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14. Getting ready for didactic year
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In this episode, we have a group of students from Sacred Heart University class of 2023 who are now finishing their didactic year, talk about how to best succeed during this difficult first year of PA school.
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Transcript
Introduction to the PA School Experience Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to the PA School Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sebring Sands, and I take you through the behind the scenes look of PA School and explore what it takes to become a PA.
00:00:33
Speaker
If you have been wondering how I could do this podcast in PA School, I'll tell you, I use an anchor.
Benefits of Using Anchor for Podcasting
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This is the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. First, it is a free hosting platform which allows anyone to start a podcast with no upfront cost. It has built-in tools which allow you to edit and record a podcast. You can even record it from your phone.
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Episode Format & Guest Introductions
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome everyone to another episode of the podcast. I have a group of people that I think you'll enjoy. This one I was trying to do a little different. I think I was trying to break it up a little bit so you guys don't get bored with my format. Instead of one person to talk to, we got four people to talk to. So I'm going to have them introduce themselves and we're just going to go down the line.
00:01:51
Speaker
My name's Luke Patton. I'm part of the class of 2023, and I come from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Perfect. How about you, Victoria? Can you introduce yourself? Yes, I'm Victoria. I'm also part of the class of 2023, and I'm from West Hartford, Connecticut. Awesome. And Nick? Yeah, my name is Nick Anagnost, also part of the class of 2023, and I'm from Fairfield, Connecticut. Perfect. And Alex?
00:02:19
Speaker
I'm Alex. I'm originally from Toronto, Ontario, but I spent most of my life in Northwest Connecticut, and I'm also a class of part of 2023. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me, you guys. It's actually awesome. I don't know hardly any of you guys. Ken Stams has been so busy and mostly just with Luke because he's my mentee.
Transition from Didactic to Clinical Year
00:02:40
Speaker
I mentor him even though I don't know if that's even
00:02:43
Speaker
helpful at all. But I'm glad that I got a good group of people here to talk about didactic year. So in our program, the August to September is when we start our clinical year. And then we graduate the next following year in December. So I wanted to kind of get everyone
00:03:03
Speaker
you know, people that are still in didactic gear, that are finishing up didactic gear, that have been successful didactic gear, to talk about their didactic gear, the pros, cons, things to think about, some tips, some things to avoid, some things to really emphasize and do during didactic gear. So that's what we're going to talk about. So who wants to go first? I'll start if no one has any objection. Perfect. Go ahead, Alex.
The Role of Group Study and Individual Preferences
00:03:29
Speaker
One of the biggest things that I found for me is studying in a group. Even if you're not,
00:03:34
Speaker
studying the same material, just being in a group somewhat holds me accountable to actually do something instead of mindlessly surfing the internet. Okay. And how'd that work with you? Do you guys do like a weekly thing or daily thing or just right before tests? I mean, like you said, everything varies. Um, it depends on the amount of material that we have to cover, like in the thick of it, like last trimester, which is our
00:04:01
Speaker
We had the most exams. We basically just lived in a group of guys and I just basically lived in a study room together. And I spent more hours there than I did at home. And that includes sleeping. Okay. So how does it work during a study session with a group?
00:04:21
Speaker
They could be anyone, talk about that. Nick? I mean, yeah, so I was a part of that with Alex and it definitely varied a lot. I think we kind of made a, just, it was just kind of expected that we were like, okay, we're going to try and, you know, stand each other for another couple hours today in the study room after lecture. And just we had done, cause we're not coming back. We're not meeting here before school. So we're going to get it done. I think a lot of it had to do with just kind of,
00:04:47
Speaker
each of us taking turns boiling down a part of what was going to be covered on the test that like, I mean for lack of a better term like what we personally feel like really jived with, or like we found like a really good piece of material on online that we're like, we wanted to share it with everybody, and you know, teaching it to people helps and then like breaking it down in a group kind of
00:05:07
Speaker
helps everybody wrap their heads around it. And then you end up hearing pieces of information about that topic from other people you didn't study because it's, you know, you can't cover it all on your own. So it kind of just happens organically, I think once you get into a groove. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I'm really for teaching and kind of helping other people understand. Do you guys like, when did you guys start quizzing each other? Do you guys ever do that?
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's basically the whole time. If someone finds something interesting or random that is probably important, that goes out to the group and well, usually somebody knows. Okay, awesome. And Victoria, were you ever in a group? Did you ever do stuff with groups just like the other guys did?
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, so luckily for me, I live with three other students from our class. So at home, we just study together. And sometimes like for pharmacology, one person will be like the pro at like the chemotherapies and the other person will be good at medications for pregnancy and labor and delivery. And then so when we come together, we'll all teach each other the part that we are good at. And then we'll make sure everybody's on the same page. And then
00:06:24
Speaker
As we're learning stuff, we'll just throw up, we'll make up vignettes like a patient comes in with this and this and what would they have or what would you treat them with? That's very interesting. That's actually really cool, a cool idea. Did anyone in the groups ever go study by themselves and then come back as a group or is it just mostly as a group?
00:06:47
Speaker
Um, sometimes if, um, some people are feeling overwhelmed with the material, they'll go brush up on it first before coming together because sometimes it's overwhelming. If like everybody, you feel like everybody knows the material already and you don't. So, um, sometimes we will study individually and then come together. Um, but sometimes when it's like crunch time and it's like the night before the exam, you kind of just have to lean into it and just listen to what everybody else is saying and learn that way rather than learning it on your own and then coming together and reviewing it again.
00:07:17
Speaker
Okay, that makes sense. We also have lots of whiteboard paper like on our walls all over our dining room and we will just write things out and draw things out whichever way we need somebody to like understand it. Okay and what about you Nick? What do you want to say?
