 Anything to make your life better and easier or honestly more enjoyable, a little bit goes a long way, trust me. Welcome back to the channel everybody, for those of you who are new around here, my name is Michael, aka Dr. Cellini, and I'm an interventional radiologist, and on today's video I figured we would do something kind of relevant to the times. And what I mean by that is it is essentially back to school time for all pre-med and medical students, so I thought I'd do a video on back to school tips, because how fitting, right? So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into the back to school tips for medical students. Let's go. So we're just going to go ahead and keep this rolling here. So the very first tip I have for getting back to school is setting goals, whether it be personal, whether it be academic, it doesn't really matter. Above all, you should just be setting goals because it gives you something to kind of strive for and something to keep you focused on and something to keep you focused on to performing well and reaching those goals. Maybe it's to get more friends in your personal life. Maybe it's to become more active in school groups. Like for myself, in medical school I got involved in the radiology group very early on. It wasn't as early as I'd like to because I didn't know about radiology, but nonetheless, it's important to even get involved in groups. I was in the emergency medicine group, and you know how funny that is if you're seeing some other videos. I was involved in the medicine group, but, you know, the important thing is just to get involved in groups and make friends. You may have goals to study more or have a more pertinent study schedule or be more proactive in better at time management. You also may have fitness goals, get in shape while you're in med school, stay in shape while you're in med school, eat healthy, work out on a consistent basis. The main thing is that these goals just keep you on track and aligned with reaching them. And that's the whole point of making goals. The next tip I have for you all is probably my favorite tip out of all of these. Go ahead and get yourself some new school supplies because is there anything better than just getting like whole new notebooks, maybe a new iPad pencil, maybe some new pens, those expensive pens you love writing with. Anything to make your life better and easier or honestly more enjoyable is going to make you perform better. I remember my roommate, shout out Tom, my roommate in med school, he used to always get these fresh pens. What pens were those? They were kind of expensive. I can't remember the name of them, but I used to make fun of them for it. I'm like, what are you getting all these expensive pens? They're like $10 a pen. And then I wrote with them and I went out and bought myself my own set of pens that were $10 each because it made my studying better. It made my note-taking better. I like taking notes. It made everything neater. It was like fun to write with them. It sounds crazy that I'm saying this, but if you are a med student and have spent any time studying, you know exactly what I mean. Maybe that laptop you were thinking about getting, go ahead and get it. I know it's expensive. They're all expensive, but I got a laptop before I started med school. I used it throughout all of med school and on into residency. It made my life so much easier. I got a laptop. I got a nice big monitor to look at PowerPoints with. Got some new pens, new notebook. I was set. And this, those little things that kind of set you up for success. And sometimes you have to splurge on them. I give you permission. So along with that monitor and laptop, I also got like a new desk and like new desk chair. And it was like my own little nook that was my study nook, my study space. And I would just have my coffee there and just go to town all day long, 5am to 7pm or whatever it was. It just made it so much more enjoyable in a very unenjoyable, unenjoyable, non-enjoyable. It made something that's not fun, a little more enjoyable and a little bit goes a long way, trust me. So the next tip I have for you is something that is often overlooked. And that is to get everything in order before you start med school. And what I mean by that is, you know those like doctor's appointments, primary care visits you're supposed to go to every year after you hit like 18 years old. And we always put off, including myself, do that before you start med school. That dentist appointment. Do that before you start med school. Your car insurance, your health insurance, all that stuff. Do it before you start med school. The reason being is because you'll be so busy in med school. And the last thing you want to do is take care of yourself. However, this is arguably more important than anything you're doing because your health is everything. Without being healthy, you can't be a good physician or a good PA or a good nurse or whatnot. You have to take care of yourself. And I preach that so often, you have to take care of yourself before you take care of others. Because I remember first, this is all speaking from experience, by the way. When I started med school, I didn't go to the doctor. I put off going to the dentist for like two years because I just never had time to. And then when you have a day off, finally, amidst all this crazy study schedule, the last thing you want to do is go to the dentist. If you're going to postpone it like I did, you might as well just get everything done right before you start. That way, you have a clean slate. And once you get used to all the craziness that is medical school, then you can get an appointment and work it into your schedule. But the first part of med school, you're just trying to figure out how to study and just drinking from a fire hose like they always say. And the last thing you want to do is do these like stupid maintenance appointments. But they're not stupid. They're way more important than anything. Trust me, just do it. The next tip I have for you is do your research on which resources are right for you. See what kind of study tools everyone is using. Nowadays, there are a million different applications. There are a ton of different resources for med students that I didn't have back then. See which are the highest rated, see which everybody likes, see which ones are the best and are the most relevant to what you're studying and fit in perfectly with your curriculum. For me personally, one of my favorite resources was Picmonic, which kind of just came on the scene when I was a med student way back when and has since then gotten oh so much better and luckily they sponsored today's video. So I'll show you a little bit about Picmonic and show you why it is a good resource for you as well. So thanks to Picmonic for sponsoring today's video. Picmonic is an online platform that uses picture mnemonics and stories which helps you remember large quantities of information quite easily. To give you an example of what they offer, here's the homepage. And what you want to do is go to the browse and type in whatever topic you are currently studying, whether it be anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, etc. Or you can also literally follow along with your first day book, which is beyond helpful when studying for the USMLE