BONUS 2: My Top 5 Study Tips & What the Heck is High Yield!?

Here you will find the transcript to the 2nd bonus episode as well as links to all the resources I mentioned in today's show.

Hello and Welcome to PASPAC Podcast, your audio passport from physician assistant student to certified - and beyond - with your host Rebecca Harrell, MPA, PA-C

Today our bonus destination is a discussion about my top five study tips and what the heck does high yield mean anyway?

So, sit back relax and let's get to it

Hey everyone it's Becca,

I wanted to give you guys a good insight of my top five study tips and how I found success during PA school. No matter if you have been doing PA School for a while, currently practicing, or even preparing for PA school; I think this episode will really help you guys as you move forward because exams are endless - even after you become a PA

Also, I remember my biggest question when I started PA school was "What is high yield - everybody keeps saying the word 'high yield' and I have no idea what it means and how do I find what high yield is?!" So, I wanted to really give you guys a good explanation of what that means and how you'll be able to figure it out for yourself.

What is High Yield?

"High Yield" is testable material - that's it - and you won't know what's testable until you take tests. But, you don't want to see the question for the first time on an actual exam which is why practice questions and active studying is so important to figuring this out beforehand.

If it's high yield enough show up on a practice question, then its high yield enough to show up on your exam.

So, I always tell people - high yield just means it's testable; it doesn't necessarily mean that if a patient doesn't present with this "high yield presentation" that they don't have a certain disease - it just means that it's testable.

Things that are testable are things that are unique, things that are most common, things that have buzz words associated with them - and even though the buzz words themselves might not be used as much anymore - they're still high yield because they will give you the definition of the buzzword in the stem

Therefore, memorizing the buzz word is a really good way to quickly recall a concept during an exam like, "Oh, I remember this was this definition meant this buzz word that was associated with with this diagnosis" - so it's a really good way to quickly categorize things in your brain and recall it for exams

Other things that I commonly see as high yield or commonly tested on are things that present similarly or sound the same, and in this case, you want to remember the differences matter.

For example, you may know that "all gallbladder differentials", for the most part, the first line imaging for them is all going to be ultrasound, right? Then you don't necessarily have to memorize that part, but instead you group them to know, "alright, these differentials all get ultrasound first" okay, great, move on - what is more high yield is, "Okay, now which one gets a HIDA Scan? Which one gets ERCP? What is more specific? What is more sensitive?" - and THOSE differences will be what is more likely tested on.

I've occasionally seen some really easy 1st order questions where it's asking for ultrasound as the initial testing, but for the most part, the differences are what matter. So, if you just know that, "all of this group all gets this same initial diagnostic" then you can move on to learn is the differences. Grouping them like that, I found, was really helpful.

Other things are similar simply because they just sound the same. Obviously, the gallbladder differentials sound the same - but also things like polymyalgia rheumatica vs. polyarteritis nodosa vs. polymyositis, right? All of these sound really similar and they know that that's going to trip you up.

So, if you notice you're having trouble with that make sure that when you're writing them in your notes, you're doing a little comparison chart between things that sound the same (even if they might not present the same way) just because you don't want to get into the exam and go, "Oh shoot what is that called again?"

But, if that does happen, a lot of those times, you can recall them by falling back onto your medical terminology knowledge. So, if a patient has polymyositis... that is going to be myositis ...that's gonna be muscular...you're going to get your muscle pain and weakness ; whereas if you have polyarteritis, you may see things like vascular insufficiency /vascular problems... because we've got arterial disease happening, right? Then, if you have something like polymyalgia rheumatica --- rheumatica, we have joint/bone pain....so, just if you're ever stuck on an exam, always remember to fall back on your med term when it comes to differentiating similar sounding names which can sometimes help you, as well, with the high yield differentials.

Now that we kind of talked about what is high yield and why does it matter and how you figured out (aka practice questions) let's get into my top five study tips

STUDY TIP #1

Don't forget what you did to succeed in undergrad, but be open to tailoring it to the intense schedule that you're gonna get in grad school.

So, if you used to write your notes you might need to change to typing your notes or only writing out high yield or comparison charts, like we talked about, or the buzz words - things you really want to remember.

I recommend opening up power points or printing power points into OneNote or Notability, and then writing on top of it - if you really want to write - but there's so much information that it's really, really hard to write everything down, even if that's what you were used to. If you want to try, by all means, try, but at the same time - I know a lot of people who tried to stick to their guns with writing their notes in first semester PA school, and quickly had to change - myself included - because my hand was tired!

Plus, during PA school our time is limited, so we need to make good use of our time and writing notes (while it's kind of active in a way) is mostly just passive studying... which is why you don't want to spend as much time writing these notes and doing this passive studying. You want to spend more time doing active studying which means practice questions, practice quizzes, constantly challenging yourself to get out of your comfort zone with just writing notes.

You have to be uncomfortable to learn

…and uncomfortable means - allowing yourself to get questions wrong on practice exams, so you get them right in actual exams

STUDY TIP #2

Start practice questions day one

- Don't try to wait until you feel like you you know the information "well enough" or "until you're really comfortable with the information". Don't wait.

Quizlet has a ton of free practice questions, you can use mine - they're on my website.

During didactic year, I used anatomy guy, UMich, SmartyPANCE, and ExamMaster for practice problems. During Clinical year I used RoshReview, SmartyPANCE, UWorldPA even has some good questions - you can also check out my website for a full compellation of resources.

I also used podcasts all the time to question myself - obviously, I liked them so much that I decided to make my own.

