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Summer studying: Trial and error?

As a distance education student, I complete the didactic year over two years. This means I get the summer between my first and second years off. YAY.



But like a good PA student, I didn't want this time to be totally wasted. So I put together a very ambitious study schedule to make sure I reviewed everything I learned over the first year.
*brushes shoulders off*



As it turns out, that was far too ambitious for a PA student who was both tired and no longer operating under the crippling fear of failure. I fell off the wagon just about as fast I got on it. Well, shoot.

I had planned to study a little bit every day, which was in fact not reasonable. So I readjusted. I'd spend a few hours on the weekends and as well as on my one day off during the week. This worked much better, giving me a few days each week to just enjoy the summer and being a lazy lump on the couch.

I also decided to change what I was studying. I have felt like antibiotics go right over my head. So, that needed to be a focus for this summer. I had purchased Antibiotics Simplified based on a recommendation from a pharmacy resident, and so my new goal was to make it through the whole book and take notes. It took me longer than I had expected but... I did it! SUCCESS.



I finished it just in time to go on my socially-distant road trip to Colorado, and now that I'm back at home, it's time to work on what's next. I had somehow gotten lucky enough to grab another awesome book from someone in my neighborhood - Fundamental Critical Care Support - and since I'm super interested in critical care, it's tempting to dive right into that.



But, I think I need to get back to the basics and review what we've already covered in my coursework. Then maybe when I feel like I've sufficiently reviewed that, I can reward myself with the FCCS book?? Wow, that was like the nerdiest thing I've said in awhile...

So how do I plan to review my year-one content? Smarty Pance! There's 14 different courses broken out by system, and each includes a ton of information. While I don't think I'll have time to review everything (trying to be more realistic!), I plan to first focus on the courses that have the greatest percentage of exam content (cardiology, pulmonary, GI, musculoskeletal) and then review a couple sections I struggled with during first year (hematology, dermatology).

And on that note... there's no better time than now to start studying! I have the day off thanks to the holiday weekend, so I hope to spend a couple hours digging in before I grill out with a couple of friends. (We've decided to keep our social circles really small so that we can hang out and feel safe and I'm so happy to have friends taking this virus seriously!).

Anyway, thanks for reading!
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