 All right guys, welcome to another episode in the TMJ show today's episode number four. And we are talking all about how residents study. Let's get into it. All right guys, what is going on? Luxury of an empty journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. If you're new to this channel, if you're new to the podcast, my name is Lux. I am currently an internal medicine resident and been doing the empty journey to help people just like you on their medical journey, but doing it obviously with less stress. So if you're listening to a podcast and you enjoy the content of this channel, make sure obviously subscribe and then leave a feedback on iTunes or Spotify or Google podcast to be entered in our weekly giveaway for either an e-book or as well as a course. And if you're doing this on YouTube and you're watching the video version, then obviously make sure you hit that like button, subscribe to the channel and leave a comment down below to also be entered and then we can give away as long as you enter once. You're always entered for future drawing, so make sure you make that a priority. But let's get into today's episode, which is how in the world do doctors even study? How does a resident physician like myself find the time to study? We'll be completely honest. You know, there's three main things that kind of get in the way from finding time to study. And number one is that time is limited. You know, you have long hours. You know, my ICU rotations can go from as early to five o'clock in the morning and end as late as seven or nine PM. And as I am a second and third year resident, sometimes that's going to transform into 28 hour shifts. So obviously time is limited. You have to be very smart. Number two is that you have to be efficient. You know, you can't sit down for hours in residency as a physician to study for things because not only do you have your obligations as a resident, but then you have your daily obligations as either a family person or, you know, through your household managing other chores that you otherwise wouldn't have time for. So that obviously gets in the way. And finally, number three is that you simply can't learn everything. There's always something more to learn. So you have to be really smart on what you learn, what you focus your time on. So today I'm going to be talking about the different ways and it really is a variety of different techniques that I use to study in residency. And if you're not using one of these resources or techniques, then maybe you can give them a shot before we get started. I just want to mention that today's episode at the TMJ show is brought to you by my nine parts study course, which teaches you all about the most efficient method that I had in medical school to really cut my studying down by 50%. So if you're struggling on how to study and you want a free approach, a step-by-step approach, then go ahead and check out the link in the show notes or the description of the YouTube channel, whatever you're watching this current episode on. But let's get into it. So one of the first things I love doing on a daily basis, because it just works naturally with my flow, is I typically have a separate paper for all of the patients that I'm taking care of. This is usually a paper that I create for the till-do list. So make sure that all the patients are accounted for. And this is separate from like the individual paper that I'll write like their laps and stuff on. But on the same paper that I have my daily to-dos for all of my patients, on the back, I tend to write everything I've learned that day, whether it may be a different dose of a medication, something I've been taught through a lecture, like a really quick curbside lecture by a consult or something of that sort. But on the very corner, typically on the right side, I usually start to have a checkbox of all the topics, whether it may be a disease, a medication, just a concept in general that somebody may have mentioned offhandedly, that I just don't understand. And during any downtime, I may quickly go to resources like up to date and Google and make sure that I kind of start checking them off. Anything that I have left, I come home really quickly. Or, you know, when I'm in my car after I'm driving at part, I take maybe another five minutes and just quickly look those up so I can have some closure to my day. Now, obviously, some of them are really quick, such as like, what does this medication do? How does it work? But okay, like that's how that works. Done. Now, obviously, there's going to be things that are going to be a little bit more time intensive and more conceptual topics. That's okay. Get through as much as you can every single day. And if anything, you can just continue to roll that list the next day. And then the first thing that you're going to look on the next day is whatever was left from the day before. This way, you're always kind of moving the needle forward in terms of your medical knowledge. And the second thing that I do to really study is I have a notebook, as you guys can see here on this table, that's always in my backpack and usually in my white coat. But these are notes that I will write typically during like a noon conference or a morning teaching session by one of my attendings. And one of the things obviously I'll do is I'll make notes as if I was a medical student and highlight and start the things that are important. This way I can easily kind of refer back to them. And at the very top of the page, I'll write the topic that that lecture was over. The other bonus tip that I want to give is the day that you were writing the new notes, you know, let's say you're learning about hyponatremia. You may have a whole page that you write based on the lecture. You're a big given. Go ahead and take a second after you before you close the page to go ahead and look at the lecture from the day before. That way I'm always kind of feeling like the thing I've learned before hasn't just kind of remained on paper, but it's actually being solidified in my head. So I go ahead and take notes