The Best USMLE Test-prep Strategy
with the MedEdge Method
By: Chase DiMarco
(Today’s guest post is by Chase DiMarco, a medical student and friend of the LifeofaMedStudent blog. He is involved in many aspects of medical education, podcasts, and recently published a book I’m happy to recommend – “Read this Before Medical School“. We have no financial relationship.)
Do you want to get a leg up on your classmates? One of the most common questions flooding classrooms and online forums revolve around how to improve student success through better study techniques. Unfortunately, most of the answers to these questions are little more than personal anecdotes from students and teachers. We all learn differently. What worked for the student that received a 270 on their USMLE Step 1 may not benefit you at all. So where is a student to turn to receive credible advice?
Evidence-based Study Skills
Few study tactics have been researched as thoroughly as retrieval practice (AKA recall testing) and much of the research has been replicated with various populations. Despite every student hearing the terminology, very few know how to properly implement this strategy into their study plan. The easiest and most powerful way for most students to implement this quickly is utilizing retrieval practice along with a proper spaced repetition schedule, often through an app such as Anki Flashcards. For more on the science behind retrieval practice and other evidence-based learning practices, I recommend this The Six Strategies of Effective Learning with Learning Scientist, Dr. Megan Sumeracki podcast episode.
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Students often fumble with the scheduling aspect of this software or are unsure of how far they should space their repetitions. I like an easy to remember rule, such as the 11311 Rule. This rule basically states that you should retrieve all information within 1 Hour of learning it, within 1 Day, again at 3 Days, at 1 Week, and 1 Month (11311). This helps to space out your recall practice and fight the Forgetting Curve! A depiction of this method can be found via Common Retrieval Practice Mistakes and Solutions for your Medical Studies.
Besides retrieval practice and the Six Strategies discussed in the material above, deliberate practice is a way to boost your knowledge of a topic to the point of mastery. Author of Peak and researcher of deliberate practice, Anders Ericcson, discusses this method in more detail in Deliberate Practice for Medical Students with Dr Anders Ericsson- Part 1 and Part 2. In summary, you need to 1) have specific goals set, 2) have intense focus on the material while studying (avoid distractions!), 3) receive immediate feedback (self-assess or have a mentor assess your work), and 4) push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
With these study tactics implemented properly, students give themselves the best chance of increasing their retention and improving their scores. However, some students also benefit from more creative methods of learning. This is where some accelerated techniques can be useful.
Accelerated Learning
Most students are aware of the ever-increasing array of visual mnemonic products on the market. Headlined by Picmonic and Sketchy Medicine initially, now Osmosis and Physeo have products utilizing visual mnemonics and memory palaces. However, after personally conducting dozens of interviews with memory champions and mnemonics instructors they seem to all agree that using your own, personally curated images will form a much stronger memory bond than pre-made content from others.
If you have never attempted to create your own mnemonic devices, you might want to start with something simple. An easy one to begin with is a Peg System. This simple number-object association can increase your memory of strings of numbers and practice boosting your creativity for more complex methods. Next, you can put visual images and associations you have created into a Journey Method so that orders and sequences can be remembered with a chronological story.
However, if you need to create more complex mnemonic associations, there are few techniques as powerful as the Memory Palace. Start with some of the basics as depicted by Alex Mullen who is a memory champion and now physician! You may also like these instructions from Memory Palace Guru, Anthony Metivier. Your “palaces” can be big or small, inside or outside, and even digital environments! The key is that you can visualize the topography clearly in your mind and then add your visual markers inside of it.
Now that you have many more tools to increase you retention of materials, let’s return to the initial question about a comprehensive study technique. Using the above tools is the starting place. But having a simple and powerful process in place for exam day is also a must. This is where the MedEdge Method comes in.
The MedEdge Method
Often, online resources and even popular books on the subject of studying for medical school fail to create an easy to follow procedure. Those that do attempt such a feat may make things overly complicated. The MedEdge Method is both very powerful in assisting students to self-identify study weaknesses AND follows a simple process that students can remember.
There are three basic parts to the MedEdge Method: the Basic Exam Technique, the Tie-Breaker Technique, and the Post-exam Autopsy. With these three simple techniques, students are given a powerful process to follow no matter their current education level. A brief rundown can be found on Part 2 of our mini-series for Read This Before Medical School.
The foundation of the Basic Exam Technique is to know how to properly dissect a board-exam vignette and how to point out the key features. Though this sounds straight forward, many students struggle with this strategy and it greatly hinders their ability to decipher a question stem properly. Students are also given 3 Error categories (Negligence Errors, Test Procedure Errors, Concept/Study Errors) to help them pinpoint the reason they may be missing certain types of questions and how to overcome these obstacles. These are topics not often covered in medical schools. The Basic Exam Technique consists of 6 foundational steps with the 7th step guiding the student to the Tie-breaker Technique when the scenario arises.
The Tie-breaker TEchnique is skipped over unless the student comes down to two likely answer choices and cannot choose between them. This is quite common and can really increase your stress hormones during test day. Having a plan in place to quickly solve these occurrences and practicing before the real exam will keep you more fresh and confident on test day. This 4-step process is easy to remember and should get you as close to the right answer as possible without wasting too much precious exam time.
Lastly, the Post-exam Autopsy allows for self-assessment and introspection to guide improvement. It takes your Error Analysis and offers potential manners in which to changes your study sessions and increase productivity. This is a self-review of the days’ work, study sessions, and simulated exams. It is first a self-monitoring process in which to record the word accomplished and also a self-assessment step to discover ways to improve on future sessions.
Want to Know More?
The Post-exam Autopsy chart, as well as many other useful charts and tables, are available for free via this link. We have summarized some of the highlights to get your study sessions off the ground in our “Essentials of” ebook for you to download.
If you find this free PDF summary or the podcast mini-series useful, consider adding our full book, Read This Before Medical School, to your cart or wishlist! We have over 200 pages of material, dozens of recommendations for students in any stage of their education, and hundreds of citations to provide outside sources for students to further investigate the topics discussed. You can also find our other free resources at FreeMedEd.org and reach out to us on your social media platform of choice with questions or concerns.
Chase DiMarco is the founder of FreeMedEd.org and host to several medical education podcasts
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