Step 2 Chat Schedule

[Anonymous]

I see 3 problems with the proposed meeting time of tomorrow.

• 1. Not enough time to prepare.
  You need to set the schedule about 1 week in advance so that people can spread the word around and study and prepare questions and answers. Also, it will give time for the Moderator to post an announcement and put it up on the calendar. This also gives all of us enough time to let our friends on other sites know about the new chat. We can't leave this up to one person because than that person would be "spamming". But if we all mention a little about it, it won't be spam
  
  Again from experience with previous chats, the more people the better because a larger group means the chats will still go on even if a couple of people miss a chat here and there. When you're talking about a 2.5 month schedule, it's inevitable that we will all miss some chats, so it's important to have a big enough group that we won't be too missed.
  
  2. Our chats are supposed to take place every Monday and Thursday. If we change it to a different day, it will confuse everyone.
  
  3. CMDT is not a good source to discuss high yield topics. CMDT is a good reference book, not for good for review of high yield material. Something like crush step 2, first aid for step 2, kaplan, etc, would be a better source since most people already use those sources....but not everyone will be using CMDT (maybe as a reference).

If I can humbly offer some suggestions, I think we should use a well known review book....either crush or 1st aid step 2. I have both and will use both to study (as well as highlights), so it doesn't matter to me. The index from 1st aid can be our schedule. There are 20 topics listed in the index, so if we meet 2 times per week, that will be a 10 week schedule. Some subjects are shorter than others, for which we can use the extra time to review previous material again....or we can end the chat early. Here is the list and suggested schedule (all beginning at 8 pm Eastern time and lasting no longer than 3 hrs):

• 1. Cardiovascular - Monday Oct 4
  2. Dermatology - thurs oct 7
  3. Endocrine - mon oct 11
  4. Epidemiology - thurs oct 14
  5. Ethics - mon oct 18
  6. Gastrointestinal - thurs oct 21
  7. Hematology - mon oct 25
  8. Oncology - thurs oct 28
  9. Infectious Disease - mon nov 1
  10. Musculoskeletal - thurs nov 4
  11. Neurology - mon nov 8
  12. Obstetrics - thurs nov 11
  13. Gynecology - mon nov 15
  14. Pediatrics - thurs nov 18
  15. Preventative Medicine - mon nov 22
  (Off for Thanksgiving Weekend)
  16. Physchiatry - mon nov 29
  17. Pulmonary Medicine - thurs dec 2
  18. Renal - mon dec 6
  19. Toxicology - thurs dec 9
  20. Trauma - mon dec 13

After this, we can probably have a couple of chats to tie it all together, take a break for Christmas/New Years, then start the schedule again like they do with step 1. This way, new people will always join and we will have people from all levels of experience helping each other in a continuous schedule (different people taking tests at different times of year).

I asked valuemd to open up a step 2 study group so we can see how many are interested and can all communicate using PM if we want to share info or whatever privately. But I prefer to use the forum if we can so everyone can join in. If you want to join the group, you can do that here
http://www.valuemd.com/groupcp.php?g=16443

If this sounds ok to everyone, please reply to let us know. If you want to suggest something different, I'm open to suggestions.

I don't have experience doing this with step 2 yet, but a similar system worked for many of us with step 1. Hopefully we can gain a similar experience with step 2 and we can all help each other get through this together

Looking forward to chatting with you all
Step 2 (formerly known as step 1 8) )

[kidoo]

Hi!!

So atlast somebody came up with good suggestions.And if this is really step1,I can't believe it

I was checking this forum everyday ..to see whether somebody comes and genuinly take a lead for this study gp.I m really happy to see u here again.Welcome!!

It was me who proposed that meeting...b'cos topic and timings both were suggested by the people interested for that gp.I just wanted that ..somehow people gather and reach to one conclusion abt it.Thanx for coming ahead.

About the new schedule ..I just have one suggestion that ...the topics listed in FA are according to alphabetical order,if we sort them according to subjecs like medicine ,surgery,obs/gynae,pediatrics,psychiatry and epidemiology....it will be better ..as we will be able to discuss the questions also once we finish one subject.It's difficult to find questions for each particular topic.

