Preclinical Medical Students - The resources I relied on to survive first and second year medicine

The first year of medical school is hectic. There is often a lot more to learn than just the content as well if you want to survive the journey in one piece. You need to find new study methods, theres a lot of trial and error. You need to make new friends, which can be scary. You might need to move away from home and your support network and figure out a whole new area and new house. You have a lot on your plate and sometimes it can be overwhelming and hard to find resources that can at least make your studies a little more manageable.

I thought I would put together a list of all of the resources that I relied on to survive my first two years of medical school and hopefully they might help you as well!

None of this is paid for, I do not advertise anything I do not love and use every single day!

YouTube:

• Armando Hasudungan - (FREE) this guys is an absolute legend and his name is so much fin to say! He started his YouTube videos while he was still a medical student (how he had the time I don't know) he shares his free videos and helps us all better understand some challenging concepts with his beautiful drawings and mind maps. If you enjoy drawing copying out some of his videos is a good way to piece concepts together and end up adding some awesome mind maps to your notes! https://armandoh.org

• Osmosis - ($$$ for subscription) This platform used to have all of their videos on YouTube for free, which is how I got onto them, but now only a few of their videos are available for free or sample videos on YouTube. A subscription is pretty pricey but for me I don't think I could survive med without one. Watch out for their regular sales around public holidays if you're going to subscribe! My housemates and I all chipped in for a subscription that we share without issues. I believe the website has cracked down on people doing this now though and you can only have one person viewing videos at a time instead of us all watching videos at once, so you might need a bit of viewing schedule near exams or to watch them in a group if you're all going to try watching them at once. They summarise and have great illustrations for nearly every concept you need to get you through medicine. I could not remember a single disease or illness if it weren't for osmosis honestly, I owe them my MD at this point. https://www.osmosis.org give the free trial a go before you commit! Or check out a few of their YouTube videos they still have available for free https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNI0qOojpkhsUtaQ4_2NUhQ

• Ninja Nerd Science - (FREE) These videos are a bit long between 30 minutes to a hour. But you can always put them on double speed. They go into so much detail wiht their videos and have them on pretty much every medical school topic to help you really understand things before your exams. When I have no idea what my lecturer is on about I already start searching for a Ninja Nerd Science video to go watch on it once the lecture finishes! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6QYFutt9cluQ3uSM963_KQ

• AK Lectures: ($$ and FREE) https://www.youtube.com/user/mathdude2012 I caught onto this gold mind pretty late, these videos REALLY helped me get through reproductive anatomy! But I have heard great things about all of their videos! I have a feeling some of their content if free and some you need to pay for, I have only used their free youtube videos and they are phenomenal!

Websites:

• Geeky Medics - (FREE) Geeky Medics has everything from incredible study guides for learning your ECG's to absolutly PHENOMENAL OSCE practice videos. If you get through OSCE's without watching geeky medic videos are you even a medical student?? You're going to want this in your arsenal to get you through! https://geekymedics.com

• Up to date - (kinda free) https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search you can usually access this website for free when using your universities internet, otherwise it can cost money to subscribe to it. This gives you all the latest information on all known conditions and treatment plans for patients and the up to date research to back it up - handy in PBL!

• Therapeutic guidelines - (FREE) https://www.tg.org.au another awesome resource for PBL with all of the current treatment plans you could want good to back up what you're learning in class with the latest research and clinical evidence.

Books

• First Aid for the USMLE Step One - ($$) This book is designed for American medical student who need to take 'step one' etc in their medical school system. Although we don't follow this sort of structure here in Australia, I still bought this book on a whim after seeing it advertised all over my Instagram with all my American buddies raving about it. I don't think I would have passed any of my major exams during my first two years without this book! Although I spent all year making my own notes, they were long. Come exam time I just want something short sweet and easy to memorise to rely on and this book has EVERYTHING! Section II's High-Yield General Principles has a summary of all of the high-yield likely to be examinable content and breaks it down in easy to remember chunks with helpful nemonic and tips for remembering it as well! This isn't the best for learning the content the first time however, its absolutely phenomenal for your exam revision though - absolute life saver! You might be able to find a second hand version cheap on eBay or Gumtree of even an illegal download of a PDF copy if you hunt for an older copy, but here's a link for book depository should you want a shiny new edition (they are updated every year): https://www.bookdepository.com/First-Aid-for-USMLE-Step-1-2019-Twenty-ninth-edition-Tao-Le/9781260143676?ref=grid-view&qid=1577354589680&sr=1-2

