 So in today's episode, I thought the topic of the video could be based off your questions to me. All right guys, what is going on? Welcome to another episode of the MD journey. My name is Laksh. I'm currently an internal medicine resident helping people just like you succeed on their medical journey with lack stress. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. In today's episode, I wanted to do a little bit more personal. I've actually been busy and away from the MD journey for a while in regards to creating content and being involved in social media and things of that sort. So I thought why not today make a video where I go ahead and answer your Q and A questions live for everybody just in case your questions are probably pertinent for other people. So essentially I'm just going to pull up my recent YouTube comments that I haven't responded to in a while. Sorry if I'm getting to you at a delayed phase. Usually this doesn't happen. I'm really pretty quick but things have been busy. So let's see if this video can be a little bit entertaining. I'm also pull up some things on Instagram that people have put on my DMs and just haven't been able to get back. And some of them will be educational. Some of them will be humorous. Some of them may say you said I'm not sure. We'll find out together. Before I forget, go ahead and show your support for me, for the channel, the community, whatever you want to pick and hit that like button. It'll just help this magical YouTube algorithm find this video, find our channel. So if you think we need more subscribers, I can help there. And if you haven't subscribed, go ahead and hit that subscribe button while you're there as well as the notification bell. But let's get into the comments. All right. So our first question comes from somebody who watched my YouTube video about me making YouTube videos. So you guys haven't seen that? Go ahead and check it out. I basically walk you through kind of how I do the process, all the equipment, basically what this looks like. And it says, I'm sorry if I'm saying those things wrong. I want to start a YouTube channel includes a med school blog, so you can help me out by the way I love your work. Thank you for the nice comment to the very end. If you want to start a YouTube channel, I would say just do it, grab a phone, grab a cheap microphone, and record. And the biggest thing is, if you're interested in doing this, then not worry about where your views are. And I get a lot of comments that say you should have more subscribers or any more great work, yada yada. And it just requires me not to be focused on the numbers. And so, you know, if you're out there to help people, and that's really your main goal, then go ahead and just grab your phone and a cheap microphone, that's like $20, $30, so you can hook up to your phone. Maybe one of those dongles and tripods, I'm not sure I forget what they're called, and they just walk around and record blogs. And don't put so much pressure on yourself. Enjoy it, have fun, and that would be my recommendation. Shariah says, and this is a response to one of my med school debt videos, where I tell you that I'm in $190,000 in debt, yikes. And she says I have $140,000 in debt. Wow, girl, I feel you. But on a social worker salary, which doesn't even come close, that is definitely one of the harder parts of the way our country works or our school system works. And sometimes, your school burden of loans and debts, getting a master's and a bachelor's or something like social work, doesn't always line up with a potential salary. So I'm hoping at least you enjoy being a social worker, and I'm hoping that maybe my explanation through that video as well as other videos I've made and will make on how to pay off loans will help. But social workers work hard and I appreciate you and hopefully you enjoy what you do. Addy says, she's trying to convince my parents to let me take two gap years. I think if I don't go straight in, then maybe it means that I don't want to be a physician. Now, I specifically made a video for you, Addy, so hopefully you saw it. But basically, this idea that don't let family stressors pressure you into one thinking that you're not committed, and two thinking that you have no choice except to become a doctor. Actually, I had this in myself because I, one, was born in the country of India. I moved here with my parents. And the best profession that they could think of and me becoming as well, you should become a doctor. I was more of my dad than my mom. My mom was super supportive. And my dad wasn't embraced. They just kind of always would come across as a physician considerate. And I actually told my parents pretty early on that I wasn't going to do this field and here I am, but I made the choice myself. So that's the biggest thing is one, there's no time that's too much to evaluate and explore other options because becoming a physician is at least an 11 year game, you know, four years of college, four years of med school, minimum three years of residency of not more, plus fellowship, plus more training before you get to that prestige and that salary that people are coveting for you to become a doctor. So, you know, if you want to take gap years out of you, all supported for it. Check out one of my videos where I made about me doing gap years, probably one of my best years of my life. So if you're considering exploring the time, I definitely recommend it. 260 Bound New York. Given how organized and proactive you are, one of the more challenging aspects of residency for you personally is just inspiration. I really enjoy your perspective. I first obviously appreciate any kind comments that makes me motivated to continue. In regards to challenging aspects about residency, I think there's a lot of difficulties of just becoming a doctor that people don't tell you about until you're practicing. One includes the amount of time that you're just doing documentation. Two, sometimes, especially if you're in internal medicine, the amount of time you may be doing things aren't related to medicine, things such as like discharging a patient, making sure that they have the right things at home, like a wheelchair or a walker, working with social work back and forth. And those kinds of things are important for the patient, but sometimes they may take a lot of time and stress. Sometimes patients may stay up in the hospital and I survey two days, three days, because those kinds of things like social work or procedures getting canceled, these are out of your control. Sometimes I don't feel, and sometimes I feel like I'm not able to focus all the time on medicine, no notes, administration, other BS kind of gets in the way. So that part is challenging. So even though I'm efficient or organized, as you would say, sometimes it's difficult that you have to realize the responsibilities of the physician are not just the ones that they make you aware of the four years of medical school. There's a lot of other things to take care of a patient, things like insurance, can the patient afford something? Can you get them access to insurance? And a lot of things that just go with the system and our healthcare the way it currently is set up. Thanks for the comment. Good question. Abukun, I'm hoping I've said that right. Your voice is so soothing and great video too, much needed. I'm glad my voice is soothing. Sometimes my wife says that my voice sounds different on my videos than it does when I talk. So I try to make sure that I don't do this little high pitch voicing, but I think I have a different radio voice than I do on the off. I'm not sure. The sixth word says that I want to hug you within this blessings. Okay. K, I have no idea how you got the username K, but props to you. Can you please make a video on how to do rounds? It was really helpful and fun. Absolutely. I feel like rounds are probably