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, I was just gonna bounce off of whatever Victoria said, and we do the same thing. It just kind of like if we have two weeks from an exam, it's usually not until maybe four days out that everyone starts feeling comfortable enough, I think, to really put aside your own materials and start really kind of listening to other people. And I think it just depends on that time of year. So we're in like the test that we have.
00:07:54
Speaker
Okay. Awesome. And Luke, I was going to get to you. You're married, right? So did you have a group? How did that work with you? So, I mean, group study, I guess I'm the outlier in this, in this group, cause group studying just hasn't really kind of been my thing, even in undergrad. And I kind of knew that going into, um, into this program and I knew it was going to be very intensive. So I didn't really know initially how to, um, tread that area. Like I didn't, um,
00:08:22
Speaker
know if it was going to be beneficial to me or not. So basically I just tried studying by myself initially and it seemed to work. So I just kind of stuck to my usual studying habits that made me successful in undergrad and didn't really change anything. So I never really was part of any group studying or anything.
00:08:43
Speaker
And that worked well for you, for the most part. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Me too. If you guys didn't know, I married with a child. So I was very much like you, Luke, a lone wolf in all my schooling. I felt most comfortable with that, but I did lament
00:09:04
Speaker
because the people I saw that were either roommates or really good friends, I would see them quizzing each other before the exam was like, that's actually would be really nice to have. So I low meant not making that relationship to do that with people. But at the same time, I didn't really feel comfortable participating in a group unless I knew the material. And that came from my solo studying. What do you want to say, Nick?
Adapting Study Methods and Emotional Support
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, no, I just think that I was gonna I was gonna say, like, Luke's the exception. He's like a lone assassin in our cohort. And he always is doing really well. But it's almost like it just kind of speaks to like a way to give a good piece of advice for anybody in the didactic program or about to go into a program is like,
00:09:52
Speaker
know what works for you because there's a lot of pressure to be like, oh, these people are studying in groups or these people are using this online resource or this book and you very easily feel like you're being pulled in a million directions. And so you need to stick to your guns, but also not be afraid to branch out and be like, oh, maybe I do need more help because I wasn't doing well
00:10:14
Speaker
six months ago, beginning second trimester. And I kind of was like, okay, I need to invest more group study. Cause that's what I hadn't been doing. And that made the difference for me, but I, and it's, it's not easy for a lot of people because there's not a lot of time during didactic year to kind of change up your routine, but sometimes you need to do it. Yeah, exactly. The next point, one thing I just wanted to make a good, um, an example on is if something isn't working, change it, don't double down and try and force yourself to do it.
00:10:43
Speaker
change it up, if it's not working, there's a reason it's not working. Try something else. The worst case is you find something else that doesn't work in your progress to finding something that does. Yeah, I actually have, I don't know if this is a strength or a weakness, but for me, I think I've changed to every test, to every rotation I've changed. And sometimes you have to do that because some rotations are very different.
00:11:12
Speaker
the like I've always been changing up things just because something like I wish I would have known that a little bit more some good tweak it here tweak it there but that was just me um I know some people that do the same thing and they're doing really well probably better than me in real and um clinically here and they just have it down but yeah being that flexible is very important and day one because
00:11:36
Speaker
you're not going to know what's going on for the first couple tests. And even then, like after semesters, you might have, you know, something might not work for a certain test or a certain class that's way different than what you were used to. And then you have to change that even more. So very good, very good.
00:11:55
Speaker
What else do you guys want to talk about? Let's talk about groups. Very underrated. You kind of hear about that beforehand, but when you get into it, and also it's like if you're roommates, you've got automatic group almost once you hate each other. Hopefully that's not the case, but it's also you guys.
00:12:11
Speaker
Like you have a group support group too in a group because you guys, you know what you've, everyone knows what you're going through. That's the thing with me. I didn't have a lot of that in didactic year. I kind of got that a little bit and that's why I wanted to start the podcast for the people that didn't have this for a group. He kind of have the proxy one, even though it's way different than having an in-person one. So I think that's really cool. We guys want to talk about now. I mean, we could just throw out some stuff that.
Managing Academic Stress and Study Resources
00:12:41
Speaker
I didn't know going into PA school that I found very helpful. Okay, you start Alex. Great calculator. Nick knows. Victoria makes her own, but I love it. Walking into finals week, knowing exactly what I need to not fail and to do very well, there's such a weight off my shoulders. It removes a lot of the unknown.
00:13:03
Speaker
So you just a simple cap, you know, you calculate how much you need to get right or how many you can get wrong in order to get a certain score. Is that what you guys did? It's basically off the, like each thing is obviously weighted different. Like I'm going to use our farm exam for our farm class for this trimester. Exam one 45%, exam two 40%. The professionalism points that's 5% free. If you're dressed nice, be nice to every, basically the play nice in the sandbox points. But if you know exactly what you need,
00:13:33
Speaker
And you take 40% of that and add it to your previous exam, you can calculate your grade down to exactly your point and what you need to get. Hmm. So you guys said that helped you. Absolutely. Cause pressure or more anxiety.
00:13:51
Speaker
I think it depends on the person. So Alex is also someone who performs well on exams. So he gets a 92 on the first exam and he's like, all right, come finals week, I'm over here being like, all right, I need to get at least an 85 if I want to secure them to be in this class. Alex is like, I need a 17.
00:14:10
Speaker
I think I'm just going to guess on the test. But he doesn't. He's very diligent. And he's done this for the past three trimesters. So it's great if you have a pad built up because you can triage. You can say, I don't need to worry too much about this final A. I can focus on final B because I'm pretty much in the clear. And it depends on how your classes are weighted. But if you can take that stress off your shoulders and say, no matter what I get on this test, I'm probably going to do OK in the class. It's helpful because you have a lot of tests, as we all know.
