Hi Amy! Welcome to Friday Night Studying. That is exactly what I am supposed to be doing, uh, right now. Let us know if it ends up going as well for you as it is for me.
The Independent Study Program sounds really interesting. I don’t remember you saying very much about it in earlier posts (a lot has vanished from my mind since starting our basic science class–including an unfortunate amount of basic science…) but I am pretty curious to hear more about what it involves. I wish we had something like that! We are watched over constantly here and it is starting to feel like babysitting. As far as your program, what would be the alternative for you if you weren’t doing the Independent Study Program?
I think I will get out my timer and implement your method of staying on track. It’s so easy to get distracted and that idea sounds good.
I love hearing what you’re up to so keep posting! I’m just afraid I’ll always want to respond with an anecdote from my own experience. Oh well, I hope you don’t mind–it just means you sparked my interest. It’s nice to hear your perspective.
Let us know how biochemistry goes! And congratulations on anatomy!!
Pushkin -
I’ll be glad to expound upon the Independent Study Program. Feel free to hijack the thread whenever the mood suits you. Dicussion is so much more interesting than my solo ramblings.
The Independent Study Program at Ohio State has been around since 1970. It is one of the unique selling points of OSU and many students choose to attend here for this option. This year, 63 out of 213 in our class chose ISP. The numbers vary every year, depending on the class, ranging from as few as 20-some students to 70+.
From OSU’s ISP info page:
OVERVIEW OF THE ISP
"The Independent Study Pathway (ISP) at OSU is an alternative medical education curriculum which stimulates students to become self-directed learners in a minimally-structured environment. It covers the first two years of coursework in a traditional medical school curriculum, but is time-independent and organized predominantly by organ systems.
The program is divided into a “Normal Human” section (MED I) and a “Pathophysiology” section (MED II). These two major program segments are further divided into individual study units, or modules. Within each module, students are presented with specific learning objectives and directed to various learning resources, principally textbooks. Specific modules deal with fundamentals of biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, and pharmacology. However, most modules integrate the basic science disciplines together in an organ systems approach to the curriculum. Gross anatomy and physical examination are taught separately from the modules at scheduled times, while the medical humanities and behavioral sciences are presented as a course outside the ISP which includes the ISP and Integrated Pathway (IP) students.
The students are given time guidelines for the completion of modules and examinations of the program. They are allowed to proceed through the curriculum at self-established paces within certain limits ( Max Times ). Faculty members are available to students as resources and conduct individual tutorials, voluntarily attended discussions, and clinical correlation conferences. Module examinations, each covering one to four modules, are administered individually when students consider themselves adequately prepared to take them. At the end of the first year ISP students also take National Board comprehensive exams. After completing the second year, students are required to pass Step 1 of the United State Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) before progressing to the clinics (MED III/IV)."
Year one of ISP has 15 modules and 8 exams. Year two has 14 modules and 8 exams. Some exams are only over one module, while others are over two or three modules.
To answer your question about what I would be doing if I wasn’t ISP, I would be in the “Integrated Pathway”. In the Integrated Pathway, rather than teaching the basic sciences as separate subjects, they discuss the normal physiology, histology, pharmacology, histology, biochemistry, and infections diseases related to that particular block (first year is The Cell, Host Defense and Neural Science, second year finished Neural Science, and continues with Pulmonary, Renal, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology and Nutrition, Reproduction, Musculoskeletal/skin). IP has lecture every day until 11:30 or noon. All students (IP and ISP) have Patient Centered Medicine and Physician Development, and the IP students have small group sessions over topics related to the module. Their current small group session is sickle cell anemia.
The Integrated Pathway is relatively new. A few years ago, OSU had three curriculum choices - Independent Study, Lecture and Discussion, and Problem Based Learning. Apparently, there were some problems with the way PBL was set up, leading to the Integrated Pathway which is supposed to combine elements of the old Lecture/Discussion and PBL pathways.
They tell us that there has been no significant statistical difference in board scores among the different pathways over the years. In any particular year, one pathway’s students may do quite a bit better than the other pathway, but it varies from year to year. A few years ago, the LD pathway USMLE mean was a bit higher than ISP for several years. The past couple of years, the mean for ISP has been a little bit higher.
As we were going through anatomy, there were ample opportunities for us to hear pros and cons about both pathways. The general consensus is that both are good programs, you can succeed or excel in either one, it just depends which one fits your style better.
