys can check those out. But Medcram has been a big lifesaver in terms of having amazing playlists for every difficult topic that I had in medical school. So for instance, carrying forward with their example we just had before, if you're struggling with asthma, you can watch these five videos on why asthma happens as well as complicated things like how to understand which inhalers to give and the differences between the inhalers you're prescribing. Or if you're struggling with antibiotics, they have an entire playlist for that. Some of my favorite playlists and videos that I use when I was a brand new resident or a brand new physician were actually the videos on how to understand a ventilator and the different settings and different things you had to think about. And so make sure you guys check this out. Again, the videos are absolutely free. They've been watched by millions and hundreds of thousands of people and they've been very easy to understand. And there's always a corresponding video. Sometimes, for example, if you're learning EKGs or videos on practicing what you just learned. And so for all those reasons Medcram is a fantastic resource to add to your internal medicine repertoire. Now my next favorite resource is perfect for anyone who's struggling to learn EKGs and that is Wave Maiden. Now I can never remember the full URL of this, so I just always type in Wave Maiden, which I'll put here, but I'll add the link in the description in case you guys are interested. But if you click this, you actually come to this beautiful website that is made by the Harvard system. That's absolutely free. It's essentially a collection of EKGs and then asks you to identify one, a question that it's asking, but also then it helps you understand, oh, here are all the abnormalities from EKG. So let's just say we're going to look at a random case and it helps you say, okay, I am a medical student. You can actually just say I'm doing this for quizzing purposes and then just go ahead and click continue. You don't have to add your email address. And then you can pull up a high-resolution image of this. So you can practice your step-by-step approach of how to do an EKG. And if you guys are interested, go ahead and comment down below if you're watching this on YouTube because I really want to make a step-by-step video on how to perfect and make EKGs easier. So if you guys are interested in me making that video, it's going to take a lot of time. So I want to make sure the interest is there. But if you guys are interested, make sure you hit that like button. Let me know in the comments section down below. But you guys can go ahead and check out the high-resolution image, see what you find, and then look at the question that's asking you. And then when you click show answer, not only is it going to tell you what the answer is, so for example, if you don't even know what dephetylide is, it's going to walk you through that, but also going to tell you things like, oh, this patient is bradycardic. Oh, also look at their QT and their QTC interval and other things about the EKG. This is by far one of my favorite resources to teach EKGs. And actually when I'm on rotations with medical students, often what I'll do is I'll put up like one or three every morning and then we'll just walk through them. Sometimes I even get that wrong, but it's a great learning experience to think, oh, the small abnormality that didn't really look like it meant something is actually very telling for the specific patient. And EKGs are really about pattern recognition. So the more practice you can do, either on a daily basis or just saying twice a week, I'm going to pull up two to three EKGs and just get a little bit better. It really just hits it out of the park in terms of helping your overall knowledge to master a very difficult topic. Now, if you don't need to know ventilators, maybe you're a student who doesn't have to do ICU or you're a nursing student or PA that is need to actually manage these, then go ahead and just skip to the next part of the video that is pertinent to you. But if you are somebody who's going to be taking care of patients in ICU, even if you're like a surgery person, you'll have to do surgery ICU. You may have to remember how to manage event. This book just nicely breaks down in a very conversational tone. What type of things can be going with your ventilator, how to make your adjustments, and then how to manage a patient. For example, if somebody comes in with asthma, this is what you should be thinking about. If somebody comes in with COPD, this is what you should be thinking about. Somebody has like paralysis if they have neuromuscular disease, breaks you nicely through what settings to think about. If the ventilator is beeping at you for XY and Z reasons, so many different troubleshooting options. And again, it's very conversational. Those are my favorite kinds of books to read. And it's very short. It's like 140 pages. So if you're about to come to your IC rotation or any type of intensive rotation, this is a great book to have. Super cheap. I will link down below. I'll link to the Amazon. You can even get a use option because not that much changes in terms of ventilator management. So if you guys are on your way to become an internal medicine doctor, this book is one of my favorites to have on my bookshelf. I'll link down below. Now my next favorite resource is an interactive medical cases from the New England Journal of Medicine. Now if you are somebody who just learns by doing, somebody talking to you all the time just doesn't help you, then these are one of my favorite resources to really help you do that because not only do they teach you some kind of concept in the form of a patient vignette, but then you get to practice it. So for example, if we went to this case right here on hypertensive heartbreak, so I'd like their names, then it will walk you through a case of a 61 year old guy who comes in after having a heart attack, blah, blah, blah, and then you would essentially do the case. So you can go ahead and play it as a guest if you are signed in. And then as you go through the case, you'll be presented with things like their vitals or history over time. And these are actual cases. You can actually see what the natural course of a patient may look like even when things go bad and be able to see such as their medical history, their labs, what meds they're on, their physical exams, all the things that you would physically be doing in the ICU for this patient. And then being able to see their labs before they had the surgery, after their heart attack, and then what you're reported for, as well as other common studies. For example, here, they got a chest x-ray for this patient, and then a few EKGs that you can study, just like the wave maven example, and seeing like, oh, what's different here? Like this person looks like their normal sign is here. And then just telling you from