00:14:38
Speaker
very interesting in didactic gear. That is a very interesting concept. I never would have thought about that. And Vicki enables him by making her spreadsheets. That's so cool. I mean, I guess that I'm glad you guys talked to you guys because that would have been crossed my mind or any of us. I don't think any of us have really talked about that in my year. So that's really awesome. Got to tell me all these word gems you guys came up with.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I made a spreadsheet for every trimester and it has the breakdown of like every assignment that we have and then I made it so that you can put in whatever grade you would like for the class to get whatever GPA you need or want and then it'll tell you what you need on like the very last exam. Do you have a math background or just really good with spreadsheets?
00:15:29
Speaker
So I really enjoy spreadsheets. I have one for our to-do list of assignments that are due. And depending on the due date and how close it is, it'll change colors. So something that's doing this week, it'll be bright red or orange. And then something that's due later on will be a different color. So you know how to prioritize and how much time you have. Yeah, Victoria, the MVP. Man, that's impressive. Very awesome.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, so that's one thing I want to bring up is collaboration. How much collaboration did you have in your class? For our class, we had a fair amount, but it kind of concentrated in a couple people in a couple different ways. I'll talk about later, but how do your class collaborate and with study materials and other things?
00:16:20
Speaker
I mean, I can start. I think it definitely changes throughout the year and changes based on the class. I mean, it kind of starts out for us of like, okay, everybody's sharing Quizlets that they make, because that's kind of a lot of people's default for how to prepare for a lot of things. And then it's study guides and notes that they make, and then notes they've gotten from other people in other cohorts or other programs. And I think a lot of it circulates within study groups and then kind of makes its way out to kind of like,
00:16:50
Speaker
the general public you know if that makes sense of the cohort we have a shared google drive and a shared one drive for microsoft one note drive that everyone's kind of been able to pour resources into throughout the year which has been really helpful i think for for a lot of people
00:17:07
Speaker
Um, so in my group, like I'll make like a study guide and I'll share it with like the people that I normally stay with, because I guess for me, I, I don't know if it's good or bad and I don't want to give something bad to the rest of our class. So I kind of like scope it out and see how everybody else in my little group feels about it. And then if it's good, I'll send it out. Well, that's good. That's a good way to do it.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly kind of what our group does as well. All the guys have access to my OneDrive. As much as they'd like to edit it, they're not allowed to. But I just don't want to give somebody I'm not as familiar with an incorrect answer or be the reason they got a question wrong when the guys can just be like, dude, you're an idiot. That's not right. And I'm like, OK, sorry, I lost you a point. But if it was someone I wasn't familiar with, if I told Luke or Victoria the wrong thing, I'd feel horrible.
00:18:00
Speaker
So a lot of my notes just stay with me. Okay. Yeah. So we just had a Google drive for our class and
00:18:09
Speaker
Some of it was sometimes we put up study guides. Someone did it for the first couple semesters, but then kind of stopped. The class secretary, I guess that's one of the responsibilities, at least that's what in the past they would make this general study guide for every like every class. And that was helpful. Sometimes it was a little too much, and I wouldn't look at it. But Quizlets, that's what our class did.
00:18:35
Speaker
mostly from like one or two people. Cause they did them so well. At first I didn't like it just because I felt like it was very flashcards or a weird thing. Cause a lot of times they might not make sense to you if you don't make them, but other, but on the other side, you don't have a lot of time to make them. So it's nice to have some of that or just an extra resource on top of your own. So that was nice. I used utilize that quite a bit and Quizlet's great. I don't like me personally. I don't like Quizlet.
00:19:05
Speaker
for the learning part, but for the sharing part, the collaboration part is very nice. I was exported to Anki and do Anki, so that was very helpful. So what else do you guys want to talk about? Did you guys use flashcards or study guides? How was that in your success?
00:19:30
Speaker
I think it depends on the subject matter and whether or not it's kind of a first or second order knowledge, you know if you're going to really do apply it. And that kind of speaks to like the speed and the depth of which you're going to have to review it. I think the newer functions that Quistlet has like the learn and the testing functions kind of allow it to be a little bit more robust of a tool. That's being said, it's still not perfect for everybody and I think you do get most of the benefit from it if you're making one like
00:19:55
Speaker
I never really took notes in class if I was writing anything down. It was just into a quiz lit because you don't need to write something down twice, especially if it's already written on the slide. So you're just kind of wasting your time. But study guides allow, I think, everybody to share that information in the way that they understand it best with the people that they feel as though they'll understand it. And Alex's point, if I tell him he got me a question wrong, he'll say, you should never listen to me.
00:20:22
Speaker
But if someone else did, there'd be a lot of apologizing. So depends on your audience. Yeah, I felt like flashcards were more beneficial to me, just because with a lot of the study guides, I just felt really bogged down. I mean, just because there's so much content to cover. I feel like when somebody makes a flashcard set, they're more concise in what they choose to include. But with the study guides, it was just so much and just kind of lost me.
00:20:52
Speaker
definitely high yield stuff on flashcards. Sometimes you go and get a little, sometimes I feel like you get a little too much in the details with flashcards. You feel like you have to memorize everything and that's not helpful either. Exactly. Yeah. What did you do, Victoria? I grew as Nick. It depends on what content you're trying to study. For like pharmacology, I had to draw
00:21:20
Speaker
like charts out so I can know like what medications go under like what class and what it treats. But for other classes like infectious diseases, you just had to know like this goes with this. And so like flashcards helped there. Did you guys mostly take all your information from the PowerPoints? Did you use any books? How did that work with you guys?
