Do you really need to be doing 80 UWorld questions every day during your busiest rotation? What if your five-minute phone break could actually help you learn something? What if your patient’s comorbidities could turn a routine clinical encounter into a high-yield, complex medicine case? From using NBMEs to track your progress to turning everyday clinical encounters into opportunities for Step 2CK prep, this post explores how to study smarter, not longer.
How to Study during Clinical Rotations
One of the hardest challenges to overcome during your clinical years is adjusting to a new kind of demanding schedule. You aren’t spending endless hours in the school library or taking in-class exams every week. Instead, you are managing 8–12 hours of clinical duties, clinical skills, note writing, hospital workflows, and different EMRs…all while having to squeeze in self-care, sleep, shelf prep, OSCE prep, and your seemingly looming Step 2 CK exam. Yikes!
Truth be told, there is NO perfect gold standard for managing your workload. As much as we dread the infamous “it all depends,” it truly does depend on what your goals, lifestyle, and timeline are.
Note: Not all medical schools follow the same curriculum structure! For instance, some schools have 12-week surgery and internal medicine rotations, while others have rotations that are only 5 weeks long! You can see how your study goals might change depending on how much time you are given.
Be Realistic
This is a given. You can’t reasonably expect yourself to complete 80 UWorld questions a day during your busiest rotation(s). Sometimes, even fitting in 20 questions can feel overwhelming.
From day one, you should look at the number of questions in your QBank (AMBOSS, UWorld, etc.) and the number of days leading up to your shelf exam. From there, calculate the average number of questions you need to complete each day to stay on track.
You should stick to one QBank for a given rotation because, again, you cannot reliably fit 2,000+ Medicine questions into 6 weeks. Plan for a buffer and build in a day off here and there so that you have some flexibility if you fall behind.
Make Use of Your Downtime
Listen to your favorite medicine podcasts or watch YouTube videos on your way to clinic, on your way home, or whenever it’s appropriate to do so. Run through some algorithms or Anki cards while you’re bird-dogging in the OR. During rounding or sign-out, look up your patients’ conditions and review step-up approaches to management, relevant comorbidities, and contraindications. Use OpenEvidence, MedCalc, and UpToDate to quickly fill in knowledge gaps. Most importantly, use your patients’ cases as learning opportunities. You’ll never know what you’ll see!
Assessing Your Performance
You should complete NBME forms for each clerkship and space them out throughout your rotation. You need to collect data on yourself. If you’re not sure where to start, take an older form first rather than jumping straight into a newer one. This gives you a baseline and lets you see where you stand after the first week of your rotation.
Every school has a different threshold for a minimum passing score on each shelf exam. Aim higher than the bare minimum. Barely scraping by may get you through the shelf exam, but it won’t help you in the long run.
Staying on Track: Clinical Shelf Prep and Step 2 Studying
Look, we all want to remember every lab value and pathognomonic finding, but that’s not realistic as you move from one clerkship to the next. Instead, look for connections across rotations. When studying neurology and psychiatry, consider how neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders overlap. Learning about QT prolongation with antipsychotics? Take a quick look at an ECG and incorporate medicine into your psychiatry prep.
Integrate micro-learning! Instead of doom-scrolling when you have a few free minutes, try a puzzle, Doctoral, Pathordle, an ECG or fetal heart tracing game. Find ways to stay engaged without constantly repeating the video → question → Anki → rinse, repeat routine.
Final Thoughts
Success is a spectrum. You are going to have bad days, good days, and great days. Regardless, Make. Them. Count. Stay consistent, learn to adapt to your environment, and remember that what works for someone else may not work for you. Find a strategy that fits your goals, your schedule, and your learning style.
If you’re looking for more individualized support, Select Med Tutors can help you navigate your board exam journey and build a personalized study strategy that fits your goals and learning style.