Hello Everyone, this is actually my first time to try posting videos in my blog. So please excuse the effort if the quality is not too good. Hope to get better at doing this in the future.
A lot of people think that all they need to do in order to do well in the USMLE Step 1 is to get the correct study material and viola, they will get a good score. In reality, using the right study material is just one of many things you need to do right if you want to pass, much less get a high score in this exam.
This video is a short introduction to the first lecture in the series of lectures offered in my course on preparing for the USMLE Step 1. The original lecture is almost 2 hours long. This video is posted in my facebook page
I would like to congratulate Pouya for successfully passing the USMLE Step 1 Exam with a score of 92/222 which he took last December 1, 2009. He is part of the April, 2009 batch of enrollees in my prep course for Step 1. He is currently continuing his medical studies and will be sitting for Step 2 CK in a year or 2 after he graduates. We wish him an even higher score in that endeavor
For those who want to find out more. He has written his exam and prep experience in my forum at http://forums.askdoc-usmle.com. The rest of the April batch is scheduled to take their exam in the first 2 months of the new year.
I would like to congratulate Logik15 for passing the USMLE Step 1 recently with a score of 92/221. He is the first member of the February batch to report back with his scores. I wish him well in his future endeavours
I am still awaiting the results of two other members of the February batch who have taken the exam and will post the results once they are out.
I would like to announce that I’ll be accepting applications for the September Class of Askdoc’s USMLE Step 1 Prep Course which will start on September 1, 2009 and end on March 3, 2010. This is the 5th batch of enrollees for this course. Please click on this link to go to the Home Page for the Prep Course. You can also apply for the November Class if you want, too.
I would like to congratulate Marlene for successfully passing the USMLE Step 1 with a score of 88/213 which she took last March 27, 2009. She is part of the first batch of enrollees in my prep course for USMLE Step 1 which started last September, 2008. For those who were visiting the blog since last August, you will recall her ardently arguing for a position in the course. Well she finally made it.
When Marlene first came to me, I was actually taken aback. She graduated way back in 1997. Failed Step 1 multiple times even after taking courses. Could I really help her pass it this time? As we all “know”, OLD grad + Multiple failures = basket case. However, the purpose of setting up this course was to help those who need the help most and she would certainly qualify. She promised me that she will study hard if I will help her pass the USMLE. Well, I guessed we kept both ends of our deal.
For those who want to find out more. She has written her exam and prep experience in my forum at http://forums.askdoc-usmle.com. The prep course is set up to help you raise your scores. By how much, depends on how hard you are willing to study.
*Note: Enrollment for September Classes have started. Please go to this link
I would like to announce that I’ll be accepting applications for the June Batch of Askdoc’s USMLE Step 1 Prep Course which will start on June 1, 2009 and end on November 30, 2009. This is the 4th batch of enrollees for this course and again due to experiences with the previous batches, changes are being implemented to the program for this batch.
As you may well be aware, the first batch started last September, 2008. No fees were collected, however, the applicants were required to have failed Step 1 at least once. Tong, the first to take the exam from that batch has passed with a score of 97/232. The second, Marlene just passed with an 88/213. Most of you may know Marlene. She was the one who was ardently negotiating a position in the prep course on this blog last July to August when I first announced the course. Well she finally made it. You can read more about their exam experience here.
The February batch is mostly on schedule to take their exams in June and July, except for two who have requested to be move the June batch and one who is MIA. So a total of 4 will be taking their exams soon. Continue reading »
*Enrollments for June Classes already started and will be open for the whole of May, 2009. If you are interested in enrolling please click on this link. Thank You
Hello everyone, I will now be accepting applications for the April batch of Askdoc’s USMLE Step 1 Prep Course which will start April 1, 2009 and end on September 30, 2009. This is the third batch of enrollees for this prep course. As you may well be aware, the first batch started last September, 2008. No fees were collected, however, the applicants were required to have failed Step 1 at least once. The first to take the exam from that batch has passed with a score of 97/232. You can read more about him here.