00:21:49
Speaker
PowerPoints. Mainly. A lot of PowerPoints. I feel like it depends on the class. Like I think a lot of us really benefited from like Dubin's EKG book when we were in that unit, like we're in cardiology. First Line Guide coming out this year by Dr. Mike Sacks, I think was a big help to a lot of people because it kind of was a good way to augment the resources from the slides without going too in depth.
00:22:13
Speaker
Um, and one thing that I preach to a lot of people that, um, is kind of foreign is for some, anything like physiology is that I use an undergraduate level and P book, because it's just kind of like what the level of our medical physiology is taught at. Cause we just don't have the time to be going into Harrison's or anything else. So that's been a help and it's a good review tool, I think for a lot of stuff. Yeah. That's good.
00:22:38
Speaker
For just to touch on the first point there Nick I just as much as I did not like sitting down and watching hours of ninja nerd that probably taught me more than the slides and the lectures dead as much as I hate to say that.
00:22:53
Speaker
that's a very important resource, videos, because he kind of does a lot of the things, the charting and things like that, but the thing about him, he's a PA, first of all, which is awesome, but he also went to a lot of depth, so you knew that you weren't missing anything that we needed to know, but you can also forget stuff like, okay, I don't even know that, it's way too specific or anything like that.
00:23:16
Speaker
But yeah, like you said, you guys said, PowerPoint's number one, but also a lot of times, especially with Sacred Heart, we have pathophysial, patho ones with like diseases, classes separated from other classes, other courses, and
00:23:38
Speaker
With that, it was very important. Sometimes it was very confusing when we had a lecturer giving in their PowerPoint. So it was very nice to have a review book. Pants Prep Pearls was the mainstay for our class. And then this first-line guide came out recently. And that's really good, too. Very concise. So you can kind of see if it's very confusing, because sometimes lectures jump around. It's not clear what you need to know.
00:24:06
Speaker
Everything that's on the review page for that book, for the disease is very helpful to kind of focus on what's important. So definitely agree. And yeah, as we all know, there's a million online resources like Osmosis videos are great and they're a little bit more surface level for your stuff like your physiology. So it's a great review tool as well as a learning tool, depending on what you're doing. And I recently just,
00:24:32
Speaker
I found my way to AMBOSS. I don't know if you ever heard of that Sebring, but it's actually primarily geared towards, I guess, positions, but it's another really great interface. I think the way they organize it, it's almost like up to date, but it's more focused on like the medicine aspect as well as well, aside from just like the pharmacology. So that's something if people want to make the investment in that. I think it's something like up to date or apocrates, like you can carry through to practice because it's very commonplace.
00:25:00
Speaker
That's good to know too, because I wasn't sure if it was more, if it was applicable to PA students that that would be helpful or mostly helpful to medical school students. Cause a lot of, a lot of Anki Pro guys talk about and use AM, AMBOSS. So that's good to know that that's a good resource as well.
00:25:21
Speaker
What are some of the online resources you guys used? Cause this is a very contentious thing too. Like what was most helpful for some of you guys and what was least helpful? So I'll jump in. I like online med ed. They're free. They taught me a ton and it's somewhere between osmosis in depth and ninja nerd in depth, but they unfortunately don't have every topic, but the topics they do have
00:25:49
Speaker
They're great. I highly recommend it. Yeah, Alex, we've talked a lot about online metadata. I've used them quite a bit for a lot for the pathophysiology stuff. He's been very helpful.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've delved into his stuff a little bit. And I think when you find one resource that drives it to you, it's important. I would definitely be remiss to not talk about podcasts. I think that whether or not they have a video resource like Cram the Pants is awesome. He has a lot of video resources that go along with the podcast he records, along with like
00:26:24
Speaker
a physician assistant exam review, a physician in assistant in a flash. And then there's, you could pretty much listen to any like internal medicine, like rotation podcast that's even for medical students because it's pretty much all the same. Sometimes they go a little bit more into like procedural stuff that I'm not sure that a PA student, you know, or maybe a young PA would necessarily be doing, but I think there's still a lot of information, especially if you have to drive a lot, I drive a lot. So that's a really good way to like passively study.
00:26:54
Speaker
and get that just what you need delivered to you. I also like using ROSH review. Once you answer the questions, it gives you a good explanation of why that answer is correct or why it was wrong and gives you more information about that topic so you can review it.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah, definitely having a good question bank, even though it's not applicable to everything in didactic cure will definitely be essential and even more essential in clinical year, but we're not going to talk about clinical year.
Group Study Techniques & Emotional Challenges
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah. I got to throw in a smarty pants too. I found that was pretty helpful for the POM exams.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah. And I think we got, we received a copy of the Lang PDF from your cohort or someone else. And that's those, those are a little bit more high level questions, but great for kind of like getting closer to an exam and making sure you're really like getting used to like maybe more classic pants questions that they've recycled into there and seeing how they'll ask those.
00:27:57
Speaker
One thing I noticed with the question banks and just jumping back to the group kind of thing, we were given whiteboards when we first started this program. And before some of the more arduous POM exams, particularly last trimester, the group and I would sit down and go through the questions, write down our answer on the whiteboard. And then if we all agreed, awesome. If we didn't, we'd talk through why we thought one answer was more correct than the other. And I know that helped me tremendously.
00:28:24
Speaker
And I think a big benefit to studying in groups is also is getting get benefit out of that is because you, you have to learn to understand the logic of test taking and how other people use their logic. And that's been a big learning on my part, which I struggled with was my test taking logic didn't necessarily line up with like how they were really testing us and I learned that pretty well from Alex.
