Finding My Learning Style:
How OnlineMedEd Helped Me Excel in Med School

Hello! My name is Andrew Lara, and I am a first-year student at UTHealth McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. I often draw on my experiences as an athlete, working in restaurants, and teaching undergraduate students to get me through things, but the first semester of medical school posed a unique challenge: the volume. The pure amount of information to learn was at best overwhelming, and often a bit jarring. When the challenge of learning the basic sciences was superimposed on figuring out what resources to use and how I learn best, I felt frustrated and like I was wasting time trying to study everything.  

Some of my friends were using ‘this', my MS2 mentor said try ‘that,’ and the learning specialist recommended that I do it ‘this’ way. In trying everything, my brain felt exhausted, I felt like I was memorizing instead of learning, and it showed up in my scores. What I learned in my first semester is that every student has their own unique learning style and that the best one is the one that works for you.  

The first semester at McGovern is our foundations and gross anatomy courses. We learn the basics and it gets everyone on the same page. Then, we transition to modules divided up by individual (but integrated!) organ systems. I decided to try OnlineMedEd at the start of modules. After a few videos I was hooked. The colors, simplications, practice questions after each video, and storytelling spoke to me as a learner, and reminded me of what great instructors aspired to do when I learned about scientific pedagogy in undergrad.  

Using OME’s PACE method, I really felt like I could space the material out into something digestible and do it throughout the day, instead of being stuck for 50 minutes 

watching a lecture or waking up with 1700 anki cards to do. Dr. Williams' way of describing and explaining things helped me to ingrain the material and interact with it in a way where I could understand the clinical implications. This showed up in our problem based learning (PBL) sessions at school, where I can better understand (and sometimes even guess) the diagnosis, workup, and complications after the first few hints we’re given. This is because Dr. Williams gives you distinct and memorable presentations of disease based on what he has seen in real life. 

For the first module, Hematology and Intro to Pathology, I did this: 

• Started with in-house/Pathoma/BnB for a week then switched 

• Decided to commit to OME as a first pass 

• ScholarRx for practice questions in content buckets (like one day is anemias, one day is WBC disorders, etc) & reviewed them (*takes a long time*) 

• When I say reviewed them, I mean I learned what every answer choice meant and hinted towards, what the vignette sets you up for, and the mechanisms/physiology of the tested concept. Aka MQL (missed-questions log) 

• Listed out in-house lecture learning objectives (LO’s) 

Finally, I went through our LO’s using every resource that was available to me, mainly OME, OpenEvidence/ChatGPT, First Aid. I missed three questions out of 76 on the first exam. When I checked my score I had to do a double take.  

The second module, Cardiovascular, I was looking to build on what worked in the first, and make it more efficient. So instead of entertaining anything else, I: 

• went straight to OME for a first pass, taking notes & doing the questions 

• then did ScholarRx questions in content buckets (like EKGs or murmurs) 

• thoroughly reviewed every missed, guessed, or unsure question with MQL 

• checked our in-house lectures LO’s, then reviewed back through OME + all other resources for a list of weak points I made for myself 

I got honors again. This time with a lot of time for other activities throughout the five week module.  

OME is certainly not a catch-all, but it is a really great place to start. I have found that it being my first-pass and last-pass is what works for me, and I learn most of the mechanisms and details in between during doing practice questions and MQLs. I would recommend OME to anyone who is frustrated with their current situation and okay with a little learning curve, is attracted to visual learning and storytelling, and/or finds the clinical picture valuable. I am very grateful to have found it and respect what they are doing from my results as a learner and experience as an instructor. It really can take you further, faster, with less effort. Who wouldn’t want that?