The second batch started on January 26, 2009 and currently with 7 members. They paid a fee of $100 but this time around, everyone was accepted but on a first come, first served basis. Currently 4 are doing very well and 3 are doing poorly, not in terms of scores but in terms of progress. You need to be committed to finishing the course, and in order to do that you need to show up. Therefore some modification to the programs need to be done which I’ll discuss later.
Due to my experience with the first and second batch, I believe I have to describe the course in more detail including expectations and the amount of work needed so there is no misunderstanding.
1. The course covers USMLE Step 1 which is seven subjects all in all. The course is 6 months long. Therefore telling me that you do not have enough time to finish 1 subject in 4 to 6 weeks means you won’t have time to finish the course period. Therefore please be ready to invest the time needed to do the course. Nothing less than 4 to 6 hours a day at least 5 to 6 days a week is needed. If you are unable to commit this time, then this course will not help you.
2. The reason you would want in on this course is that it will teach you how to prep for the USMLE in the proper way. Therefore you must be prepared to follow instructions. You would be surprised at how many people insists on following their own methods of studying rather than those outlined in the course. If you will not follow the course’s review methodology, why bother enrolling? Continue reading »
I would like to congratulate Tong for successfully passing the USMLE Step 1 Exam with a score of 97/232 which he took last January 27, 2009. He is part of the first batch of enrollees in my prep course for Step 1 which started last September, 2008. He is currently preparing for his Step 2 CK and I wish him all the luck. May he also have a good score or even higher than his Step 1.
For those who want to find out more. He has written his exam and prep experience in my forum at http://forums.askdoc-usmle.com. Two more of my students from the September class will be sitting for the exam in the next 2 months. I wish them luck and hope they do just as well.
*Enrollments for June Classes already started and will be open for the whole of May, 2009. If you are interested in enrolling please click on this link. Thank You
I would like to announce that I am now ready to receive applications for Askdoc’s USMLE Step 1 Prep Course which will start on January 19, 2009 and end on July 19, 2009. However, before submitting your application, please be sure you are really committed to finishing the course, since there really is limited space available.
Due to my experience with the first batch, I believe I have to describe the course in more detail including expectations and the amount of work needed so there is no misunderstanding.
The course covers USMLE Step 1 which is seven subjects all in all. The course is 6 months long. Therefore telling me that you do not have enough time to finish 1 subject in 4 to 6 weeks means you won’t have time to finish the course period. Therefore please be ready to invest the time needed to do the course. Nothing less than 4 to 6 hours a day at least 5 to 6 days a week is needed. If you are unable to commit this time, then this course will not help you.
The reason you would want in on this course is that it will teach you how to prep for the USMLE in the proper way. Therefore you must be prepared to follow instructions. You would be surprised at how many people insists on following their own methods of studying rather than those outlined in the course. If you will not follow the course’s review methodology, why bother enrolling? Continue reading »
Everyone knows the usefulness of keeping a large amount of high yield information in your head just before the actual examination. This can help a lot in boosting your score up in the last few days before the actual examination. Although I am never an advocate for last minute cramming for an examination like the USMLE, the benefits of having a large number of high yield facts in your immediate memory is something no one can ignore. The reason is that unless the information is in your immediate memory, chances are it will take some time for you to recall that information and in the context of timed examination like the USMLE, that can make or break you.
Most reviewers acknowledge these facts. First Aid for Step 1 has its Rapid Review section. Levinson and Jawetz has its “Brief summaries of Medically Important Organisms. and Trevor and Katzung’s Pharmacology Review has it’s “Key Words for Key Drugs”. All to be reviewed just a few days before going into the examination.
I would like to announce that Askdoc’s Method of USMLE Review for Step 1 is now available at my prep forum at http://forums.askdoc-usmle.com. As I promised to some of you before, it contains more or less the same instructions available to the participants in my prep course. It includes suggested alternate reviewers and q Books you could use for your review. If you have any questions about the review methods, feel free to post your questions there.
The prep course participants are currently revising pathology so only the pathology review methods are outlined. Once they’ve reached the other subjects, probably around 1st week of October, instruction for the other subjects will be posted there too.