00:28:46
Speaker
But yeah, we actually, we have a timer and we, because you typically get a minute per question. So I actually hit a minute timer. Every time we read a question, we have a minute to write it down and then show our answers all at once. So there's no cheating or changing answers and you're honest about, and then we, you talk about it afterwards. So very clever. Oh, that's, that's awesome. I should have listened to this podcast a year ago or two years ago. Just kidding.
00:29:17
Speaker
I think another silly thing that helps a lot of people are mnemonics. We all come up with great ones that really help things stick even from fresh trimester. We still remember that if you get a cat or dog bite, Nick came up with dog-mentin for augmentin as the treatment for that.
00:29:36
Speaker
Sometimes that's all it takes is like a dumb way to remember stuff or, you know, we were just tested like on the USPSTF recommendations for screening. So instead of osteoporosis, we're like it's osteoborosis because it's grade B. So it's honestly, when you have to remember something that's as simple as that, like instead of depression, it's depression because it's grade B. So we have a lot of other stuff to consider sometimes boiling it down just to a way that's easy to stick in your mind can be helpful. So.
00:30:07
Speaker
Those are some cool ones. It's not dumb if it works. Absolutely. And it's OK if it's dumb if it does work. Well, it's funny when you get out there, some of the attendings still use a lot of those mnemonics and things like that, or pearls that they learn that are very pertinent to their
00:30:33
Speaker
field and specialty. So those are will probably carry with you forever, which is awesome and important. So some interesting, some of the upperclassmen, like when I first started a year ago, a lot of people recommended osmosis and pachmonic. And I'm sure there was our great resources, but I never I didn't utilize them as much as I thought I would, interestingly. So I just, yeah, thought that was kind of interesting.
00:31:03
Speaker
I don't know if anybody else in our class has, but. I don't think very many people have gone too much into Picemonic. I think there's another associated cost with that. Yeah, exactly. That's why I think sharing accounts like your information, if you can log in multiple devices, definitely do it. It's a team sport. But yeah, I think people either really love Osmosis or they just don't care for it at all. And it's just like any resources. Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, as well as this was really awesome for pathophysiology, but like the flashcards were okay. They had a pretty good algorithm, but like the questions, the question banks were like extremely difficult and just not what we were learning at the time. So I stopped using it pretty much towards the end of my detective year. In Picmonic, I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love the idea of it, but when I found,
00:31:59
Speaker
was that the algorithm isn't good enough to really put them out there far enough. So you just pile up a thousand.
00:32:12
Speaker
Um, questions to do and he'll take, it would just seem so overwhelming. I actually got so overwhelmed. I was doing other things too. So I just stopped using it and it's, it's high. It's very high yield. I think it's almost better for like pants. Then, uh, then dykdatic gear. Cause sometimes you have to get in the weeds a little bit with some of the exams. Um, but yeah, that's my love. Hey, they should put the pick on it.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think they've actually, and I don't know if you've, they had this feature when you were really using osmosis, but they have started putting out these clinical practice videos. They're typically a bit longer than usually about 30 minutes. So there are normal asthma videos, like 10 minutes. And then there's a clinical practice one where it actually goes into like, here's how we're stacking therapy, like as a clinician, which is pretty cool. Cause you don't expect that from them. And it's, you know, like there's a million videos in every,
00:33:06
Speaker
online resource like that, you always have to take with a grain of salt because you don't know if the recommendation has changed or you don't know, you know, what your program prefers to teach you. But there's definitely they're definitely always changing stuff, which is good and bad because you can never keep up with all of it. So it's a good point. It's cool to know that.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, well, osmosis is also a very heavily, it's created by medical students, almost for medical students, but they really made it broad for a lot of different health professions, which has been good. So sometimes it's a little overboard for us, but yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
Is there anything looking back now because you're kind of turning the corner now in your clinical year? Have you had any thoughts looking back on your didactic gear of stuff that you're glad that you did or that you might've wished you had done differently? Because I feel like we're becoming a little bit removed from it now as we're kind of getting out of it and we're like, okay, we made it. But I'm sure looking back on it a full year outside of that, it probably feels very different.
00:34:10
Speaker
That's a great question. I mean, there's certainly things I regret, probably group things. I wish I would have pursued more at least right before exam, not being so in my own head and studying, definitely had a regret. Things I felt like I did well with was just putting in the time.
00:34:35
Speaker
Even though sometimes it felt very abstract to know what to learn and to work through. But also, I think my greatest strength and didactic here that brought that carried through clinical year was my tenacity. I'm not the greatest student. I'm not the greatest PA student in the bunch, but
00:34:58
Speaker
I've failed so many times that I know not to get so caught up in the failure just to pick myself back up and continue. I think that's the greatest thing I learned from didactic year.
Building Resilience and Balancing Personal Passions
00:35:14
Speaker
First trimester was rough. Second was a lot better. And third was, well, it was a lot easier too. But the second trimester was so much better.
00:35:25
Speaker
in the third and then each rotation has been like accelerating on that path and not getting so discouraged and catastrophizing so much has really helped me.
00:35:41
Speaker
I think it's really easy because PA school is a very emotional experience because the stakes are very high. You're very invested. The money especially is a huge thing that kind of runs over you if you think about it because I can't keep stacking failures if you're not doing well, but it's a big time investment emotionally as well. It's definitely easy to get caught up in that. Then I think
00:36:06
Speaker
I don't know. I can't speak for everybody, but kind of nearing the end of didactic here, you're kind of like you feel I feel like more evened out in a way. And I don't know if that's just not that could it's complete like being apathetic or just now I agree. I think that are prepared. Good way to put it.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, like I'm getting that way in clinical year. You just, I think you hit a certain level where you know you need to progress and the only way to progress is to go to the next level. And didactic gear, even though I was, unfortunately I was very apprehensive to clinical year because I think it was so enmeshed in online communities that are so biased towards negative that I couldn't, it just was so frightening at some times.
