#ple2016

From the moment I got a green rating, my perspective on the board review itself shifted. I felt more hungry to know what else I can do to be consistent and leave no page unturned. I had 3 subject backlogs and a week before the board exam itself, I was able to cover my main handouts for the 5th time, supplementary handouts and subject pearls for the 3rd time. For each subject I was able to cover 400 items from the sample exams of our board review center.

I was only able to accomplish and finish all backlogs by being consistent with my study schedule until the very end. 16 hours of pure dedication to board review 6 times a week.

The environment of the last 2 months of my board review changed. I moved to the province. I was pretty much free of any distraction- noise, traffic, internet access. If I need internet access, I had to ridiculously walk across the compound of my grandparents just to get a signal coming.

The last 2 months were also filled with moments of prayer and 2 pilgrimage church visits. I never felt more peaceful compared to the other years of medschool during my board review. I’ve never prayed or reflected so much about my life.

The Final 30 Days

I always get Question of the Day messages on my phone, but I unsubscribed to it on the final month of the review itself. The pressure became palpable. When the final 30 days were announced, I just couldn’t believe it. I still felt far from my goal and the more questions I got wrong during my sample exams, the more it struck my ego and the moments of random self-blame became more frequent.

I started venting out to my closest friends again. I felt I wasn’t ready to sit on my exam chair. I even got Stress Urticaria the night before I submitted my PRC Application. During that time I felt I wouldn’t be able to score that average 75% on all 12 board exam subjects because my sample exams tell me that I only yield 50-60% of the answers right most of the time. I would always tell my friends: “Maybe I need a month more?”

My family and friends kept me sane during that terrible time. Their encouragement and random positive messages on Viber and Facebook helped me get through. During that month I had to set my own pace and schedule for studying and for me it was effective in finally removing all my backlogs. I took 2 more diagnostic exams, got a green rating and that was it for my review.

So to give some tips on the final 2 months of board review:

Study more than you can ever study

Pray like you have never prayed before

Get some help in waking up

Take lots of sample exams

Talk to family and friends who support you all the way

Do not miss the board review classes. This is the season where they lecture the subject pearls and the very useful mnemonics. (High Yield)

It is okay to disconnect and be out of the radar with batchmates (they’re most likely busy as you also)

Stop browsing Facebook. It makes you compare how you study with others.

Each has their own study style. I had friends and batchmates filling their study areas and bathrooms with post-its and markers. I’m just not like that. It’s not also an indication that they know more things compared to you. ;)

Issues, issues, issues. Unnecessary issues and gossip that will not add any point to your score of the board exam.

Create a schedule according to how you plan to execute the board exam.

First thing I did as a lesson from our MBA classes was to just lay out everything like a SWOT Analysis form my personality to my study habits. What were my Strengths? Weaknesses? Opportunities? Threats? I had to know what can make or break me, what could simply ruin my day or make my day wonderful? What could push me to be better than I was? The list went on.

I learned that I do have good study habits along the way and I was willing to shave off time for other things to revolve on what’s most important. I also learned that I study clean compared to other people. I don’t have Post-its sticking to every corner of my study area. I can live with a yellow highlighter and red pen, and that I learn fast by demonstration and videos. I can adapt.

To recap how I spent the 2 months of my board review, it was filled with lectures, self-study time that started at 8am in the morning and ended until 12mn (see schedule below). By midnight I set my phone to airplane mode to avoid late night calls and messages. I also uninstalled Viber, Telegram and turned off my Facebook Messenger.

I kept my Sundays free and sacred. After diagnostic exams, I went to the mall and rewarded myself with food haha. I also spent an hour at the gym on self-study days (about 3-4 times a week)

7am Morning call, Breakfast, Bath

8am-12nn Study

12nn-1pm Lunch/Rest

1pm -6pm Study

6pm-8pm Dinner/Rest/Bath

8pm-12mn Study

What I did for sure was a lot of studying so the key was discipline. Even when I take a bath I run the audio of my flashcards. But honestly there were days and nights when I felt like burning out, losing momentum, and nothing just gets into my brain anymore. During such days I try to answer sample exams. But if it doesn’t work then again, I go to the mall, park etc. Half a day was already enough for me to be refreshed.

So my tip for the earlier phases of the board review are the following:

Stick with the schedule

Keep a day for rest

Don’t push yourself too hard and take a break if needed but maximum would be half a day off

Have lots of highlighters, post-its and ballpens (I consumed about a tub of yellow highlighters, 8/9 red ballpens during my review)

Get a whiteboard, take a picture of your whiteboard notes, save them to your phone

Be positive. Stay with positive people. Talk to positive people.

Stay away from negative people. Stay away from people who can bring you down or make you sad.

Less time on Facebook as it triggers necessary emotions of hate, anger, disgust etc. (Not good)

Be good to other people. Be grateful even for the hardships. Let good Karma flow. Makes you sleep a night too.

So what happened? Before counting the days, let’s start at ground zero.

So who am I to start with? What kind of student am I? In a nutshell, I’m a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University in a non-premed course. I took extra college units, got an NMAT percentile of 95 and finally went into Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, the only school I applied to.

I would only consider myself as a regular student among my peers. I’m not in the Top 10. I would get good grades in some, and then not in some. On the other hand, some do confirm I have the gift of memory to their amusement. They would arrange more than half a dozen of random pencils, words, charts, pictures and I can arrange them back to their exact place. Neat right? Not really.

As an MBA student however, I was a really good one. I would always get a 4.0 (perfect score) in my written cases analysis reports and would get a 3.5 during periodic exams in Accounting and Finance. (Like all of that MBA aspect matters in the medical boards haha...just saying.)

For a benchmark of what I was before review started, I was rated with an Orange Card- something that was midway between Excellent and Mediocre. If I was to take the medical boards the next day, I would definitely fail it.

And from that moment after receiving the diagnostic exam results I knew that I will be a different person once I got out of it.