Incoming MS1: New Curriculum Step 1 & 2 Advice Needed

[TimothyChalametFan2001]

I'm an incoming MS1 at a medical school that has a relatively new 1-year preclinical followed by rotations in the second year, leaving the 3rd & 4th years for research, electives, capstone projects, etc. I recently learned that I will have to take both Step 1 & 2 during our 3 month dedicated period which ends in December of our 3rd year following clerkships. I was wondering if this curriculum's layout would affect how you would study for Step 1 & 2. Would love to get the thoughts of others on how they would go about preparing for both of these exams at the same time throughout their MS1 & MS2 years.

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[Redpancreas]

Where was this when I was in medical school?

 

[Goro]

Interesting arrangement. Let me ponder this, OP.

 

[Aurarice]

I'm an incoming MS1 at a medical school that has a relatively new 1-year preclinical followed by rotations in the second year, leaving the 3rd & 4th years for research, electives, capstone projects, etc. I recently learned that I will have to take both Step 1 & 2 during our 3 month dedicated period which ends in December of our 3rd year following clerkships. I was wondering if this curriculum's layout would affect how you would study for Step 1 & 2. Would love to get the thoughts of others on how they would go about preparing for both of these exams at the same time throughout their MS1 & MS2 years.

That seems...really fast.
If Steps 1/2 are that far back, my main concern would be:
1) Keeping up with pre-clerkship curriculum (i.e. passing everything)
2) Retaining the minutiae of Step 1 knowledge (especially since a lot of it normally disappears after Step 1 and isn't on Step 2)
But at least research and other activities could be 100% focused on during the latter half of MS3?

In general, it should be the same as any other approach, albeit accelerated.
- Decide early if lectures are "worth" attending. (Consider making connections with specific faculty, whether they focus on "high-yield", and if you feel that you're more time-efficient in powering through outside resources + Anki)
- Have a "comprehensive" resource that you can add and refer back to during dedicated. (e.g. FirstAid for Step 1 and slowly add in little things that aren't otherwise in the book. Haven't found a great one-source-for-everything book for Step 2 so I'm jumping between a few books + my notes)
- Have a system for reviewing old material intermittently throughout the year. Strongly recommend Anki. but any way that you want to do this would be fine.

Having Step 1 and 2 so close together is also somewhat awkward.
Theoretically, if MS2 is all rotations, you'll simultaneously be studying for shelves which mostly covers Step 2 (IM/FM/Psych/OB/Peds/Surgery), so you should be done with any questions banks in that regard (Amboss, UWorld, etc.). Then it'd just be an issue of maintaining knowledge for Step 2 while refreshing everything for Step 1. Very curious to see how this goes and what other people on the forum think.

 

[Dr Meow]

edit: That's cool that's how the top schools have been doing it and it works.

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So they shorten both clinical and preclinical by half?
Because I can't imagine we could cram another 2X rate of info and expect to retain anything.
hmm, then what's the difference between this and DNP's? Isn't this like throwing a DNP to be tested like a med student?
Research is not something you should reduce quality medical education for. Absolutely, docs need to know research. I made a post earlier about my frustrations with docs not knowing research enough. But it should be added on top. For example, you wouldn't make a MDPHD student do 2yrs MD and 2 years phD just to try to fit everything into 4 years! MD/PHD's do the necessary time for each degree. So why give MD's this watered down version of a phD's training?
This would reduce the quality of the MD to something like a DNP I think?
They get a bit of preclinical, then a bit of clinical, and then a bit of research and they think they're docs. That bit of research does not entail or deserve the title of doc (it's a big discredit to full time phD's). I did research for 7 years and I don't think I deserve the title of phD. Because there's a HUGE difference between DOING research, and thinking like a phD. They're not the same thing.
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[Gilakend]

So they shorten both clinical and preclinical by half?

Because I can't imagine we could cram another 2X rate of info and expect to retain anything.
hmm, then what's the difference between this and DNP's? Isn't this like throwing a DNP to be tested like a med student?

Research is not something you should reduce quality medical education for. Absolutely, docs need to know research. I made a post earlier about my frustrations with docs not knowing research enough. But it should be added on top. For example, you wouldn't make a MD/PHD do 2yrs MD and 2 years phD just to try to fit everything into 4 years! MD/PHD's do the necessary time for each degree. So why give MD's this watered down version of a phD's training?

This would reduce the quality of the MD to something like a DNP I think?
They get a slab of preclinical, then a slab of clinical, and then a big dollop of research and they think they're docs. That bit of research does not entail or deserve the title of doc (it's a big discredit to full time phD's). Ex, I did research for 7 years and I don't think I deserve the title of phD. Because there's a difference between DOING research, and thinking like a phD! They're not the same thing.

I'm 99% sure I know the school OP is talking about. The preclinical is shortened by about 3-6 months in real-time because it goes for almost a full 12 months, many schools now are 1.5 years preclinical some with a summer break. The clinical rotations are longer and more robust than any other school I know. It is shortened mainly because of a more streamlined preclinical curriculum and no break. In addition, you get loads more time for electives. This school has one of the highest residency director rankings. (this is all determined if it is the school I am thinking of)

But even if it is not, for reference, this is the same style curriculum Harvard, Vanderbilt, and Duke use.

