We don’t need to tell you — being on rotations is tough! Trying to learn a huge volume of new information and skills, impress a range of attendings, AND dedicate the study time needed to ace your Shelf, clinical evals, and Step, is daunting even for the best of us.
But we got through, and we know you will, too. In this video, Yousef Salem, now a dermatology resident, shares how he used AMBOSS to master clinical skills and exam prep as a fourth year med student, plus save enough time to have a little fun. We’re honored to have been a part of his med school journey and hope he inspires you to give AMBOSS a try, too!
Can’t watch it? Here’s the transcript:
I'm Yousef, a fourth year medical student at UT Health San Antonio. I did pretty well throughout medical school, but I had to work my butt off to honor my rotations and get the kind of Shelf and Step scores that allowed me to even dream of applying to dermatology.
There are two main things that a clerkship student needs to focus on in order to do well: clinical evaluations and the Shelf scores.
Why clinical evaluations are so important
Clinical evaluations are pretty subjective. (There is some key etiquette to know - check out our article!) If you're professional, courteous, and nice to everybody else, and most importantly, if you nail your presentations with concise, accurate and thorough patient case presentations, you're likely to impress.
As a med student, your team is often so busy that the only time their undivided attention is on you is during your presentation. So, it's really critical that you put your effort into acing your clinical evaluations every single day.
In order to build a great presentation, you need to prepare before you even walk into the patient's room. You need to know what questions you are going to ask them, what exams you’re going to do and what your assessment plan is going to look like.
Looking to ace your next patient presentation? Check out our guide here.
Here's how I used AMBOSS to deliver honors worthy presentations every single time, and impress my attendings.
How to use AMBOSS’s app to impress your preceptors
Pre-rounding is essential to having all the information before you start presenting your patients. Let me show you how I did it.
Before I would even walk into the patient’s room, I would pull out the AMBOSS app on my phone and read up on their diagnosis — if we already had a diagnosis. If it was my job to come up with the diagnosis, I would read up on the chief complaint. I could read through that article and figure out what the clinical features were, so I knew what questions to ask.
I'd also see what exams I would need to do in order to have a thorough presentation, and finally, see what assessments and treatment plans would look like for this chief complaint or diagnosis.
Every rotation, and even every attending, has a different preference for what they want in their notes. Using the AMBOSS Clerkship Guides, I'm able to figure out a good example of a note for each rotation.
Having a strong assessment and management plan is where most students struggle, but it's the most essential component of proving that you know what you're talking about on rounds. I used the AMBOSS flowcharts and acute management checklists in order to make sure that I knew exactly what we needed to do for all my patients.
And that's how I secured strong comments and great evals from all of my attendees. When I first started using AMBOSS, I actually felt more confident in my ability to give a good presentation and handle more patients in the same amount of time. I was SO much more efficient — which meant I was able to sleep in just a little bit longer every morning while still doing the same amount of work.
Want to be extra-prepared for rounds? Here’s what you ended to know about getting ‘pimped’ on the wards
Managing a solid Shelf prep on busy rotation days
Are you still with me? Even after everything you do in the clinic or the hospital, you still need to study hard in order to score high on the Shelf exams if you want to honor. These Shelf exams are hard. Every single time I was taking one, I felt like I was in a mini Step exam. It’s really important to take it seriously.
That means taking advantage of any downtime you have to crank out your Anki cards or do your practice questions - whenever, wherever you can. This is especially important if you want to actually have some free time to do other stuff!
At the very beginning of every rotation, I would find out the number of questions in AMBOSS’s Qbank related to that rotation and see how many days I would have to do those questions. I would make sure I was going to be able to finish them before the Shelf. For me, that meant doing practice question sessions on my phone throughout the day, whenever I had downtime at the hospital, and at the gym.
The same goes for Anki. I’d be doing Anki in between sets or on the treadmill. The nice thing about the AMBOSS add-on for Anki is that it actually works on mobile, unlike most others. So, I never felt like I was losing anything if I did my Anki on mobile versus doing it on my laptop at home.
I also made sure to redo anything that AMBOSS told me I was struggling with, so that I could get those necessary points and score well on the Shelves. And it worked! I ended up honoring all of my rotations and built a really strong foundation for Step 2. I also actually ended up having time left over every day to relax and have fun.
I hope that my experience can help you take full advantage of AMBOSS, so you honor your rotations too!
Want to try it for yourself?
Discover AMBOSS with a 5-day free trial.