The prep forum is currently limited to Step 1 and Step 2 CS only as it will take time before I can write up enough materials to fill them. However, one feature it has which members may like is a Groups section where members can form themselves into groups and have a place where they can do their group discussion and learning in privacy. Only group members can enter and post in their forum. They could also limit visibility of the forum to their own group. Groups wanting to have their own forum section should sign up at Askdoc’s USMLE prep forum and submit the names of all group members and the name of their group (which will the name of their forum under the Groups forum) via personal message to me. Please include if you want to keep it invisible to the public. Your group is good for 30 days. You can extend it twice at 30 days each time for a total of 90 days by sending me a personal message before the 30 days expire.
Small private groups are handy for discussing Step 1 concepts and even Step 2 CS cases.
Back in 2004 when I was just starting my preparation for the USMLE, my greatest fear was in failing this examination. My status as an old graduate made failing a stark reality for me. Every person I asked told me that as an old graduate I have no chance. The most encouraging response I got was, “maybe you’ll pass, but it’s impossible to match with really low scores.” When I went to forums, I hear horror stories of people failing which frightened me even more. Then once in a while, when I read of people celebrating and crowing about their 99’s, I secretly wished that that was me. Even my own family thought it was impossible for me to make it. It got so bad, it took me over a year to get around to seriously preparing for it.
Now 4 years later, with a double 99 in my belt, I feel bad whenever, I read about people failing the examination. If I can make it, they should be able to make it, too. 2 years ago I wrote an advise to someone who had failed already thrice and was plaintively asking people “What to do”. I’m happy she eventually passed her exam with an 82. Since that time, I am happy to note that a lot of people have passed and raised their scores and even got 99’s using that advise. A couple of them had the opportunity to catch me between Steps and was couched by me through emails to raise their scores with varying results. However, since that time, hundreds of people still failed. Some had read my advise but were doing exactly opposite of what I had written. Others, I found out did not understand how to implement what I had written. Continue reading »
Today I’ll not talk about the USMLE but something else. Although I set up my blog on March 23, 2008, My first real post on the USMLE was posted exactly 4 months ago on March 28, 2008. So in a sense we are celebrating my fourth month as blogger and I’ll start by posting the different milestones my blog have reached.
After 4 months (as of July 27, 2008)
Total posts: 30
Number of pageviews: 7,046 – 4,439 in July alone
Number of Visitors: 2,290 – 1,528 in July alone
Number of Countries: 87 from 812 cities
Top 5 countries: United States: 1, 548; Canada: 122; India:117; Philippines:86; Pakistan: 48
Number of downloads of my ebook “How to Create a Study Plan for the USMLE”: 524
Alexa top rank for all websites: 3 month average rank: 2,852.091 (8,600,000 6 weeks ago)
1 week average rank: 751,712
I would like to announce that I’ve compiled my series of posts on “How to Create a Study Plan for the USMLE” into an eBook in PDF format. I’ve also included the last 4 posts and completed the series. It is downloadable from this site. This ebook is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 unported license.
You may distribute this ebook under the following conditions:
That the work will be preserved as is and you will not edit, alter or build on this work.
That you will properly attribute this work to its authors, askdoc.
That you will not use this work for commercial purpose.
If you have a blog or a website, feel free to use my links so you do not use your own bandwidth. The link is http://downloads.we-r-ebooks.com/study-plan.zip
If you want to email this ebook to a friend, you can either email the ebook itself or the link.
Thank you for your patience. I will continue to write about the USMLE and hopefully help more people achieve their dreams of becoming US physicians.
Hi everyone. Although it is with a heavy heart, I have decided to temporarily stop writing in my blog or anywhere for that matter at least for the next few weeks or maybe even permanently. A few days ago, I found out that someone from Egypt has been copy-pasting all the contents of my blog to his blog. He edits it to remove all reference to me as well as any links that will identify me as the author. In other words, he has passed off my works as his. Continue reading »
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV)
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV)
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