 

[Gilakend]

I would likely take step 2 first. It will be the only one with a score and you will have just finished the majority of step 2 UWorld for shelf exams. I would probably take a 6-8 week dedicated for that, take a week or so off, then go in and pass step since it will be P/F.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Sounds like the Duke Med curriculum, which many others have emulated.

 

[skeptastic]

I would likely take step 2 first. It will be the only one with a score and you will have just finished the majority of step 2 UWorld for shelf exams. I would probably take a 6-8 week dedicated for that, take a week or so off, then go in and pass step since it will be P/F.

It's gonna be interesting to see how many schools with a 12-month preclinical period will start advising students to take Step 2 first. I haven't taken either exam, so I don't know if there's any benefit to taking Step 1 before Step 2. Research has shown that increased lag time between completion of core clerkships and taking Step 2 results in lower scores, so it's likely in the best interest of students to knock Step 2 out as quickly as possible.

Effects of Moving the United States Medical Licensing... : Academic Medicine

rformance pre and post change. Method Four schools that moved Step 1 after core clerkships between academic years 2008–2009 and 2017–2018 were analyzed. Standard t tests were used to examine the change in Step 2 CK scores pre and post change. Tests of differences in proportions were used to...

journals.lww.com

 

[deleted1095841]

My school has a curriculum like this too, but they insist on everyone taking taking Step 1 before Step 2, and both after clerkships. I'm worried that I would have forgotten a lot of basic science stuff by that time, and it will take a couple months just to re-learn it. And then, after taking Step 1, I'm worried about being a bit rusty for Step 2 (though it will only be a couple months of gap rather than a whole year).

 

[Captain_Falcon]

Keep up with the flash cards in the Anking deck related to Pathoma and Sketchy micro + pharm. Do the step 2 cards in the Anking deck (the version I used was only 9k or so).

You can ditch all biochem stuff if it likely does not relate to some step 2 concept (eg keep up with alcohol intoxication pathways but don’t need to keep up with the entire krebs or urea cycle)

 

[deleted1095841]

Keep up with the flash cards in the Anking deck related to Pathoma and Sketchy micro + pharm. Do the step 2 cards in the Anking deck (the version I used was only 9k or so).

You can ditch all biochem stuff if it likely does not relate to some step 2 concept (eg keep up with alcohol intoxication pathways but don’t need to keep up with the entire krebs or urea cycle)

Thanks! Looks like I better start using Anking. First year was pass/fail, so I didn't use any resource other than my med school lectures and did ok. Now I'm in 2nd year, where it's all clinical, and where there is almost no didactic instruction from the med school and I have to self-study. I've been making my own Anki cards based on Online Med Ed videos and UWorld answer explanations, but maybe this isn't the best.

 

[Choсolate]

Can someone please inform me what medical school OP is referring to?

 

[YoungMoneyMint]

Can someone please inform me what medical school OP is referring to?

I have a feeling it may be Colorado, but Michigan also fits the bill.

 

[Al9]

Umich

Can someone please inform me what medical school OP is referring to?

 

[skeptastic]

Sounds like the Duke Med curriculum, which many others have emulated.

Would be a great idea to get in touch with Duke students and see how they approached it, assuming they had to take Step 1 and 2 back to back. Some schools (like Dell) have this curriculum but still offer flexibility surrounding when you take the Step exams.

 

[PathNeuroIMorFM]

I'm an incoming MS1 at a medical school that has a relatively new 1-year preclinical followed by rotations in the second year, leaving the 3rd & 4th years for research, electives, capstone projects, etc. I recently learned that I will have to take both Step 1 & 2 during our 3 month dedicated period which ends in December of our 3rd year following clerkships. I was wondering if this curriculum's layout would affect how you would study for Step 1 & 2. Would love to get the thoughts of others on how they would go about preparing for both of these exams at the same time throughout their MS1 & MS2 years.

If you haven't already, I would reach out on Reddit's r/medicalschool or use the search function on that subreddit. This question is not ultra uncommon.

 

[MD-PhD-NonTrad]

I'm an incoming MS1 at a medical school that has a relatively new 1-year preclinical followed by rotations in the second year, leaving the 3rd & 4th years for research, electives, capstone projects, etc. I recently learned that I will have to take both Step 1 & 2 during our 3 month dedicated period which ends in December of our 3rd year following clerkships. I was wondering if this curriculum's layout would affect how you would study for Step 1 & 2. Would love to get the thoughts of others on how they would go about preparing for both of these exams at the same time throughout their MS1 & MS2 years.

My school has something similar, we enter clerkships in January of M2 and finish clerkships in January of M3 without having taken step 1 or step 2. Then we have 8 weeks of dedicated and up to like 16 weeks of "elective time" in which some can be used for step 2 studying.

After speaking with most of our M3/4s about how they go about this, the M3/4s had a very unique perspective as they took Step 1 as P/F. The going strategy has been to not study for step 1 at all. No anking or boards focused stuff during preclinical or Step 1 during clerkships. They jump right into Step 2 Uworld/Anki/AMBOSS at the transition to clerkships and just do that for the clerkship year, then for dedicated spend maybe 2 weeks refreshing on some biochem/step 1 specific stuff, then spend the next 6-n weeks studying for Step 2. Our Pass rates for Step 1 were unchanged and Step 2 has gone slightly up so....the rationale of "studying for step 2 covers step 1 to passing" seems to be reflective?

Caveat, this was just an N=6 discussion with current med students at a single program so YMMV.