first aid first aid first aid when I was starting my USMLE step one preparation if there was one book that I could give a dollar away for hearing its name all the time and would have lost a million dollars it would have been first aid recommended to me by all my seniors but in return did I know when I Was preparing that it was not a book that was for Basics but rather a book for reviewing the chapters so like a fool I started reading the page is a first aid and after 10 20 pages I couldn't even remember what was on the next page here started my conundrum that I wanted to hear as the US Emily's guarantor my top residencies but I kept on forgetting this book which was my golden ticket to crushing everything I figured out a strategy that helped me Propel to the tippity top of the percentile pyramid the 90th percentile I sold it 260 on the years only step one and 271 on the USMC bragging rights are mine yeah this strategy which I call the unifying protocol is the strategy that saved me from committing blunders and is a strategy that I created from scratch by looking at the experiences of every other USMLE topper and putting it together that any Average Joe could use it and Crush these exams destroy them if they wanted to so welcome to the unifying protocol with unifying protocol will help you achieve three outcomes the first outcome is understanding first aid rather than memorizing it and then later vomiting out the information which we don't want we want you to remember whatever you learn in the first paper yes only step one for step two CK and step three because these exams will also test your your step one knowledge when you're giving these exams and step two CK is about 60 step one every question you've seen Step 2 CK is just that step one level plus another level of difficulty the second outcome that you will be achieving using the unifying protocol is that you will be creating the ultimate unified resource and this you will be doing through the strategy mentioned afterwards which we'll go through the third outcome that you will be receiving is the ability to use first-hand knowledge to deploy Pro level test taking skills which you can use to come to the answer without knowing it and I call this elimination elimination is the power that you gain after you've learned a resource that well like first aid when you see a question you don't know the answer you don't panic because you have a way to look at the question look at what the clue is the question writer has given you and then eliminate certain options and come to the right answer and that can only come if you have unified whatever you've learned organize it well and then you can implement it the first part being the resources required to implement the unifying protocol the second part being the phases of the protocol that you implement these strategies in the third part is going to be about how to maximize retention the perfect strategy for that and the fourth part is going to be about mistakes that you should avoid let's talk about the resources the resources that you need to Master first aid would be first shade the book itself go for the digital world version of her side rather than the paper back form because the digital version would allow you to make edits in spaces that paperback wouldn't allow you to it would also allow you to correct any mistakes that you make out of annotations it would also allow you to take pictures of let's say you're doing certain videos or you would like that picture of a certain answer and you want to put that on your first aid you can easily do that using an iPad while having a version on it the second resource that you will be needing is boards and Beyond which is a video series which is geared towards both step one and step two I highly recommend the step one because it goes into micro details breaks down every topic and it converts the review book which is first aid into a book which ends up becoming a book for Basics right thirdly I would highly recommend USMLE RX so usmly RX is a question bank that was designed by the first 18 itself and it pairs up really well with first aid because if you're doing a question on usme RX they're going to give you the explanation and the page number of the person where that question was derived from and you can go by back to that page and start learning from that page and this is such a good strategy because once you've gotten that question wrong you're going to remember that page forever right and it will test about each and every aspect of first aid in a question based manner which is great the fourth resource that I highly recommend that you get is pathoma which is a book which was written by Dr Saina sir it's a 200 Page book it has videos accompanying it and he explains pathology in such a beautiful manner that you understand it and it's not about memorizing it which I think was wonderful a very concise resource the last resource would be sketchy sketchy is visual mnemonics which you can use to learn microbiology pharmacology so the name of the strategy is boofapps rx Bose and beyond your world first aid pathoma sketchy RX now that you're starting your username prep the way to start is by thinking about it in phases the first phase is a consolidation phase where you don't really know much about anything right and you're trying to learn and the next phase would be the implementation phase which I'll get into the first phase which is going consolidation phase is about two to three months long depending upon how fast you are with these resources start by taking first aid and boards and Beyond videos and start watching both and Beyond video with version the best part about both and Beyond videos is they go hand in hand with first aid just according to the sequence of information given in first aid so it's really easy to follow the videos along the first and make any annotations you should also be at this time using your digital form of first aid you can use your iPad to take pictures of certain slides from birds and Beyond and just put it right there on the page the same information is found on for example if I'm learning about cardiac diseases like myocardial infarction I should