I’ve received feedback from many people wanting me to put more time and energy into my review resources- but I’ve had a couple of things hold me back:
Creating helpful tools is really time-consuming! Any of my more heavily-researched articles or videos may take 15-20 hours to put together. Even shorter pieces and picmonics may take me an hour or so to make. The study guides I have on the site take about 80-100 hours to put together. Since my clinical job doesn’t afford down time to work on this, it’s hard to do this in my free time, since I don’t have much of it!
If I were to create something more cohesive, I’d want to connect people together too. Many of my favorite memories in training come from the hours laboring together with my co-residents, and much of my professional career would not be possible without the support and encouragement from my peers.
So it got me thinking - can we create a community of trainees that are all working together to learn ophthalmology, and also provide the useful study tools and tips that people have been asking for?
After hours of planning and work, I’m happy to share this new course/community with everyone! The course is called “How To Learn Ophthalmology.” I integrate various study strategies and proven techniques to understand the process of learning ophthalmology. Along the way, we discuss various study tools, consider various applications, and work on developing a personalized study outline and schedule. I’ve completed the transcripts of every unit (24 separate lessons). I still have a few more videos to make and edit but I wanted to let everyone know about the course!
However, the course is just the beginning! Not only will you be getting access to the course (which I’ve designed primarily for the medical student or beginning resident), I am also offering monthly live sessions where I will address study techniques, review specific topics, or walk through my techniques for studying with practice questions (or anything else that might be useful). The live sessions will be archived for viewing later, too!
You’ll also be able to communicate with fellow ophthalmology trainees and share tips and resources. If I can get at least 100 people to join the community, I should be able to drop back on my clinical duties and devote even more time to developing helpful resources. We’ve got a great group already in the community, I look forward to seeing you there!