experience, this person has a new left bundle branch block because I've seen that. I'm sure not it will tell you. Yep. So, you know, this is a nice breakdown of what's going on with this patient. It'll show you their echo. You can actually click on these. But it doesn't just end with what actually happened. You actually get to practice what's going on. So, this is a patient with top of subo, a very common condition that we'll rule out in the cat lab. It'll tell you the teachings of it, like why it happens, the clinical stuff, for example, cardiogenic shock, mitral regurgitation, all the things that can happen from this patient, how you treat them. And then this is my favorite part, is that not only do you need to learn about something very common, very exciting, like heartbreak syndrome, literally the broken heart syndrome and taco subo. But now, you can actually get to practice. So, they were going to finish this case and then essentially ask you, okay, now you're in a setting where a patient is going through the setting, they're having hypertension is what it looks like. And then what do you want to order next? And so, if you click something, they'll say like, eh, that's a decent answer, but it's like not ideal. So, then you can go like, oh, let's go ahead and click something else. And then essentially you can do this for every option and saying, yeah, that's the most appropriate choice, understand why. This is beautiful for students, for providers, and saying, I have lots of options in terms of what I can do for a patient, but these are the things that are most appropriate. And if you're using kind of the method that we talked about using Notion earlier, you can essentially create a taco subo, like chapter, add everything you're learning from as you're doing the case, and then saying, oh, like plasma manor nephrons, maybe my best choice if I'm trying to rule out somebody with a fio compared to all of my other choices. So, if your institution or your school gives you access to the digital version of the New England Journal, then make sure you guys check out some of the simulation cases. Again, even if you do just one of them on a weekly basis, you're already getting better knowledge compared to somebody who's just like stuck in their textbook. You're actually practicing stuff and learning it and then practicing it again using these same cases. That's one of the reasons that it's one of my favorite resources to recommend, particularly the brand new students. Now, if you're not familiar with clinical problem solvers, it's one of the most popular internal medicine podcasts that's out there where they essentially walk you through a case in a very vignette form. If you've ever been to a morning report for any specialty, usually a case is presented, people ask questions, more information is given, and then in the back of your mind, you're trying your practice coming with a differential and treatment. That's essentially what clinical problem solvers does on an episode by episode basis, but in addition to having a very successful podcast, which again, I will link down below, I'm actually a big fan of their website. So, if you just go to clinicalproblemsolving.com, you'll actually find what was one of my favorite things to go through is their schema. So, this is something that we as upper level residents use a lot to teach medical students and residents that are just brand new starting such as interns, and you can choose any topic. So, let's say we're going to go to the lungs, it's going to show me all the topics they've taught about so far in pulmonary. So, for example, let's say you're not really good at bronchiectasis, you can actually click this and then they'll have both an associated video and one of my favorite things is just a very nice way to understand things about bronchiectasis. So, like why it happens, you know, what's going on, how they have airway clearance, as well as other things you should be considering. Usually, it correlates well with the episode or the video. So, after watching the video, you're like, oh, here's the schema, and then you can take a picture of this, you can add this to your Notion database, you can take a picture of this and just keep it on your phone. Now, when you have a patient with bronchiectasis, you can think about all of these things. You don't have to go through a long detailed article from up to date, you can just use this as your like reminder of all the things you have to keep in mind. And the next resource I really enjoy for internal medicine is to just have a solid practice question bank. Now, the resource vary depending on where you are on your journey. So, for example, if you're a medical student, then using your world will be a great example because you'll have to use it for your board exams. But if you're in residence, here if you're about to start residency using things like MixApp, which is this is their book that's associated, and this right here is their platform for online questions. So, this is what I use to study for my board exam. And it comes with this very nice detailed book. It's very much like step up to medicine if you're ever on your internal medicine rotations. But I always have sticky notes to topics that I'm learning about, particularly if I'm about to go on a specific rotation. And then I use MixApp as my main resource to just basically say, hey, Lux, you're really stupid about these 20 topics in nephrology. Before you go into your nephrology rotation next week, maybe make sure you master those, read a little bit more on the book. But I like to make the mistakes in the questions first and then do my reading versus out of the way around. And so you guys can see from experience every time I'm on a rotation, so like GI or if I'm on nephrology or if I'm an endocrine, I essentially will just start a block for those topics and do as many questions as I can. And again, the goal is to make the mistake to look them up using the MixApp chapters or an EM Crit website, and then adding them back into my Notion database. So for example, as you guys can see, here's just a small sample of all the questions I've missed using MixApp and something I just want to keep track of. That way when I come back to actual report is studying, I can just come to this person saying, oh, that's right, you're an idiot back then. Now you know this now, much smarter, thumbs up. Now these were just some of my favorite resources for internal medicine. But if you want to get a full list of all the ones I really enjoyed from medical school, make sure you check out this episode right here. And if you want my full breakdown of all my favorite study strategies once that I use to get a 3.9 GPA while studying only five hours, then this is going to be the video for you. But as always, my friends, thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I was a little helped to you guys on yours and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.