Chasing the dream...: Our last lecture with Dr Sherif El Hawary

Today was our last day of lectures with him. It was indeed a very sad moment, he dropped a tear right at the end. What a coincidence, it was his 48^th birthday… he looks too young to be 48! He concluded his lecture with a beautiful speech, a very touching speech and I learnt a loooott!

I jotted down a few things and I would love to share with my dearest friends. The way he studies really explains why he is where he is right now! Not a wonder at all.

1. One week holiday starting from 28 July until 3 August. No books at all, not even a glance!

2. Start by 4^th August 2009. Begin with the hardest topic.

3. Proposed studying timetable:

August: Medicine + Surgery
September: Medicine
October: Surgery

4. Duration of studying per day:

August-September: 10hours/day (when our faces changed, more of amazed like.. boleh ke???... he said, this leaves you with 14hours of “playing”… hehe..what more can we ask for, right??)
October: 14 hours/day
November: 16 hours/day!

.... and I thought the number of hours was going to get less and less! hehe..

5. Methods of studying:

Start from the weakest points. Self-confidence is very important... Dr Sherif said, do not feel intimidated by the weak point, it's just 5% of what you know, you have the other 95%.. so just feel good about that 95% of the topic which you understood well.
Repeat and repeat! For example, if you revise Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) for 10 minutes, the you do it 7 times, that means the topics has been studied for 70 minutes! And this is good for long-term memory... he said, it'll stick in your mind forever!
Study from top to bottom and bottom to top.... eg. Definition --> Treatment, and Treatment --> Definition... and memorize each sections by itself so that, if the questions in exam was about DDx of ____, you could still think of the DDx by itself without having to think of what came before and after the DDx in the book.
Relate the topics to one another... study them together. Lay out all the books together on the table, and do not study one topic without referring to the related topics. Eg. Diabetes Mellitus is multisystem disease, so there are many complications... one f them is CAD (coronary artery disease), here, open the cardiology book and read quickly about atherosclerosis.... and another complication is peripheral neuritis... open the neurology book and read about PN. Like he said, it wont take a second!

6. Exam tips:

Sleep at least 6 hours the night before the exams.
Written exam

Write the main headings clearly because the examiners do not have time to read properly, most of them are very busy with their work, so you do not want any points to be missed by the examiner.
How to divide your time? ---> look at how many marks the question is worth and divide your time according to it.. eg. if the question is 5 marks, then spend only 5 minutes on it. Practise answering questions quickly yet precisely.

Oral exam ---> DOA!!! Pray that you get a doctor yang mudah bagi marks.
On the day of the exam, drink juice. Most of us cannot eat breakfast properly from the GIT congestion that causes nausea and vomiting.. so juice is good for glucose.
And lastly... take a cold shower. It doesn't matter even in the winter, of course you will die from the cold shower, but death is not the main issue, it's the exams that matter!!! It helps you stay fresh. ---> I'm just quoting from him, ok.

So what should you do after the exams are over? --> Puasa until you get your results and doa continuously.

I loved it! It was a holistic approach and not even a single point missed.

Then... at 2.30pm, all of his students gathered at the university to take pictures with him. I felt sad, really sad. His lectures are the best part of my final year. I am so thankful to Allah that I had the chance to be his student, I feel very privileged.