For quick review, I really liked listening to MedGeeks Clinical Review, and that is done by a PA. I also really like Cram the PANCE, it's done by another PA, obviously, "Cram the PANCE" - and he gives really good simple mnemonics that he used to remember complex differentials are high yield differentials that I really, really utilized during exams. I would remember all of these crazy mnemonic that he uses. Another one of my favorites is The Audio PANCE and PANRE, and that's done by Stephen Pasquini, and who is also the founder of SmartyPANCE.

Then another one I really liked is Zero to Finals Medical Revision Podcast - that's done by Dr. Watchman. He will do one diagnosis at a time, but they're really quick, like less than ten minutes. During rotations, I would listen to specific podcast for those rotations, again that's all on my website, where you can see those recommendations I have for each one of my clinical rotations.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how you get your practice questions. Just start them right away - don't wait until you think you're ready. If you're gonna get questions wrong - even if you get a hundred percent of the questions wrong day one - at least you will get them right on the exam. Again, I cannot say it enough - to start right away.

STUDY TIP #3

Don't feel obligated to continue doing something that clearly isn't working

Your classmates might be some of your best friends, and they will be some of your best friends, but you don't need to feel like you're married to the first study group you're in. It might be that you get into a study group and then you find that their way of studying is not your way of studying - instead of forcing it to happen, change up your study group, change up your method to study alone, do what you need to do.

There are no hard feelings when it comes to studying the way you need to study in PA school

… no matter what... so don't stick to anything that is not working for you.

I knew plenty of people that were individual studiers when they were in undergrad and then they came into PA school and then they really thrived off group studying. For me, I thrived off group studying in undergrad, but found that when I got to PA school, I really really succeeded with the individual study - and that's what I ended up doing a lot of the time. I would split the work, like notes and writing questions, with a few of my friends, but for the most part of actual studying - I was doing that all on my own. And that's what really worked for me. But as an undergrad, that's not what worked for me

So, be open to being honest with yourself about what's working what's not and be willing to change.

STUDY TIP #4

Spaced repetition

This is a tip you're gonna hear a lot when you start out PA school - and over your whole career- and that's because it really works.

Don't look over something once and think that you're going to be an expert on it and remember it, forever. No matter how unique it is, I promise you, that you'll forget it if you forget to pick the book back up and look at it again or go over multiple questions on it again. It doesn't matter how much you think you're going to remember with one pass - I promise - there is too much information and you will end up forgetting it if you don't go back over and review.

Every pass counts

Pass one, review the lecture before class; Pass two, can be the lecture; Pass three is taking your notes, whether it's writing or typing; Then pass four, five, six, seven - all the way up to a hundred - should be your practice questions. As many passes as you can get on a certain subject before your exam is going to improve your retention and recall during the exam.

Quizlet is a really great resource to use for creating cards (which again creating cards - is another pass) and then reviewing those cards for extra passes. Then Anki is also good for spaced repetition, but I found that to be overall less user friendly [than Quizlet] and it's not very "entertaining" or nice to look at. But, I really like Quizlet, I found, because it was better for PA's anyways whereas Aki is usually used by medical students. Up to you, but personally I liked using Quizlets.

STUDY TIP #5

Review what you missed after exams (even if you are miserable and you don't want to).

Take some time and go back over your notes and review the concepts you had a hard time on during the exam. If you want to wait until your exam score comes out so you're not freaking yourself out, by all means - wait - but I recommend going back through, even if it's just highlighting the things that you struggled on, highlight them, and when you're ready - go back through, go back over it, try to write things down or do a comparison chart about what tripped you up

Because chances are if you got it wrong on an exam once you, will not get it wrong again on a future exam if you just take the time to go back over and review what you missed, you realize where it tripped you up, and you will learn from your mistakes. So, make sure you're learning from your mistakes by going back and looking at over afterwards.

Again, when you see a question on an exam you know that's high yield - why? - because they tested on it, that's why! High yield it's testable material.

If you saw it once on an exam, chances are you're going to see it again, and again, and again...

… and you don't want to keep on missing it again, and again, and again because, haha, you're being stubborn or don't want to go back and look at the things that you missed previously, or even that you think you'll remember again when it comes up. Because, chances are, you'll still get mixed up on the same thing if you don't take the time to get uncomfortable, get in that mess of studying, that dirt and grit of studying, with the active forms, [post-test]reviews, and getting multiple passes on things that are complicated.

I promise, you will be better for it.... I promise that you will start seeing improvement in your scores, if you start this active learning approach, get multiple passes, use spaced repetition, take the time to find what works for you, and start spending your time wisely.

Those are my five tips and what high yield is anyways. I really hope this helps you all and gives you an idea of the things that really work for me my classmates during our time in school.

Let me know what you think. Please like, review, subscribe, comment, share, do all the things. Check out my other review podcasts [episodes] for, right now, almost every EOR it seems - and we are just going to keep moving and grooving.

Make sure you follow me on Instagram @PASPAC_PASSPORT and be sure to check out the website for more blog post, transcripts for this episode and all my episodes, as well as a whole ton of resources for you guys that I have set up by a Pre-PA, didactic year PA, clinical year PA, pre-grad, post-grad...everything. So, check it out, I have a ton of resources there for you... other than that thanks for tuning in and safe travels!

Thank you for joining me today on PASPAC. I hope you enjoyed the show and learned something along the way. Until next time, safe travels.

As a responsible disclaimer: PASPAC Podcast is not intended to be used for medical or legal or legal purposes and though we always try to keep it educational and evidenced-based, any and all opinions or viewpoints we do share are PASPAC's alone and do not represent those of our employer or the profession at large