My Dedicated Step 1 Schedule

Dedicated Step 1 studying is a period in medical school where you are done with all your class courses and you have an allotted block of time to just study for it. You have to plan your own personal schedule to fit your priorities and goals. I'm sharing mine so y'all can have an estimation of how to plan yours!

My Dedicated Outlined:

• I planned my schedule during Spring break

• I did 120 Uworld questions every day and reviewed all of them 

• Read through each body system + annotations in the order of easiest to hardest (I saved the difficulty blocks + ones with lots of memorization/cramming at the end) in First Aid, focusing on areas of weakness 

• Read through my annotations in Pathoma 

• Made notes on patterns of questions I was getting wrong + how my logic was incorrect. I read these notes before every exam 

• Did a practice exam every Saturday and took the weekend to review it. I did 3 NBME practice exams and the 2 Uworld exams that are included in the subscription. 

• Did the formal practice exam Free 120 at a testing center 

• Here is the Excel with my schedule for Dedicated: Shanonology Rx Study Planner - 2021 Edition

• Schedule realities (check out the link above!)

  • I did not work out every single day, more like once a week. I studied through meals sometimes. I was studying 14 hours a day and it was very difficult to do anything else.  

  • I was not able to do all my content review for every system. I focused on reading through it and targeting topics I was weak on. For me, just browsing through everything helped with my confidence and reassured me of what I do know.

  • Utilized many pre-made meals and take outs with grocery deliveries. Give yourself grace and do what is most convenient for you.

• Weekend schedule 

  • Saturday 

  • 8 am- 4pm: Practice exam. All the exams are only 4 hours long but I added extra UWORLD blocks to emulate 7 hours of testing 

  • 4pm - 5pm: Eat out for dinner with my study buddy 

  • 5pm - 6pm: Break

  • 6pm - 10pm: Start reviewing the exam 

  • I know this sucks studying right after your exam. But I just felt like I didn’t have enough time to take a whole day off, especially when I had friends who were studying after their exam too. They motivated me in a positive way and I was happy that I had support so it wasn’t like I harming my mental state 

  • Sunday 

  • 8 am - 9am: Wake up late / self care in the morning 

  • 9 am - Noon: Review exam 

  • Noon: Lunch 

  • 1pm - 5pm: Review exam, catch up on content I couldn’t finish during the week 

  • 5pm - 7pm: Dinner and break 

  • 7pm - Midnight: Study more 

  • I never took half days off but I give myself ample breaks for dinner and periods during the day where I feel I need too. I felt very guilty and probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I took the whole day off. 

 lub dub,

Shanon