be taking information which is not a state and is mentioned in both and Beyond taking a photo of it and then attaching it to that page so that I have good Organization for the ultimate revision that we need to do secondly let's say you watch 10 videos and you you feel that this isn't really making sense and you keep forgetting and this won't hold together but every information you're learning because your Basics aren't good enough take a step back and try to use kaplan's books so Kaplan has great books and I highly recommend they are pharmacology there's physiology anatomy and biochemistry these four subjects like are so well explained in Kaplan textbooks which you can get for your assembly step one you can also find videos online and you can watch them with the books and then move on to first aid and BNB first it will be doing about 15 pages if you want to finish this whole book in about two months because then like according to the math 15 into 30 is 450 and two months is 900 and first it has about 848 pages so you should be done in two months with boards and Beyond and first aid so as you're doing this as you're reading so let's say BNB and first aid as you're reading these start question bank called USMLE RX just to test yourself on first aid knowledge the way to use Yosemite RX is you can use let's say do 40 questions a day do it uh in a system wise manner along with that Yosemite RX will help you learn first it actively because now that you're doing usmly RX which is like very very attuned to First Aid you'll be thinking about like your knowledge that you've learned before and implementing it so which is active recall secondly you'll also be experiencing some version of a repetition because once you've done a certain topic with ports and Beyond and first aid then you will be using the same knowledge to solve that question that relates to the knowledge that you learned before but in a different time so you will be getting some level of repetition here which will be useful for memory consolidation the third advantage that you gain with Yosemite RX is you're learning how to use your knowledge to solve questions and at the same time you're also deploying test taking strategies which you're learning at the moment like how to eliminate clue recognition which is if ESR is high then it could be vasculitis if ESR is low it couldn't be vasculated or any information based pathology so you're looking for these Clues and then you're ruling stuff out based on this Clues there's also pattern recognition for example when you're thinking about pulmonary embolism the typical pattern recognition character would be some kind of stasis this person has they were driving or they were in the pain for about so many hours or were lying in a bed for so many days and then suddenly out of nowhere they are having chest pain shortness of breath their blood oxygen levels drop down their stachycardia the stachypnea so this is a typical pattern recognition trigger that you learn with usmly RX now manic why should I not do yogurt at this time the reason you don't want to do yoga at this time is you don't want to waste those important questions you want to make sure that you have developed your test taking strategy to such an level that it becomes much more of a practice resource where you're practicing your testing skills you're calibrating them and getting to a further level that's how the pros tend to use u-word what most people do is they do two passes of u-word but if you use this strategy you only need to do one pass of u-word which shouldn't make everything easier during this period you can also Implement pathoma if you have the time like if you can manage or you can do it during the later period which is the execution period then they're sketchy as well are you sketchy ever I was just free and watched their videos for five minutes on 2X and it's it's really easy to just just put these in specifics lots of time when you're free now let's talk about the execution period so the execution period lasts for about three months and here you'll be only doing one main resource which is your world now you only want to do one pass of your world you want to do u-world in a random Manner and you want to time it unlike what you did before with your usmbrs questions it is okay to use it in a system based manner it is okay to take your time it's it's okay if you don't wanna do time sessions with your SME RX right because that's not where we are focusing on execution that's where we are focusing on learning and that's completely okay but when you go to u-words you need to make sure that you're ready enough to take it as a practice exam like a daily mini USMLE if you may since you've already mastered testing strategies before while using USMLE RX you should be trying to at least get your percentage up and this is how you build Top Notch testing skills and calibrate them is by using you because you already have the knowledge now with your smdrx and per shade and all the other resources and that now you should be able to at least implement it only do one plus a viewer two passes so you will don't make any sense because on the second pass of your world you're not learning anything new the reason you're not learning anything new is because you already know the answer so you're not pushing your mind to its limits to think you're not developing any further testing skills during this period you can also add your practice questions which is free120 free 120 is a free nbme resource which you can find on their website which has about 120 questions directly made from the nvme and this is updated every year highly recommended before your test like two or three weeks before your test make sure you use your UW essay one or two because you will be getting them anyways with your u-word also like use nvme's if you may but I feel like at this point of time like one npm you should suffice not more than that now how do I maximize retention of first aid number one cut on redundancy so let's say you're using first aid and you're taking pictures from other resources on your digital version of first aid you don't want to include information which is already mentioned