Day 1 - Where It Went Downhill

Okay so today was my first day of dedicated and it started off SO strong.

The Good

The first 7 hours of studying felt amazing. It felt like I was learning all the things in Medschool, but on my own time. In the past whenever someone would ask me about Medschool, i'd always say something like "Its really cool, I just wish I had more time to appreciate it", and thats what this was!

It felt like I had time to appreciate and understand the material, no more memorizing for the sake of it. I didn't have meetings, classes, no required labs, no discussion posts, or evaluations to complete, nothing. All I had was time to learn some of the coolest material out there.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't like killing the studying either. I got demolished by my first UWorld block, getting a 45% when the average was 68%...oof. But I'm not sure why now it felt like an opportunity whereas before an exam it would make me anxious.

Let me tell you where it all went downhill.

The Bad

Starting the day I planned on doing all the MSK from Pathoma, all the Derm from Pathoma, and two UWorld blocks + review. In hindsight...that was nuts. It took me nearly 3.5 hours to go through just the Pathoma videos, but it didn't feel like dragged time. I took my time to understand it, and it was enjoyable.

Even the Uworld block I did on the MSK after it felt great. Blindly guessed on like 20% of it, educated guessed on like 40% but still, feeling great.

I did a quick workout before doing the review that I realized it was 5 PM. When I got back in front of the computer at 5:30, I was just feeling so unmotivated. I procrastinated on instagram for a bit, and set up an interval timer.

Interval Timer Idea
In order to make sure I don't spend all day reviewing. I'll set a timer for 3 minutes per question to review. I'll come back to the ones that need more time, but this way I can try to get through as much as possible.

From 6PM to 8PM when I told myself I'd call it was probably my least favorite time all day. Not only did I feel like I was back doing didactic work rushing through as much as possible, I didn't feel like I learned a lot from it either.

I make my own Anki from UWorld and I started to feel like when you just take notes on exactly what's on the presentation and don't really understand any of it.

At the end of it, I was starting at 64 new Anki cards and it felt like although I reviewed the block, I actually now had more work to do.

-> It felt like stuffing all my bedroom mess into the closet. It was technically cleaned, but not really...

I had to go past my hard cut off at 8:00 pm, to 8:24. After it all, I still felt eh. Objectively I know I got a lot done, but the end of the study session really set the stage for how I came off it.

Final Thoughts

The conclusion I've come to was that while limiting time to review was a good way to ensure that I didn't spend all day reviewing. I think the timing was just too harsh to enjoy.

If I really want to enjoy and make the most of it, I have to give myself room to learn. I'm just gonna make myself miserable if I start treating Dedicated like any other test.

At the end of the day, this time is an opportunity. Not many people can say that they get 6 weeks to only learn as much as they possibly can. No restrictions.

I'm going to try out a slightly different method tomorrow but 'til then. ✌️

Extra Thoughts

• A light therapy lamp is a game changer.
  Michigan winters are tough with how dark it gets, and honestly its a godsend.
• I've been using ChatGPT basically all day, noticed some discrepensies, but for the large part it's been great. Still highly recommend.
• Not trying to listen to more school stuff (i.e. Daddy Goljan Podcasts) while working out was actually a good way to take a break. Not every moment of the day has to be studying.
• Did you know that megakaryocytes get broken down into platelets by the lungs? wild...
• UWorld Hack: If you press command, shift, R on Mac while on UWorld. It converts the page to reader mode and you can copy text straight from it.