The whole babysitting thing would get old, I think. We are fairly free here. Attendance is taken at small group sessions, but not at lectures. They do keep tabs on us academically, though. If you score below a 70% on any given test, you have to meet with a faculty member. It is generally meant to be a helpful session - to see if there are things (financial, family, housing issues, ect) if are affecting your performance and to get you help, if needed.
Okay - this post went on WAY longer than I attended. I hope people can make it through without falling asleep.
Amy
One thing I forgot in the previous, excessively long post . . . A huge advantage of ISP is that if you are so motivated you can finish your modules early. This can allow for research time, extra time to study for Step 1, among other things. We are allowed to take the first two modules of year two over the summer after M1 if we want, without paying extra tuition. Most of our anatomy TA’s (you have to do ISP in order to TA anatomy) did this so that they would not get behind during anatomy.
I realized I hadn’t posted in awhile.
I just completed my 3rd independent study module. So far, I have done Biochemistry, Histology, and Neuroanatomy. I am running a little behind schedule. The recommended date to take the Histology and Neuroanatomy test was 1/13.
Next up is Neurophysiology. We have a 1200 page textbook and I hear that we actually read most of it. Everybody says that it is one of their favorite texts, so hopefully it won’t be too bad. Neurophys is another pretty long module. After this, the modules won’t be so long.
We still have Patient Centered Medicine weekly. The current module is “Violence”. We’re also about 1/2 way through our six weekly sessions of “Doctor-Patient Relationship”. Our session leader is a pediatrician. DPR is where we are learning how to take a basic history. We practice taking mock histories on each other and with standardized patients in the clinical skills lab. Following the 6 DPR sessions, we will be paired with a community physician to do a preceptorship. I am looking forward to this.
I am working on my application to do Geriatrics research this summer. It pays a pretty generous stipand, and I would be able to work with a researcher here at OSU. I met with the faculty liason the other day about the opportunity. My interest is in Emergency Medicine and I was really excited to hear that they would try and place me with a faculty member in EM who does clinical geriatric research. Hopefully, it all works out. It sounds like a great opportunity.
Wow 
- this is an incredibly boring post. But - such is the life of the Med 1. 
Study, class, study, eat, study . . . I hope that life gets a little more interesting with the start of preceptorships!
So life continues, busily, at Ohio State. I am officially done with 2/3 of Med 1 tests. So far I have completed Anatomy, Biochemistry, Histology, Neuroanatomy, Neurophysiology, Cardiac Physiology and Respiratory Physiology. Next up is Renal and Gastrointestinal physiology. If I haven’t explained before, in the Independent Study Program we do normal physiology first year and then next year we do Pathophysiology. At the end of this year, we have to take the shelf exams for Biochemistry, Histology and Physiology. This is unique to the ISP program. Students in the Integrated Pathway do not have to take the shelf exams.
I am 3/4 of the way done with my Med 1 preceptorship. I am working with a rural cardiologist who has a very small practice. We are supposed to be practicing history taking. He has been great to work with (and his office staff as well!) and I have learned a lot from him in the short amount of time I spend with him.
So, back to the title of this post. I am so FRUSTRATED!! Although I have passed all my tests and not had to remediate anything so far, I find myself scoring 10-15% below average on nearly everything. I was slightly above average on the Biochemistry exam, and just a little bit below on Cardio, but everything else . . . I admit that I’m at a loss. For a couple of the modules, I just didn’t put enough time in. For the last set, though, I really did put in a lot of time and felt pretty good about the material before the test. It seems like the test items are about minute details rather than understanding of concepts, however.
I’m really kind of down about my performance. I did very well in post-bacc land, and while I understand that the “competition” is at a whole different level, its still very frustrating to not even be ‘average’. Not helping matters is the fact that I want to go into a specialty that is becoming more and more competitive and I read posts on various bulletin boards about how “If you want to go into a competitive specialty, you need to be in the top of your class.”
Anyways, if any of you current or past medical students have any study strategy ideas that worked for you, I’d love to hear them. Obviously, my strategy isn’t working and I need to try something else.
Hang in there AMY I’m at the Head and Neck block right now exam next Friday 
So yea I’m tired and burnt, but we only have Histo, Anatomy, Embryo and ethics MD1 so yours seem more exhasting.
Yea It’s Friday and I’m avioding it since I just had a Histo test today.
Hang in there soon we will look back and say yea more studying ahead LOL.