I've been having some serious déjà vu as of late.

Waking up at the same time every morning to complete multiple UWorld question blocks only to have to spend most of my afternoon reviewing my answers and related material…hmmm, sounds familiar doesn't it? However, unlike my Step 1 preparation, preparing for this exam has not been nearly as taxing on my mental health 😁 (although I did do my best to maintain a positive attitude while studying for that test). Don't get me wrong, it's been a tough week having to study for this exam. Having the same monotonous routine on a daily basis is never fun. But I've found that my overall scores on my question blocks have improved in a much more rapid manner than they had done when I was preparing for Step last year. I remember going through question blocks for almost two straight weeks last year before starting to see some substantial overall improvement in my performance.

This time around, I've been doing questions for a little over a week so far and although I've had a few less-than-desirable scores, my average peformance has already vastly improved with over half of my scores already at or close to the level that I would want to be at by the time exam week rolls up on me. I must say, this is a much better feeling than feeling like you're constantly fighting an uphill battle that you're always losing at. It definitely helps that I've had prior experience with Step studying before, so I pretty much know what to expect throughout this study block and I also have a pretty solid idea of what Step 2 is going to look like. In addition, being an attentive and hard-working third-year medical student has prepared me a lot for Step 2. Having to think through diagnoses and management plans for real-life patients all throughout the year, coupled with the constant barrage of content and study questions I had to drill through all year long ultimately transformed my mind into one that is more suitable for a great Step 2 performance…..not to mention that it's a mindset that is absolutely required for a great physician to have.

These factors have made my time during this study block very tolerable so far, but it would be very remiss of me to not mention that I've been spending my study block with my girlfriend, which has seriously made all the difference in the world. She has made my life this past week so much easier and relaxing, even with my marathon study days. It helps tremendously that she understands how much effort I need to put in preparing for this test, and she goes out of her way to ensure that I'm comfortable during this study period. Even with all this studying though, we make time to have fun together as much as we can. Like, we went to a TDE concert last night and I saw Kendrick Lamar along with the rest of the crew (minus SZA 😔) for the first time! We also have been watching our favorite shows together and will be having a number of movie nights in the forseeable future lol. Oh, and how could I forget the glorious home-cooked food. She's been feeding me a LOT better than I've been feeding myself these past few months with good food that I probably would never even consider making on my own. And she's been doing all of these things while completing her own graduate school-related summer work! Yeah I know, she's pretty awesome. Lucky me! 😄

Now I must go back to reviewing my answers and making sure that the information I'm relearning sticks long enough for me to use during the exam. Then I gotta go and get some SNMA stuff done. Then I'll chill for a bit after that.

Be sure to have a wonderful and productive week! At the very least, aim to be more productive than the U.S. government currently is. Then again, they haven't set a high bar for us to jump over. The bar is actually pretty low. Very low even. Lol, there hasn't even been a bar set. All you gotta do is make someone smile and you would have already done more than they'll probably be able to do all month. But you get the idea. Just go on and live your best life.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs – even though checkered by failure – than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

– Black Man, M.D.