Everything else is fine with me.Count me in.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Kidoo abt the topics plan.
Rest is fine as suggested by step2

Way to go guys.

lets plan a date soon.

let me know

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Very good points.....I didn't even realize they were listed alphabetically

I guess we can try the schedule from one of the kaplan courses. It goes like this:

Internal Medicine
Neurology
Derm
Geriatrics
Psych
Surgery
Emergency Med
Ob/Gyn
Peds

From there, we can break it down further like this:

• 1. Internal Med (3 weeks)[list:ef19fcfc61]- Acid base disorders, renal disorders, heme
  - GI (upper & lower gi dzs and bleeds, liver, biliary tract and pancreas)
  - cardiology (HTN, Coronary heart dz, cardiomyopathy, pericardial dz, arythmias)
  - resp, infectious disease
  - musculoskeletal, endocrine, oncology
  - medical ethics, preventative med, public health

2. Neuro (half week)
3. Derm (half week)
4. Geriatrics (half week)

5. Psych (1 week)

• - Psych disorders, cognitive, substance abuse and dependence, psychotic/mood disorders
  - anxiety/somatoform/factitious/dissociative/sexual and gender identity/eating/sleep/ impulse control/adjustment disorders, personality disorders/other conditions/treatment of mental disorders

6. Surgery and Emergency Med (1.5 weeks)

• - Burns, trauma, fractures and dislocations, surgical infections, gen surg, breat cancer, neurosurg
  - fluid and elect, nutrition, hemostasis, shock, wound healing
  - surgical subspecialties (cardac, orthopeds, ENT) and Emergency med

7. OB (1 week)

• - physiology of preg, genetics, antepartum care, intrapartum management/operative ob/ analgesia and anesthesia
  - non-stress and stress testing, bophysical profile, postdates, episiotomy, lacerations, mult gest, postpartum, complications, gestational trophoblastic disease, ethics

8. Gyn (1 week)

• - Pelvic anatomy, embryo, annual exam, benign gyn lesions, ultrasound, procedures, pms, pelvic pain, ectopic pain, gyn infect dzs, contraception, aboution
  - Endometriosis, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, menopause, infertility, assisted reproductive tech, recurrent preg loss, reprod endocrine

9. Peds (1 week)

• - newborn, resuscitation, nutrition and growth, development/behavior, immunixations, infect diseases, poisoning accidents/emergencies
  - eye, oral, ENT, resp, cardio, GI, renal, ortho, allergy/immuno, rheumo, heme/onc, neuro, abuse, adolescent

[/list:u:ef19fcfc61]

Since we won't actually be using the kaplan material as our main source, some of the above might not apply to us, but we can use it as a guide. If my calculations are correct, this will be about 10 weeks long which is about the same as the original proposal. So if we like this, or want to make some further adjustments, we can likely use the same dates as desribed in original proposal....so only the topics will be different.

I haven't really started studying hard core, so I don't know which topics are important or not so important. If someone has more experience that would like to make some suggestions, we can try to further tweak the schedule until we all agree on something. Once we have that, we'll put it up for a vote.

What do you all think?

[GucciMD]

Why not a 6 weeks schedule and using Crush the boards as a guide?

You might need a week for ob/gyn but not 2 weeks.

[kidoo]

Hi !!

In 6 wks...it will be difficult to cover everything thoroughly,also relying only on CTB is not a good idea ..that is only a review book and can be useful in last time study only.


Revised 10 wk schedule as proposed by step2 seems good to me,
also division of wks for subjects is fine.I hope it will work.

[Malik-MD]

[/b] good to read from u guys. i agree about the 10 weeks and the schedual. i think we shouldn't be limited to certain books bcs medicine is almost the same with any referance but it's ok to have the suggested books as a reference. i sent a pm to the moderator of this forum asking for any help more than a week ago, and there wasn't any reply. am glad there r positive openions here and i strongly encourage u.
i have a question about the timing, what's western time ?? could u announce the timing in GMT too? r we all agreed to have the next chat on 4th of OCt about acid-base, nephro and hematology?? plz confirm if that's right...

[Anonymous]

Good to see a good discussion about the schedule. For those prepping for the chat early, I think we should assume that we will start with IM - Acid base disorders, renal disorders, heme. If we change up the schedule, it won't hurt the to start with IM regardless, so let's all at least agree on starting with that on Mon Oct 4 at 8 eastern daylight time and take it from there. But let's keep it going until we come up with something everyone agrees with

Here is the link that will tell you what time 8pm eastern daylight time on Oct 4 2004 is anywhere in the world (since we have people from all over). Keep in mind that daylight savings will change in a few weeks and become daylight standard time (1 hour difference), but only some parts of the world observe daylight savings.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc...0&sec=0&p1=179

Eastern time is the east coast of the U.S. (New York). This forum runs on that time by default, so if you ever want to check, just log off. New York is GMT - 4 hrs now during daylight savings and GMT -5 hrs during standard time (end of october).

hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

hello everybody, i came at the time of the discussion and there was nobody there...!! we r supposed to be serious about this right?? hope to meet u next thursday on schedual. if anybody have any comment or suggestions plz dn't hisitate to post.....

[GucciMD]

What is tonight's topic? Cardiovascular?