A Minimalist's Guide to the Med Boards

Hi! After much procrastination I've finally gotten around to doing this: writing about the med boards. In this post I'll share with you tips and tricks that worked for me, and what not to do when reviewing for the boards.

But first, a little backgrounder on me is probably necessary. I think that whenever you ask for advice from someone, you always have to know where they're coming from so that you know how to temper the advice you receive. So here's a couple of things I want you to know about me you might want to know about me:

• I am a minimalist. I like to find out the simplest way to do things, and I do that. I read just the main handouts. I buy just one pen. I do the bare minimum, and that's never failed me!
• I am a willful crammer. During my lectures I would space out, doodle, or browse Facebook. And I paid the price for my laid-back attitude by having to cram everything the night before an exam. Yup, it's a terrible habit, and I probably caused myself more stress than necessary. Also, because I relied on short-term memory, I quickly un-learned all the concepts I studied. But hey (spoiler alert), I still passed! 
• I've never read a medical textbook cover-to-cover. I relied more on transes to get by.
• Despite my unstructured study habits, I got above average marks in med school. Nowhere near the Top 10, but definitely in the top 30% of my batch. 

Okay, with that out of the way, let's get on with it! 

I. Pre-pre-boards

Yes, internship is over and you've now arrived at the base of a tall, scary mountain. You rub your hands together and begin your slow ascent.

via GIPHY

One thing that surprised me at the start of boards season was the amount of work you had to accomplish to just even register for the boards. I remember thinking, "This feels like a test in itself." So before we get to the actual studying work, you first have to check off these seemingly small but extremely important tasks.

1.) Decide to enroll in a review center or just do self-review. As an ASMPH graduate, this decision had been conveniently made for me years before I even enrolled. Topnotch Medical Board Prep has been a long-time partner of Ateneo, and after you graduate you kind of have no choice but to go there. My batchmates and I were all grouped into one big happy section and we mostly had our review classes in school, instead of at the review center. I'm happy with Topnotch - they're probably the most well-known of all review centers, and for a good reason. Majority of board takers are now enrolled with them. They produce all the study materials for you, and they're responsive to feedback from previous boards. The biggest benefit of having Topnotch is they take a lot of guesswork out of the equation. Just study their materials, and you're probably good to go. Probably. 

2.) Gather the materials for PRC registration. Whether or not you enroll with a review center, you'll need to register with PRC so they know you'll be taking the boards. To do this, you'll need the following:

• 2 Documentary stamps
• 1 2x2 ID photo and 3 passport-sized photos (just go to a photo studio and tell them it's for PRC - they'll know what to do) 
• 1 Transcript of Records with scanned picture and remarks "For board exam purposes"
• 1 Official NMAT Result
• 1 PSA Birth Certificate
• 1 PSA Marriage contract (for married female applicants)
• 1 Community Tax Certificate
• 1 certificate of Post Graduate Internship
• Photocopy of valid ID 

Securing these can be a pain, so I'd recommend getting a head start on them to clear up brain space for studying.

3.) Register with PRC online. If you're taking the September exam, online registration for the PLE should begin around July. Create your online account at online.prc.gov.ph. After inputting the necessary details, pick a venue and date for registration. You're done when you see a screen like this:

Screenshot from Kirk Plata, ASMPH Batch 2018, more formally known as King Ina Naming Lahat

A lot of the time though, slots are taken up just as quickly as new slots open up. So don't be surprised if after you've selected a slot for say, July 26 at Robinsons Galleria, you get another message saying that the slot is no longer available. It's like the staircases at Hogwarts: ever-changing, always in motion, never there when you need them...

4.) Show up for your physical appointment. Go to the venue and date that you picked out, hand them your documents, and you're done. In my experience, the time slots don't really matter, as long as you show up on your selected date. For instance, my appointment was scheduled for around 12 noon at PICC, but Mariel, Arthur, and I arrived at 6 am and were the first ones there. Our papers were processed soon after the office opened at 8 am, and we were done in less than 5 minutes! A+ for efficiency, PRC PICC branch! 