• OSCE Cases - ($$) I was given this book kindly by a medical student from my school who was starting internship as I was starting first year and THANK GOSH. Honestly this book was like my OSCE's secret weapon! As far as I know I might have been the only student in my year I saw carrying this book around or else I didn't know we were supposed to be keeping it a secret. All of the cases super detailed and comes with its own OSCE stem. You can use to either review and add to your repertoire or use to practice with your study group. Each case also has a detailed marking sheets, although each school weight what they mark with differing importance, these marking sheets are great to use as a benchmark for the critical information you need to be gathering for your cases. My OSCE practice went down the toilet in second year and my personal life was just falling apart and I found myself temporarily homeless in the lead up to our first major OSCE's. My study plan flew out the window and I was so panicked I was going to fail - I honestly owe my pass to this book and my fiancé being my practice patient reading all of the cases out to me every night before bed. This book was the bulk of my study and I am so grateful to have it on hand! Here is a link to book dipository, but im sur ethere woul dbe cheaper second hand copies on eBay or Gumtree as well! https://www.bookdepository.com/OSCE-Cases-with-Mark-Schemes-Susan-C.-Shelmerdine/9781848290631?redirected=true&selectCurrency=AUD&w=AF45AU963PXSTMA80TJ0&pdg=pla-293946777986:cmp-6919946397:adg-82581721111:crv-389775188388:pos-:dev-c&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0ZHwBRCRARIsAK0Tr-pfWLZLfel1LCD9CnkSOBoHc2URcJWDrwZe8x-XQpE_rXJrcbaDtUcaAkMWEALw_wcB

Apps:

• Goodnotes - ($$) https://www.goodnotes.com this is the app I use to make all of my notes (as shown above). I use this app on my iPad and it is absolutely phenomenal. I never though I would be one to go paperless but being a bit of a perfectionist with my notes, doing them on the iPad has actually saved me SO much time. The cut/copy and paste options and ability to pick things up and move them around really seamlessly has saved me having to screw up a pretty page of notes into a ball and throw it in the bin and start all over (which I used to do a lot!) I also print all of my notes and have them bound at the end of the year to use when I am reviewing concepts prior to exams and its like having my own self made textbook at the end with all the pretty pictures youre able to add easily or draw yourself. I recommend watching a few youtube videos on how others use theirs for notes and get the most out of it! Janice studies has some great videos you could watch! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSkgkOOe5ZE

• OneNote - (FREE) https://www.onenote.com/download OneNote is a must have app for most university student! When I was in biomedical we still used a pen and paper and the only one in the room with a laptop was maybe the lecturer. It was strange finally coming into medical school and hearing the unanimous sound of typing on laptops during my lectures now. I had to get around the best way to take notes in this new era quickly! My friends all had been using OneNote during their undergrad and gave me a quick tutorial on how to set it up and I would have been SO LOST without it to organise all of my lecture slides in! and it links up effortlessly between your iPad and Laptop if you like to handwrite notes on your slides but maybe also religiously type out everything your lecturer is saying - you can do both at the same time! You need this app if you don't use it already!!

• Anki - (can get it for free or pretty cheap at certain times of year) https://apps.ankiweb.net a lot of medical students really love Anki! This app allows you to make all of your own flash cards to test yourself on everything you need to know for your exams. You can also use other students notes or join together and make them as a cohort. You can use your own lecture slide and over sections to test your memory. Your anatomy practice notes can be added in and made into flash cards. The possibilities are endless and we often learn more making the cards than using them later as well! This one is a med school favourite ofr those who love flash cards like Christina Yang.

• Digital planner - https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/EasyPrintablesShop I am a huge organisation freak and LOVE any and all planners and stationary to help plan and keep everything on track (even though sometimes I will go a month or two just holding it all in my head and not writing it down tbh) I am always far more organised for med school if at the start of the month I at least write down all the key upcoming dates for that month for due dates, social/educational events, work etc so I can see at an overview roughly where my study time is going to be and where it NEEDS to be focused. I used to love solid planners but I found carrying them around with me was often too difficult or heavy in my bag. I stumbled upon easy digital planners at the start of second year an di will never go back! I take my iPad with me everywhere I go anyway so its great its also my planner and has everything I need in it to plan out my study schedule and the million other things we have on our plates during medical school. I highly recommend looking through the thousands of amazing designed on easy for a instant download - prices and quality range similar to that of paper planners. My absolute favourite though is the one I have linked above. Karen is an absolutely beautiful person she goes above and beyond for her customers and is super helpful and she has a planner for everyone! (they are pretty girly though) Completely customisable easy to use, can not recommend more honestly!

Med school bible:

If you are lucky enough to come and join the Deakin Medical School family, during the first few weeks of your medical school journey your second year mentors will provide you with something that we pass on year to year and improve with each passing cohort that we lovingly call the Med Bible. It is full with so many generous notes provided from past students, some of which are doctors now, the bets of notes from the cohort above, past essays (although the topics change every year its still good to have a guide), finished lab notes (again they are updated year to year but good for a guide), and of course every possible medical textbook on PDF you could ever need to get you through medical school and all of your future rotations that has been collated over many years! I relied so heavily on the notes of students who came before me to guide me through my studies and learning in the past two years and I feel SO lucky to have been provided so much generosity and support.

If you're not lucky enough to come to Deakin, find out if your school provides something similar because I'm sure we aren't the only ones - if they definitely don't - be the absolute legend who starts it at your school!! Find older students to put something together to share for your year, start collating notes from your cohort to help pass down to the year below. BE THAT LEGEND!

Your number one resource in medical school: is going to be your friends, your cohort, and the students at your school in the years above you! Medical school is not a journey we should go through alone, we need to be there for each other and leave no body behind. Share notes, share resources, get a study group together and get through it stronger as a team!

GOOD LUCK!! xx