A physician aces his USMLE and ABIM board exams. Here are his tips for success.

Education
February 21, 2016

In this article, I’ll discuss a medicine-specific strategy that many of my physician colleagues and I have used over the years to learn dense, complicated information quickly and effectively, and to do well on board exams.

These are the two most important tenets of studying for a medical board examination:

1. Find the highest-yield information and memorize it cold.  With active methods such as mnemonics, teaching others, lecturing “to the wall,” writing notes …

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A physician aces his USMLE and ABIM board exams. Here are his tips for success.

What is a serious diagnosis?

Physician
February 5, 2015

The serious diagnosis is a polite middle-aged woman with a hopeful smile sitting on the side of the bed, with her husband in the chair across from her, as you carefully tell them what it means to have ovarian cancer.

The serious diagnosis is the teenager who just found out he has lupus nephritis — without any other signs or symptoms of lupus — and that he might be on hemodialysis …

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What is a serious diagnosis?

The spookiness about sudden death

Physician
January 28, 2015

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living … And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song and it awakens [you] and saves [you] from death.
– Anais Nin

On June 12, 2013, my driver and I were on our way to Sierpe, Costa Rica from Manuel Antonio when the road entered a palm tree plantation.  About 50 meters in …

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The spookiness about sudden death

We should all be anonymous Samaritans

Physician
July 29, 2014

I almost died today. I was driving from one clinic to another, on a busy highway in the rain, when my car hit a standing body of water and hydroplaned. I lost control of the car, spun counterclockwise across three or more lanes, and slammed into the dividing median. I remember screaming “NO!” internally right before impact. I couldn’t believe what was happening as it happened.Read more…

We should all be anonymous Samaritans