Side note: This is a mountain of work, but luckily for me a lot of the burden was shouldered by the ASMPH admin and the boards ops team, Pugad Agila. They did everything from securing documents, grouping them into envelopes with our names on it, even showing up at the appointment sites. All we needed to do was hand in these pre-packaged envelopes and that was it. We cannot thank you enough for your amazing support, ASMPH!

5.) Plan your studying. Plan your study days ahead of time so you divide your attention equally across the 12 subjects. (Well, not equally; PrevMed can take the back seat TBH.) I mostly followed the schedule suggested by Topnotch, and I used Google Sheets as my calendar. It looked something like this:

II. Pre-Boards

via GIPHY

You've done the paperwork, and can now focus most of your attention onto studying. A little note before you begin: you should have by now received your Notice of Admission. Guard this piece of paper with your life for without it, you cannot take the boards!

In hindsight, I actually really liked reviewing for the boards. Seeing everyone else so hard at work, hearing people's wishes of 100%, receiving random surprises and snacks from people at school, these were some pretty happy times for me. There was always that looming anxiety of failure, but I still had no choice but to proceed in the face of that anxiety. I'm sharing these tips in the hopes that you, reader, can pull through and make your boards review happy! Here's what worked for me during review season:

Must-Do's

1.) Attend review classes and make an effort to listen. Your time during boards review is gold. If you start reviewing in July, you only have less than three months to cram five year's worth of medical knowledge into that precious noggin of yours. At some point you may be tempted to just skip the lectures and go for self-review instead. But I personally tried to stick with the lectures as much as I could, because I knew that if I went off and studied on my own, I'd end up distracted and unfocused. Don't just show up, try to listen. Nibble on some snacks. Sip a coffee. Doodle. Highlight. Squirm. Tap your feet. Pick at a scab. Do anything. Just do something. Just do something!!!

2.) Pick a good study spot. What I learned during review season (that I wish I'd known earlier during med school) was that a good study spot is:

• quiet, with no music playing
• well-lit with white light 
• facing a plain white wall

That said, cafés are not ideal places to study. I spent most of my study time at school, where the boardtakers were designated empty laboratory rooms to study in. These lab rooms were perfect because they had me facing a plain wall, were quiet (except when the second-years had Patho labs in the adjacent rooms), had these long laboratory lights along the ceiling for optimal reading, and overhead storage for bags. Another good thing (that eventually became a bad thing) was that random people would stop by to shower us with food - parents, students, fellow alumni, teachers... There was so much snacks going around, with virtually unlimited coffee and juice, that you never had to go hungry. It sounds amazing now, but I gained so much weight by the time of boards review I had to unbutton my pants literally every time I had to sit down.  

The early days of 2C laboratory, before all the clutter appeared

My study station in 2C. 

Anyway, I digress. If your school has a similar set up, or a nice spacious library, go for it! Studying at home is also an alternative but you do run the risk of being sent out for errands by your parents, being dragged to random family events, or being too distracted by your pet hamster Maisie.

3.) Stick to the material in your review center's handouts. Trust that it's already complete. It's not infallible, and there's always a mistake or two to be corrected. But it's your best shot at passing since you're already cramming. Face it, if you haven't already read Harrison's cover to cover, now is not the time to start!

4.) Review books may be helpful. Some items in the board exams were very similar (and I'm wording it very carefully here so that PRC doesn't revoke my license) to questions from well-established review books. I personally didn't read anything outside of the standard review center materials, but the more popular titles I see are BRS Physio, Robbins Review of Pathology, and Schwartz' ABSITE reviewer.

5.) Watch videos. Make YouTube your best friend. This has been a winning strategy for me ever since college, and this is actually the main reason I wanted to write this long-ass post. Videos are the fastest and most efficient way to learn something, whether for the first time or as a review, and I don't think enough people know just how amazing YouTube can be as a learning tool! Just be selective with what you watch, as not everything out there is helpful (or accurate!). These are the channels I swear by:

• SketchyMedical - It's the MVP of all review materials. These videos saved my life through Microbiology and Pharmacology. They use hand-drawn stories to make concepts come to life, and it's great for long-term memory. Their YouTube channel is only a small selection of the hundreds of videos they have on their website, which you can watch for a price (or just ask your juniors in med school who are probably already watching it). I would watch this on 2x speed to get as much information in in the shortest amount of time possible.
• McGraw-Hill – Great animations, with just the right level of detail. Essential viewing for seeing the concepts and illustrations in Berne and Levy (and Biochem too) come to life! 
• About Medicine - Don't let their generic channel name fool you. This is a great resource for learning anatomy, especially for those tricky hard-to-visualize concepts like the inguinal canal. They use 3D software to take you on a guided tour of the human body. Something I wish I'd seen way back in first year med!
• Other honorable mentions:
• Alilia Medical Medi
• Khan Academy
• Handwritten Tutorials 
• Armando Hasundungan
• Here’s the link to my personal Physio playlist that I’ve compiled through the years 😊

6.) Teamwork is key. Although boards review seems like a daunting, grueling task, it was never something I felt like I had to go through alone. I had the support of my friends, my family, my school, and my baby eagles from Pugad Agila, Matt and Wongy. Thanks to them, I never really had any bad days. When I was constantly surrounded by people cheering me on and pressuring me to do my best, I felt obligated to give my best. Being part of Batch 2019 was also its own special thing that I wish everyone out there could experience too. I had to live up to the pressure of being in my batch, a batch known for producing Mga Kwentong Tsubibo and getting high grades. We had a batch Messenger thread where people would post random stuff to help us study: links to helpful videos, corrections to the text that were missed during the lectures, useful graphs and mnemonics, the works. I definitely couldn't have passed without them.

Things you don't need 

1.) YOU DON'T NEED NEW GEAR. The minimalist in me cannot stress this enough. At the start of boards season, people were scrambling to buy new "study equipment." Things like pen holders, fountain pens, highlighters, tumblers, and (the most eye roll-inducing of all) a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

Save yourself the 35 pesos and finish the ones you have first!

But let's face it, you didn't really need that fifth highlighter. You didn't really need that new tumbler. You didn't really need like 5 copies of the same pen. Chances are, you've got a ton of these in storage somewhere waiting to be used.

I get why it's so fun. Shopping gives you a sense of control, the feeling that this new gear you're buying will boost your studying powers by a factor of 10. And it just gives you a rush. But more than distracting you from your goal, I strongly feel that shopping contributes to unnecessary waste and only brings clutter into your home. (Side note: Marie Kondo's book really has changed my philosophy on consumerism, and I highly recommend it!)

So save yourself the time and energy and promise yourself that you're sticking to only what you have, and you'll only go shopping once it's used up. That will also challenge you to keep writing and highlighting so that you'll use up your supplies faster and can reward yourself sooner with a trip to the bookstore.

2.) You don't need samplexes to pass. Some people would ask for sample exams (samplexes, for short) from other schools thinking that some of their questions would come out in the boards. It's an ethical grey area for me that I don't really want to get into. Needless to say, I stayed clear of such samplexes and I still passed.

3.) You don't need things to work according to plan all the time. I came into boards season wanting to have a rigid schedule I could build my day around, but being the Type 9 INFP that I am, I found I didn't like schedules and I preferred flexibility in my day. So to me it didn't matter what times I did certain things, but it was just important to me that I accomplished them in that day. Things won't always go according to schedule, but you can readjust.

Case in point: My schedule in July 2019 (yellow note) vs. in August (blue note). I used to schedule my day so that I knew what time I had to be done with something. I would never be able to meet my own schedule so I decided to give up making schedules and just have a general outline of my day.

There will most certainly come a time when you've got backlogs to finish, so many pending readings to catch up on, and you'll just feel frustrated with yourself for not going fast enough. Breathe, and tell yourself it's part of the process. Even the top-performing students will never be able to master everything in the textbook, or every detail in the handouts.

4.) You don't need to perfect the exam, just pass it! Tell this to yourself when there's a particular detail you're spending hours trying to nail. Accept and move on.

I was supposed to write in a third section about the actual boards itself and beyond, but I'm really too lazy to and I'll leave you to figure the rest out on your own. Lol. 

That's all I have to say for now! Take heart and believe in yourself, doctor. And when things get really bad and you start panicking, remember this:

91% of first-time takers in my batch passed the boards. The odds are definitely in your favor.

Good luck and see you at the finish line!