in first aid you instead want to add the extra points the reason we are doing this is because in the end you're going to make a unified resource the less return density and repetition there is in that resource the more efficient you will become with your final revision the second point to remember is something called as Progressive summarization so Progressive summarization AKA highlighted 2.0 is a way to master both comprehension and compression most students whenever they are reading books like the first aid or other books they are really good in making notes and that is comprehension part they are able to comprehend it but at the same time the more you focus on comprehension harder it gets to compress the comprehension right do you want to review your first aid in the end right and you have this much of information which you have not compressed it is going to be really hard to review it but using Progressive summarization you can compress that information and the way you do this is by thinking of highlighting in layers so whenever I'm reading first here let's say I start highlighting it with some important points for let's say hepato renal syndrome I start highlighting those with yellow highlighter right I start highlighting some important points after I've done this this is the first layer of progressive summarization right the next layer of progressive summarization is out of the yellow highlights I pick specific more important data out of the yellow highlights and mark them with a pink highlighter the yellow highlights are important but the pink highlights are even more important right and then after this I can even summarize the whole point the whole topic of hepato renal syndrome so let me give you an example of summarization so think about hepato renal syndrome in cirrhosis you get portal hypertension from Total hypertension you'll have splanching basilization this will cause the BP of the person to go down when the pp of the person will go down what will happen it will cause Angiotensin converting enzyme to get released it will start compressing the blood vessels in other parts of the organ to supply blood to the heart and blood to other important organs and one of the organs that is gonna get compromised is the kidney because it will have renal vasoconstriction which will cause pre-renal failure which you kind of see when you are dehydrated as well hebato renal syndrome is when you get pre-renal kidney damage because of liver cirrhosis the way this happens and the way I remember this is hepato renal syndrome is equal to splanchnic vasodilation plus renal vasoconstriction this is a way to settle and I like equational compression because it gives me real Clarity and about the most important things and helps me remember because what's going to make you remember topics is compressing those topics so what I will do is why Progressive summarization I would highlight important points and I would have layers of highlighting and over that I will summarize the whole topic by like an equation and I highly recommend that the neck is the next tip I would highly recommend is use add-ons Anki is space repetition software that you can use to have flash cards that are shown to you in variable repetitorials according to the frequency that you need them right there's pre-made Decks that other students have made and are very comprehensive and consistent have everything you need but if you do want to use Anki I would recommend using it in browse mode there's a lot of good decks out there if you want a short concise tag zonkey is a good one if you want a bigger deck anking is is a great pre-made deck that you can use you can use Anki but if I had to choose between a question bank and Anki I would choose question bank because question Bank causes a greater degree of active recall it causes you to think critically it causes you to develop your own test checking strategy how many passes offers it do I need so in total if you use this strategy correctly you need about three passes of first aid the first pass of first aid would happen when you're using boards and Beyond with first aid this is during the consolidation phase the second pass of First Rate that's also happening during the consolidation pace is when you are using you assembly RX with first aid because as you study first and Beyond you're also testing these certain topics with boards with USM the RX and that should serve as a second pass the third pass offers that you will need is the last two weeks but in total when you're reading first aid it's the first ones with both and Beyond the second one is with Yosemite RX the third pass is going to be with in the last 14 days when you will just be reading first and that's about it and by this time like you've already like actually had multiple passes even if you don't know it you have passes with your word because you will have similar information to First Aid right that's the unification protocol the mistakes that you should not make first get the digital version the paperback version is not worth it because of the amount of editing the amount of control you have over first aid when you have digital version you can command F you can search anything you want and it's it's just way easier to carry your iPad and do it secondly what I would recommend is don't use Anki over question Max such as usmly RX remember the equation banks are going to give you far more value than a software with just lies on active recall and space repetition because question banks have the ability to teach you critical thinking and testing strategies thirdly get the latest revision don't try to save money here by like missing out on the latest edition try to get the latest revision International Edition I wouldn't recommend it to get it instead try to get the real first aid that U.S medical students read lastly don't revise first it as much you don't need as many as the revisions as you think you'd need because what most students don't realize is they've already had so many passes by doing so many other resources thank you for watching if you enjoyed this video and gain some value for it give me a thumbs up and subscribe thank you for watching