The Journey Starts...now

It is approaching that time of year where the second year medical students are preparing to cram for the United States Medical Licensing Exam Step 1. A test some consider to be the most important exam of medical school and subsequently determines the rest of your life. That is a little dramatic but I think it should be your goal to do the best you can. Here are some of the tools I used to study for Step 1:

First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 2017

This is the holy bible of USMLE Step 1 studying. I highly recommend this book and I think almost every medical student who has taken the test would say the same. I would read through this book 2-3 times to really have it sink in.

Pathoma

A lecture series made by a certifiable genius: Dr. Husain Sattar, a pathologist from the University of Chicago. This series was amazing and incredibly detailed. A lot of high yield material is covered in his lectures. 

https://www.pathoma.com 

USMLE World

The question bank of all question banks. Though it may be school dependent, almost everyone from my medical school chose to go with this question bank. A couple thousand questions covering the majority of USMLE Step 1 topics. The questions are challenging but you will see your scores improve as you continue to study throughout your first and second year. I’ve even used this product for Step 2 and I am currently (literally open on my computer) using it for Step 3. My number one goal would be to complete every question offered in this question bank, it is a lot but well worth it.

https://www.uworld.com

The rest are to cover my weakest subjects from USMLE Step 1: Biochemistry, Microbiology and Pharmacology. I recommend the following tools to turn your greatest weakness into your greatest strength:

Microbiology

Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple

Lange Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Flash Cards

Pharmacology

Clinical Pharmacology Made Ridiculously Simple

Lange Pharmacology Flash Cards

Biochemistry

Clinical Physiology Made Ridiculously Simple

Hi there anon!

To start for those who are unfamiliar with the term, ORM=Over-Represented minorities or in medicine. Why be cowards, academia? Just say it: East Asian (Chinese, Korean, etc.), Indian.

I have seen what you are talking about during my brief stint in med school as a med student on the admission review committee. Race does play a part, but to what (quantifiable) extent? Subversively or overtly? I would say that medicine is consciously trying to create classes that reflect the diversity of our patient population. We are by no means at goal or perfect. But there is effort. AAMC has some data on this here:

https://www.aamc.org/initiatives/diversity/179816/facts_and_figures.html

Let me level with you: “whitening” one’s application does not address the actual diseases in academia and society on the whole: institutionalized racism, perpetuation of the model minority myth, and white supremacy. They continue the damage and suffering of all minority populations, they help to continue oppression and erasure of minority identities.

Does “whitening” one’s application get you more interviews? I have not seen this to be the case. Is it going to get you into med school? No. Is it going to help get you into med school? No. The current make-up of most medical schools in the US right now IS of “ORMs”. Is this good or bad, right or wrong? It’s not great, because our physician population should reflect the diversity of our world. It is, again, a symptom of a systemic disease. Again, medicine as a profession and culture is imperfect and evolving, striving to change and improve. There’s lots of room to grow.

To summarize: Race plays a part of everything in this world because colonizers (shout out to Shuri from Blank Panther) created unequal power structures that awarded power, wealth, and opportunity based on race that still exist today. Medicine is not excluded and medicine is imperfect, but it is trying to address this by consciously choosing students and opportunities to address racial inequality. “Whitening” one’s application for med school is not going to increase your chance of getting into med school because currently, most students ARE from these “ORMs”. “Whitening” an application also perpetuates, harms, and supports harmful institutionalized racist practices that keep all minorities from maximizing our achievements.