Study tips for SHELF exams and the USMLE® Step 2

All right, how are you feeling today? Hey guys, I'm Justin Ling.

I'm a recent med school graduate from the Medical University of Lublin um in Poland. And I'm also one of the video creators currently at osmosis.

Uh Just to give you guys a little background about myself. Um I'm originally from Southern California.

I went to UC Irvine for my bachelor's degree in biological sciences and then I went to Cal State Channel Islands for my master's in biotechnology and bioinformatics.

After that. Um I worked for a few years in a few different industries including academic research, uh medical device companies and pharmaceutics.

But I eventually decided I wanted to go back to school um and pursue medicine. So at my university, um our basic sciences were taught in Poland.

Um Fortunately in English and I had the option to do my clinical rotations in the US. So I ended up doing most of my rotations in the Chicago area even though I enjoyed my time in Chicago and also Poland.

Um I know it can be pretty tough to study for exams while doing rotations, whether it's your N BM exam, your shelf exam or your step exam.

Um, these are all pretty tough exams and also you're limited on time. Um, and I also personally believe that everyone learns in slightly different ways and it's important to, to figure out what works best for you.

But having said that, um, these are my own top three tips for studying further shelf exams or step two while in rotations.

So tip number one is to study at least a little every day or, um, at least most days. Um, I know it can be pretty tough sometimes when you feel really tired at the end of a long day.

Um, but if you can do as much as you can every day and be consistent about it over a long period of time, you're gonna, uh be able to retain that information a lot better.

And, uh, personally I'd like to, to create a study schedule if I know what material I want to cover, um, I'll have it spread out over that time period.

So I know every single day, what I need to do, whether there's a certain number of pages from a book or a certain number of questions.

Um I'll also schedule in catch up days and just days to relax. Uh, the catch up days are just days that II used to catch up, um, on things that II didn't get to over the last week.

Um, but if I am caught up, I'll use that time to review topics that I know I have trouble with and to help you with this also.

Um II definitely recommend you take advantage of the down time that you have during rotations instead of just pulling out your phone and playing with it or chatting with your friends, you can use this time to knock out a few extra practice problems.

Um I personally like to do this um doing my psychiatry rotation just because they had us um round real early in the morning by ourselves and we would have maybe 1530 minutes um of downtime before the attending would come in.

So during that time, I would always pull out my phone and do a lot of questions. Um Of course, you wanna make sure you only do this when it's appropriate.

Um You don't want your attending to think that you're not interested in your rotation or that you're just goofing off and tip number two is to take advantage of every learning opportunity you have during rotations.

So this includes all the resources around you, whether it's free lectures, shadowing opportunities or simply just talking to other residents or attending doctors and letting the people you work with know that they can contact you if they need anything and you're willing to learn new things, whether there's new procedures, new techniques um as long as they're appropriate for you to do and uh whether you think, you know, you need to know them um in the long run or not.

I think it never hurts to have a better understanding of what your current and future colleagues and coworkers have to go through.

So not only will the medical staff appreciate your help and probably notice that you're hustling but hustling in a good way.

Um But you'll end up being more engaged and learning more from the additional hands on experience. And um it's it's gonna help you remember the right answers.

Um more often than not when you, when it comes to exam time, just because you can pull from your real life experience in the wards compared to just what you remember from textbooks.

A tip number three is to do what you think is best for you. I know that sounds pretty basic.

But um, I think it's something that we often forget about and it's, it's, it's always good to look to our classmates and upper class men to, to see what they did to be successful.

But, um, I'd say you have to think about that advice and to see if it really applies to you or not. Uh, basically don't take anyone's advice as a hard and fast rule and that includes mine.

So, um just as an example, I know, um in med school, I've had a lot of classmates that tell me if I want to do well on a specific exam, I have to study from this book only or that book only and use um only certain flash cards.

So what I realized is like while those things may have been really good for those students, um, they may not be the best thing for me because I might learn better with a different style of studying than them.

And, um, I'll be wasting my time if I just blindly followed what they did, some people learn better with specific types of studying.

So for example, with myself, I know that I'm much more engaged when I'm watching a video about a topic compared to when I'm reading about it.

So if I have the option between the two, I'll usually pick the video and um something I really wish I knew more about. Um earlier in med school was uh flash cars that I used with spaced repetition.

Um I noticed that once I started using them, that I was able to retain information a lot better and a lot longer over a longer period of time um than before.

So if you don't know what spaced repetition is, I highly recommend you look into it. Uh If you Google osmosis space repetition, we actually have a video um that explains what it is and how it can help you retain information better.

Um So II totally recommend you check that out. So to recap the tips, um tip number one was to study at least a little bit every day.

Um Tip number two is to take advantage of every learning opportunity you have during rotations and tip number three was to do what you think is best for you studying while completing rotations can be pretty challenging.

But I hope some of these tips helped. So, thanks everybody.

Bye. Start your free trial today at