the more challenging parts of being in medical school, especially for new med students. One of the things I've done in the past is on tips for third year med students and clinical rotations kind of show you how to go and become really efficient. And so definitely check out that video, but I'll make an updated one in the future now that I'm in residency and I have to do rounds on like 10 patients within an hour. I'm sure my surgeon colleagues are laughing because they may be able to see 15 to 20 patients in an hour, but internal medicine, surgery, we're on different time scales there. And speaking of rounding, I'll try to find it, but there's a masterclass I recorded for some of our email subscribers where I kind of walked you from step one to like step nine of everything you should do and a daily basis on your rotations that includes a lot of things regarding family. So hopefully that helps you out. And then we'll do one more comment on YouTube and then I'll have to probably do a few questions on Instagram. Joseph says, you know, I'm wondering how med students try to figure out the best strategies to study, you know, is there a way that med students or med schools are teaching you how to best study medicine? And honestly, I don't think med schools are doing much of the teaching or giving you advice on how to study. They may give you some direction, but everyone just studies differently. There are a lot of videos on this channel, particularly there are training courses that you guys can check out if you're interested in more. But in terms of learning the best strategy, I would say do something that worked really well in college and try to make it last for long term retention. So if you're doing something for cramming, I would not do that. But find out what the easiest form of studying for you is whether it's flashcards, reading notes, going to lecture, and then adapting them. And it's really going to be a tinkering system. And every time you do a test, whether the grade went well or it didn't, ask yourself, one, how can I do this faster? And two, how can I improve my retention? What techniques and strategies am I using? Are they really helping me remember things for long term? And what type of things should I not be doing? And then that's part of your tinkering, make small changes. And eventually, you'll have a system where a majority of your time that you spend doing things are effective for how are we studying? So now we're going to hop into Instagram. And one of the DMs that I'm seeing is basically somebody that's telling me that they're having some issues staying up today on all the material, you know, they're, it looks like they're a first year med student. And they're basically saying that, you know, they're studying for anatomy, but before they can even get to the PowerPoint, this week, they're already getting the new information next week. And how do they catch up and keep up and also review? It's a lot. You know, I will admit it's going to require you to have a system of one, having ability to review the material earlier in the week, especially if you think like it's taking you too much time. And two, also being okay with not understanding everything on the first time, I feel like when we get new lecture material, we try to learn 100% of it. And then when we review the material in like a week, we realize we may have to memorize 50. So it may be just as conducive to you to try to memorize 70 to 80% of it. In the next week, even if it's at 40%, you haven't lost that much retention. But the second time around when you have understanding more concepts, when more topics have been taught where you can kind of connect the dots, it may be easier to review. So my recommendation would be one, being okay with not learning everything short in the amount of time you're spending on reviewing the initial time, maybe spend more time doing reviewing and practicing through practice questions or flashcards to have long-term retention. That way you have more time to do other material that you feel like you're behind on. I'll do a few more questions from Instagram. So this is a glad to hear from Meneza that says, how do I use your Anki technique to review and study lectures? Second time I would quiz myself under the heading. So basically, if you guys aren't familiar, I teach a technique on the website. It's a free video course. You guys can check out down below. Basically walks you how I use Anki and using screenshots to basically review a lecture quicker than having to write everything down. And so I'll refer you to check out that video. Basically, how do I review lectures? So my first kind of pass-through of the PowerPoint is to understand what topics are going to be the big ideas. And then I make mini flashcards using this technique that I mentioned in the course, which basically makes you have expedited flashcards that you can review later. And so the first review is just understanding the big topics. The second review is actually doing the flashcards. And this usually would be the day after the lecture. And then my third review will be later on in the week, usually on the weekend. So I have three reviews. The first one is just of the PowerPoint itself without the flashcards. So they're very quick skim through, understanding what's important. The second one is the day of the lecture, like that evening. And then the third one is going to be on the weekend. And it seems like a lot, but because this flashcard is pretty easy to do the questions pretty quickly. And I teach you different techniques in my video course, definitely check them out. And the last comment that is posted on one of my Instagram posts about how does the new step one pass fails alleviate stress? I had a question about on what criteria do program directors now evaluate you? So again, a video about the whole step one process and my thoughts on the change to pass fail. But in terms of questions of how I think program directors are going to move now, then now we have less information with step one. I think the priority is just going to be towards prioritizing now step two CK in terms of grades as well as clinical rotations. And maybe there's a possibility that residency programs will now ask for more information or different tests. For example, emergency medicine residency programs make you do a video interview or essentially you just kind of sit there. And then a question pops up and then you have to answer it in a set amount of time. Maybe they'll start using kind of data points like that to evaluate how you do your personality. It was easier to invite people for interviews because just there's limited spots. So they just need more information, more data. So I think that will make you kind of run through more hoops. But step two CK definitely is going to be more prioritized. Your clinical rotation grades are going to be more prioritized. And then maybe you'll see other elements of valuations in the meantime. Those guys were your comments, your questions. Thank you so much for dropping them and being a part of my community, being interactive. I love interacting with you guys although I'm sorry I haven't been able to do it for the last few weeks. I'm definitely going to be picking back up from where I left off. But if you guys have more questions, drop them in the comment section, DM me on Instagram. I'll be happy to answer them personally or maybe in a future Q&A video. If you guys enjoy this, let me know in the comment section down below. Did you enjoy this style of video? Hit that like button if you haven't and you made it so far in the video. Consider subscribing if you're new to the community and hit that notification bell. Thank you so much for being a part of this episode. Thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I've been a little help to you guys and yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.