00:36:54
Speaker
But now finishing now that I have skills, I have confidence, like, okay, I can't wait to be a practicing PA because now I can actually do stuff rather than present to my preceptor and have make them all the decisions, even though I can do a lot of the work too. So I think that might be a little bit of that, but also just like I'm ready for the next step, even though it might be a little scary at times to go to the next step.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah, just touching back on the failure thing, like the vast majority of people will fail something or some things. Do your mastery of learning or whatever your program has and just move on. Don't linger on it. Everybody fails something. It happens. Don't dwell, like you said, and be tenacious and just push through it. It happens to the best of us. What else do you guys want to talk about? Um, a couple of things I had written down about, you know,
00:37:54
Speaker
moving on, well, aside from failing, like the good things, like focusing on the good things, like aside from all the friends you make and the things you can do with PA school, just like, you know, there's all little things you can do during didactic gear, regardless of what program you're in, like setting non-negotiables, like if there's stuff that you love doing, like keep doing it, you know, it's not the time to reinvent yourself, like don't learn French during PA school, but
00:38:19
Speaker
If you like hitting the gym, keep doing that. You don't have to throw it all away and let that be something that grounds you, even if you didn't have the best task performance. You don't need to completely be like, all right, that's it. It's time to lock myself in the room and study. There's more to this school than that. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead, Victoria.
00:38:43
Speaker
So I still feel guilty on like days where I don't study as much as I should. But like last weekend, it was 4th of July and I took all of Sunday off just to hang out and stuff. And we had an exam on that next Tuesday and then a quiz on that following Wednesday. And those were the probably the best two exams and quizzes I've had all semester. So sometimes you just have to take time off and take care of yourself.
00:39:10
Speaker
And once you're refreshed, I think I was able to focus better and study more efficiently and then get it done. That's exactly the point I was going to make. My advisor told me first trimester to do something for yourself every week. And I tried to take an afternoon off and not open my books or anything and do something for me. And honestly, after she told me that, my grades went up. So I don't know if it's hearsay or if it's word of mouth, but it seemed to work for me.
00:39:40
Speaker
this case you as well. Yeah and I think the non-negotiable could also like Alex said just be like time like I think a lot of this at least the folks that we study with like none of us do anything on Friday nights like no there's no books being opened unless like things are really dire in its second trimester and you need to get you need that time um but I think scheduling scheduling fun is another thing that I learned from
00:40:05
Speaker
a physician friend of mine who was very successful because he was always, he wasn't like studying all weekend to then be like, oh, hopefully I'll have time to like go meet everybody out, you know, at the bar or whatever. He's like, no, I'm doing that on Sunday. So I know I can plan backwards and prepare. And I think it's easy to not do that, but then you end up being just unproductive and unhappy.
00:40:28
Speaker
Awesome, very important, yes. To find the things you love to do, keep doing those things. And if you don't have those things, I'd suggest finding some high quality leisure time. Not just doomscrolling, because that's never going to help anything, but actually either physical things or creative things. Finding an outlet is very important. So highly agree. Yeah, on the other end of that,
00:41:00
Speaker
before school, I worked in physical therapy and all that, I would always ask them like, oh, what was school like? You know, cause it wasn't PA school, but I was like, you know, is it crazy? Like, do you have time to do anything? Like, do you ever sleep? And like one guy always told me, like make pay while the sun shines. And what he meant was like, you know, if it's like a Tuesday and you don't have class till 10 a.m. the next day, like, he's like, go out, go to the bar, do that on Tuesday. Because on Saturday, you'll feel fine about studying and you're gonna do great on that exam next week.
00:41:19
Speaker
I used to...
00:41:29
Speaker
or you get a class early and you really need to study, do it, you know, make that time. Like always, like whenever you have extra time in the day, however, like whatever you need, if you need to relax or you need to buckle down, like just listen to your gut and that's what you should go with and not always be super regimented in that way. So kind of like, you know, play both sides of the coin. That makes sense.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, to your point, Nick, there is, I do agree with the vast majority of what you said, but at least for me, I have to know exactly what exams are coming up, what to focus my time and effort on. Because if it's, and you know this personally, if it's something worth 10% of my grade, that's not going to change the letter grade at the end of the trimester. And there's something worth 30% that will.
00:42:16
Speaker
I'm not saying take the loss, but one's worth significant more than the other is. Yeah, it's a good way to kind of kind of ration your time because you have to ration your time. There's no other way. And that brings me to the one big thing I think we should get talk about is time management. How do you guys manage your time? What are some of the things, tools that you used and skills that you developed to manage your time to be able to fit everything in?
00:42:46
Speaker
I can go if no one's gonna jump in. I think it kind of ties back into like not being afraid to do your own thing because everybody's different. Like some people like to get to school really early, like Luke, he's out. I don't know what he's doing fighting crime all night. And then he's at school and like Luke is at school at like four or five in the morning every day. He caught me. I caught him. And some people are like me where I like to get home and do nothing or workout or something. And I start studying at like eight or nine PM.
00:43:13
Speaker
and I stay up late. And then I get to class, I end up getting to class like, you know, some people might say late, some people might say on time, it might be hearsay, but everyone's different. So knowing what your best schedule like looks like to you is like, I think the first step.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, like to Nick's point, knowing your schedule, I've got everything written out on a giant calendar for the month, and then I have a weekly one. And as assignments, you know, get checked off, I just move on to the next ones. Seeing it on paper kind of helps me. I'm probably from the older generation, so, but yeah.