day on a daily basis. But next time I'm going to take notes on something another topic, I make sure that take maybe just like a few seconds to remind myself what I had learned from that previous lecture. Our next few things are kind of resources that you can use online. My favorite resource to use is the New England Journal of Medicine. Subscribe to, obviously, their weekly journals as well as access online. So they have a few resources that you can use. One, you can just do their interactive cases, which will go through very high topics like hyponatremia, other vitamin deficiencies, things like anemia and really walk you through a patient case of their labs to help you understand how to parse through a different piece of material to come to the final diagnosis. And then I'll teach you about the final diagnosis. And these are included if you have a subscription to the New England Journal, a lot of institutions provide this and make sure you guys check that out in the link in the description. And there's two more things that I really enjoy using New England Journal for. One is their weekly case report that comes out and really can walk you through a very intriguing and challenging case to see what type of thing diagnoses come to mind, how you parse through a different piece of information on a history, a physical exam, as well as labs to really make you a better clinician. You know, I do just one of these a week makes me feel a lot smarter, probably a lot more smarter than actually am. But really, again, keeps them, you know, flowing. And then one more thing is that you can use a resource called an ETM knowledge or also think it's called IM reviews, basically an app that you can use on your iPad. Obviously, you can do it on your laptop as well with different practice questions for both an ambulatory as well as an inpatient setting, particularly for people in internal medicine. But I'm sure there's other resources on a similar for my colleagues in surgery as well as other residency programs. So make sure you guys check those out. Again, those are basically a combination of interactive cases, weekly case reports, as well as practice questions given by the New England Journal of Medicine that I love doing whenever I have downtime to always keep my knowledge flowing. Now, the next way I study as a resident is through one of my favorite resources of the medical student that's through online method. They have a platform called Case X, which is built for people who are intern as well as residents to really work on high yield diagnosis that have videos that have practice questions. And I'll make a totally different video kind of showing you that the internal working, so how that works. But there'll be a link down below if you guys want to check it out. It is an affiliate link. So if you guys aren't interested and by all means, don't click it or you can go to their website. But obviously, I wouldn't recommend anything that I wouldn't use myself. So if you guys do want to support the podcast and the channel, then go ahead and check out the link in the description. Now, really two more ways that I study that seem to be a little bit more unorthodox or not really thought of as much. Number one is whenever I have a more conceptual topic, such as like ventilator settings or, you know, how to reach shock in the different medications to do it, things that I'll have to do in ICU, I tend to go to my favorite resource to making content and go to YouTube. Usually there's a lot of different attendings and previous medical providers who have talked about the topic. One of the YouTube channels I love watching that I'm happy to give a shout out to is Medcrams. You guys can check them out. Absolutely free videos that just kind of blows high yield information out of the water and I love using them even as a resident. And the last thing is something that I've started to do more and more as my first year of residency is starting to get to the halfway point and that is just working on teaching. Sometimes I find that the best ways that I learn things as a physician is knowing that I have a medical student to try to teach. And so simply ask them like, what do you want to learn today? And they may tell me, oh, I want to learn about AFib or I want to learn about asthma or I want to learn about leukemia. And then usually one of those topics will scare me is like, well, I actually don't understand leukemia as well as I thought I did. And so either the evening before or the morning while they're looking at their patients or presenting, I'll just quickly come up with like a five minute presentation that I give them on the board that's going to help solidify both my learning as well as theirs. And that really has helped me learn in residency without feeling like I'm actually studying. But those guys are the multiple ways I study on a daily basis as a physician. Now, obviously I'm going to find more resources, but if you have some suggestions make sure you drop them down below in the description. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening to this on a podcast forum, again, help this podcast grow. We are only on episode number four, but thank you so much for all of you guys that have left some form of review and feedback already. And remember, if you leave some form of feedback on iTunes, Google podcast, as well as Spotify, then you'll be entered for a weekly giveaway to get a free book as well as a video course of your choice. So make sure you leave some feedback to help this channel to podcast grow and then in return, you know, we can get you hooked up with an amazing resource. But thank you guys so much for listening. Again, remember, if you are interested in learning how to study better than the show notes, you will have a nine step free video course on how I studied in medical school. And hopefully that helps some of you guys out. If you're watching this on YouTube and you somehow still haven't managed to hit that like button, then go ahead and smash it. Subscribe and I will see you guys in the next video. Take care, my friends.