board exams. You can actually follow along by the actual pages in first aid so the topic aligns perfectly. The first thing I recommend you do is listen to the educational video and then follow that with the story view. So let's look up something so you can see how good this platform actually is. So here's that search bar right here and today we're going to be going over the arteries of the leg because that tends to give a lot of people trouble. So we type in here and here are the arteries of the leg. Let's click on this and watch the Picmonic. In this Picmonic, the anatomy of leg arteries is described by the leg with archery arteries. You can try to recall these arteries with the story of the characters being afraid of the a orcas revenge from above. Lower limb blood flow begins with the descending aorta, which splits into the iliac arteries in the ilium, the island bomb. The common iliac artery turns into the external iliac artery, which then continues as the common femoral artery, the comma femur. This diverges into the deep femoral artery, the deep diver femur, and the superficial femoral artery, the superficial femur. The superficial femoral emerges through the adductor hiatus to become the popliteal artery, the poplite. This diverges into the anterior tibial, antedor Tibetan, and posterior tibial arteries, the postterior Tibetan. The fibular or peroneal artery, the pair on il, branches off of the posterior tibial artery. The anterior tibial artery continues to supply the dorsal foot as the dorsalis pedis, the dorsal fin foot. So let's review. Leg arterial flow begins with the descending aorta, which splits into the iliac arteries. These continue into the common femoral, which splits into the deep and superficial femoral arteries. The superficial continues as the popliteal artery. The popliteal artery splits into the anterior and posterior tibial arteries. The peroneal artery branches from the posterior tibial artery, while the dorsalis pedis is a continuation of the anterior tibial artery. As you can see, it gives you mnemonics and pictures to go along with the subject matter. And as if this isn't enough, you can actually customize your mnemonics by adding notes to them. And if you are feeling creative, you can actually make your own mnemonic on a specific subject matter and create it in a way that helps you memorize something. So this is the ataxia, and it's a taxi. I mean, how adorable is that? I love that. Ataxia, tilimia, tajia. They're just so funny it helps you memorize them. That's why I like it. And then after the educational video is the story that goes along with it with different characters and pictures, which is actually pretty funny and will help you tie in all the subject matter and help you memorize the large quantities of info. So now we'll play the story view because that can kind of tie all this in together for you. This leg with archery arteries is shot full of arrows because the descending aorca is sort of like Moby Dick. And it comes crashing down to return all of the arrows to those who shot it over the years. The resulting wave of blood splashes the island foam and an arrow goes whizzing past. It finds its mark when it hits the comma on a femur. The femur sinks into the deep to be salvaged by a deep diver. And as the onslaught of arrows continues, another femur is saved by a super fish. During these trying times, the Pope Light holds a service and characters flock towards it. But the Anteater Tibetan and the Posterior Tibetan are climbing up the leg for another reason. A tasty peroneel has attracted a predator of the ocean near the foot. A vicious foot with a dorsal fin which circles below, waiting for someone to make a mistake and fall to become a meal. So once you've watched both the educational videos and stories, you can go along and quiz yourself in each section. This is just another way to help you ingrain this info in your head because you are getting asked questions on material you just watched and listened to. If you aren't 100% sure what the answers are, you can click to reveal hints which will further stimulate your memory a little more. So we'll do a few questions here. So which artery comes off the anterior tibial artery here? So that is the dorsalis pedis. Which artery comes off of the descending aorta? That is the iliac. Which artery branches into the common iliac arteries? That is the descending aorta. One thing I like about the quizzes is that they track your progress over time and knows what questions it needs to repeat in the future. Oh, and this platform is also available on iOS and Android. So if you travel a lot like I do, you can use this pretty much anywhere. This platform is available for all medical students, including physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, occupational and physical therapists, paramedics, et cetera, et cetera. And if you are interested in getting PIC MONIC for yourself, which you should, click the link in my description and get 20% off. The next tip I have for you is to reach out to students ahead of you. Any upperclassmen or even students that are one year ahead of you, reach out to them. See what the best textbooks are for you. See what they tried, what they liked, what they didn't like. See what the best note-taking strategies were. Talk to them about each individual professor, what kind of notes they looked, what kind of questions they wrote for the test. This is all very valuable information that will save you time in the long run. The last thing you want to do when trying to figure out all this stuff in med school is try to figure out what book you like the best, or try like five different anatomy atlases, because you don't know what to choose. Generally, most people in these med schools will like use or kind of gravitate towards specific resources, and you should kind of follow suit. And the reason is usually because it's beneficial for that university or whatever. They'll give you specific insights on what specific professors like certain things and how to excel in each one of your courses. And they can offer you valuable information that you wouldn't know otherwise. That's what they're there for. In fact, most med schools will kind of set you up with your seniors and kind of get this stuff out of the way before you even start. So you have your resources all together and piled together, and you can do well starting day one. So use them to your advantage, use your seniors, and it'll help you, I promise. I did it a ton. I think we went out to dinner the very first few nights. I met with a lot of the second year med students, and I learned so much and like went home that day, ordered all these resources that they told me about, saved me so much time. And the key is to save yourself time, because that's all you have in med school. So those are all the tips I have for you today. Hopefully you all had some good takeaways, learned something. Hopefully this will help you going forward in your med school journey, whether you're a PA, physical therapist, nurse, whatever. These tips will help everybody. So with that being said, thanks to the N2PIC Monic for sponsoring today's video. Smash the like, subscribe, follow me on Instagram and TikTok if you don't already, and I'll see you all on the next video. Hopefully in a new location. Bye!