00:43:51
Speaker
And this sounds kind of vague, but you just have to kind of do what works for you. I tried to do the whole like planner thing, buy a planner and write down all my assignments and schedule and everything, but it didn't really work out. So I just don't work by that protocol. So I just kind of, I don't know, go with the flow, I guess.
00:44:15
Speaker
I use Google calendars and I like I think at the opposite of Luke I block everything off by the hour, the half hour that I need for each class. I have a half an hour scheduled every day to work out, but that usually gets deleted and moved on to a different day.
00:44:31
Speaker
And I try to stick to that. I try to give myself at least an hour for each class, so I'm not spending five hours just on medical sciences and then not anything on pharmacology, because sometimes you can just get stuck on one subject. And I also thought I would cry a lot more due to the stress of PA school, but then I found out I don't have time to cry, so you don't cry anymore.
00:44:56
Speaker
schedule that in, right? Like I said. That's important. Friday night for crying. Yeah, like it really depends on the person, but yes, I was very much Victoria. I time blocked.
00:45:12
Speaker
And if you don't know, if you want to really know how to do time blocking, listen to Cal Newport's podcast. But I think it was very helpful for me to be focused on what to do and how much to do each day. If you did flashcards, how many flashcards you wanted to do, have kind of like a small goals of what you wanted to accomplish. So you're kind of focused and you know when you're done, because you're never done, but you kind of have that
00:45:40
Speaker
feeling of success if you know that, oh, I've completed this thing, I've completed this thing, I've completed pretty much everything that I need to do that was very important and maybe didn't get to the stuff that wasn't quite as important today. I'll just do that tomorrow.
00:45:55
Speaker
or sometimes this week. And also like large projects is really nice to be able to put it on a day or have some days where you knew you were gonna do it so you didn't have to worry about it not getting done.
00:46:11
Speaker
That was very helpful for me. And I did some capture where I would write down assignments, but that got over one because there's so many, which is kind of going through, okay, what tests, where exams are coming up, what assignments are due that I have to spend some time on and putting them in my calendar. So that's what I did.
00:46:30
Speaker
And also just being okay, not being done is very helpful. And taking that day off or whatever, I took Sunday off every week. I know it was a ballsy move, but taking time off is, should be a non-negotiable because you're going to burn out and then you're going to do bad. You're not going to be able to study. You're not going to want to study and you're not going to, you're just going to waste time and you're just going to hate life and hate peace school and it's going to be awful. So.
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. And as far as like blocking off time, my idea was that, and I think for anybody going into school or maybe just kind of like, you know, getting to the beginning of school, it's okay to like, yeah, again, know that you're not always, you're never going to really be done. And sometimes like if you have like eight or more hours of lecture, sometimes just like setting a minimum.
00:47:21
Speaker
like going home and I would tell myself, you know what? All I can do tonight is like two hours
Effective Study Habits and Pre-exam Routines
00:47:26
Speaker
or three hours or whatever. It's not going to be like a big night where I like, I have all these revelations and I get through all this material and like be okay with that. And then I can go to bed at a reasonable time and like hit it hard tomorrow, you know? And that ends up over time better than being like, okay, tonight's the night. I got to drink lots of coffee and like get all this work done. Cause that just never ends up in you being very successful over time.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah, to that point, Nick says a little bit every day like that, that is so true. I cannot, I'm not a person who can cram very well. So I have to start weeks in advance of some of these exams. Like I've already started our studying last week for our final and farm because it was just so much and I can't cram that. Very good points. Don't cram because like you can, you can do a little bit like even I realized in clinical year,
00:48:17
Speaker
that maybe in that first like an hour or two before the exam, it's not going to help mostly. You might find something like a revelation like, Oh, I forgot about that. And he might be on the test, but a lot of the material that you come to find out didactic year and it carries on. There's so much material. You only have so many questions. Not everything's going to be on the exam. Only the usually most important things are going to be on the exam. So
00:48:42
Speaker
Take some, right before the exam, just relax, have some time. What were you guys's pre-exam routines or things to help you get into the mood of taking an exam? Um, yeah, I, Victoria, why don't you go ahead. I've talked enough and I'll go after you.
00:49:04
Speaker
Oh, um, so usually the morning, the exams, my roommates and I, like during breakfast, we'll just have our study guides out or a quizlet just opened up and we would just ask each other, like big, like the highest yield things, like just things that we should know or like little interesting things that we might not have remembered. Like an interesting fact. Um, otherwise we're just pretty chill.
00:49:27
Speaker
Alex and I had a similar approach because we approached the exams together. I think that we try and get to school really early, even though I'm a night owl, I've tried to start coming in early and a few, you know, three or four or five hours early.
00:49:44
Speaker
You, there's only so much you think like it's easy to say only the high yield stuff says can be on the exam, you know, only these things from the slides but that's never the case because you we all have our own internal biases of like what we find interesting, what we learned right away that comes easy to us and we're like, that's going to be on the test.
00:50:03
Speaker
almost never the case. So it's good to study with people that are like, this is what I was focusing on. And you're like, what? Like you have, why are you focusing on not shaving someone's eyebrows when you're suturing it or like whatever, some weird fact, and it ends up being on the test. So having other people's perspectives and being like, did you guys focus on this is beneficial, I think. And then sometimes
00:50:23
Speaker
Actually, not even sometimes every time if you were game out questions like this is going to be a question, and this is how they're going to ask it. That's a skill you can develop over the course of your didactic year and you can pretty easily kind of summarize an exam.
00:50:40
Speaker
And even though I wasn't really big on the whole group studying, if I was like sitting at my desk or whatever, I would still try to kind of eavesdrop a little bit on what other people were talking about and see what kind of questions they were quizzing each other on. And I found that, I mean, that was pretty helpful, like, because it gave me some new information, like, oh, that can be on the test, so. Yeah, I remember there were a couple of times where we dragged you into our study room, Luke, and showed you like the genetics charts or- And that was helpful. Yeah.
00:51:10
Speaker
But like, you've wargaming out the questions, as Nick said, there's only so many ways they can paint a picture of like an acute MI. There's only so many ways they can describe that. Or the buzzwords, there's only so many ways you can describe rice water stool.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, very, very important. And I started doing this in clinical year, but to go back to, I think it was episode 11 with Kendall and her pre-exam prep thing, I took a couple of things with it just to reduce my own anxiety of affirmations. It's kind of cheesy, but like in the shower and getting ready, looking in the mirror, that really helps.
00:51:49
Speaker
And also getting in the mentality of also past experience. Like I prepped the similar way or I felt like I know as much as I did last time. I did great last time and I know I'm going to do great this time.
00:52:05
Speaker
I think that kind of put your, cause a lot of times we get into these mentalities where we believe our false thoughts, like it's a lot of times our thoughts are not true. We catastrophize, we make, we're going to fail and we're, it's not true. And we, we talk a truth to ourselves and fact and logic and that reduces loss stress for me. Um, so that's another thing to throw it out there.
00:52:33
Speaker
We're running out of time, but we'll go and have everyone talk. Any last bits of advice you want to tell somebody out there that listens to this about didactic gear, and also we'll go with hopes of what you'll experience in clinical year.
Advice for Incoming PA Students and Clinical Year Excitement
00:52:53
Speaker
Go first. So for somebody coming into Didactic here, I guess my biggest piece of advice is don't, I mean, you're going to be afraid because you feel like you're not going to know anything, but don't be afraid. And you might not know how to study. I didn't know how to study going in, but I would advise them to do what you did that made you successful in undergrad and at least try with that first. And as we alluded to earlier, don't be afraid to change if what you are doing isn't working.
00:53:20
Speaker
Um, so that would be my biggest advice. And then, um, and it does go by fast. So, um, that's something to be hopeful for. But as far as going into clinicals, yeah, I'm just excited not to be in the classroom anymore or it's not as much. And I'm really getting the hands on experience in that. Awesome. Thanks.
00:53:41
Speaker
I think for a didactic year just figure out what works for you and don't be afraid to reach out to new groups of people to study with or other people for help. Even this third trimester of didactic year I started studying with a new group of friends and they come up with great mnemonics or we come up with great vignettes to ask each other
00:54:04
Speaker
how they would ask these types of questions on this material and that really helps. So different groups of people will bring different things and everybody's very willing and open to helping you. And for clinical year, I'm just ready to work with patients again. Awesome, thanks Victoria. So I guess I'll go next. So the biggest thing like for me to give recommendations to someone who's just entering didactic gear.
00:54:31
Speaker
is you've earned this seat. You got there for a reason. You're qualified for this. You will have imposter syndrome. We all did. Every single one of us, you will be worried about it, but you got in for a reason and you deserve it. You haven't worked this far and put this much effort in to not be worthy of it. You will struggle. It happens, but just be tenacious, push through. There is an end to it. As Luke said, it goes by pretty quick. And then as for clinical, I'm actually looking forward to using some of the stuff I've learned and trying to help some people out.
00:55:01
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks Alex and Nick. Yeah, I guess I'll just say, it's not impossible. There's so many people that have done it and you can do it too and it's a lifestyle, you know, and so whatever lifestyle that you had before, even if you were in school, you're going to have to make adjustments.
00:55:19
Speaker
you know, sometimes it's going to feel like night and day, but it's something that if you really invest yourself in, like you're going to be successful. And as far as looking to a clinical year, I guess just kind of learning what, you know, practicing medicine is really all about and kind of learning from, you know, all those clinicians we're going to interact with and, you know, learn what it's really like applying all this material.
00:55:41
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks, Nick. Yeah. When you get into the PA school, everyone is a person and anything get into the rule, like attendings or just people, the residents are a little different. And we'll get to that on the, we're going to do, I'm going to do a round table with some of my cohort about clinically or we'll talk about residents and clinical year, but all your classmates are so in our class did a really good job. Our faculty did a really good job of
00:56:12
Speaker
accepting people that are just really down to earth, very friendly, willing to collaborate. We're not in a competition really, like eventually, yeah, you can say we're competing for jobs, but even that's a little not as like competing head to head because you know people move and things like that, but it's super, our class was super collaborative and you'll probably find that in most PA schools.
00:56:37
Speaker
And you'll find a lot of people are in the same situation and have like instant friends. And it's great. And use that to make groups and to, you know, vent. I think venting is important to some extent, but also having plans for overcoming some of these things is important. But yes.
00:56:57
Speaker
All you guys said some amazing stuff on Amazon is going off right now. But thank you so much, guys. You guys took some time out of your busy Sundays of relaxing, hopefully, and or maybe studying.
00:57:13
Speaker
And hopefully, um, and someone's learned something from this podcast somewhere in the ether. I don't know who listens to this. So hopefully it's helpful to somebody, but thank you so much guys. And, um, hopefully you guys have been successful last month, I think of didactic gear and have a fun clinical year. I will tease clinical year is way better. It's you have some different stresses, but it's way better. It's way more fun. And.
00:57:41
Speaker
It's worth it. So thanks so much, guys. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you.