152 The 90 Point Comeback – Failing 3 PANCE Attempts to Passing on the 4th with 33 Days

Hello and welcome to the Physician Assistant Exam Review Podcast. We have something really special for episode 152. My name is Brian Wallace. I’m the host and creator here at Physician Assistant Exam Review and we have something really fun this week. What I’m doing is because the registration period is open for the February cohort of 33 Days to Pass the PANCE, I’ve decided to share an interview I did with a previous student who was on his fourth attempt on the PANCE, had a couple of teenage kids at home who were dying, waiting to see their lives changed when he finally finished school and got through this exam. And he just could not do it. Attempt after attempt, just causing havoc on his emotions and on his family state, came through the 33 Days to Pass the PANCE program and obviously had some good results.

I wouldn’t be sharing the story with you if it wasn’t as good a story. But without further ado, I’m going to go ahead and share with you Ealum’s interview. Registration ends on Thursday, January 22nd at midnight. So if you’re interested in joining us, if you’re struggling in PA school, if you’re struggling with the PANCE, if you’re struggling with an end of rotation exams or concerned about anxiety, about retention, about test taking, about any of these things, please come check it out physicianassistantexamreview.com/33 to find out more and to register. Without further ado, here is Ealum explaining to you exactly how he improved his scores.

So let’s go ahead and get started. But what I wanted to do was to host a couple of these calls like I did back in May to explain a little bit about what the 33 Days program is. I know there’s a little bit of confusion. I know I’m not always the best at explaining the way this works. I also don’t have a ton of things to compare it to because it would be easy for me to say, oh, it’s just like this course. It’s just like that course. It’s just but it isn’t right.

It’s a much different program that I had you go through. It’s not a five-day cram course where we ran you through as much medicine as you can possibly handle. This is a 33 Days program with the goal of putting you in the best possible position to pass your PANCE, whether that’s your first time through, whether that’s your second time through, whether that’s your third or fourth time through. My goal is that we have one goal of this program. The one absolute goal is to get you to pass this test. That’s it. Everything else is secondary.

Yes, there are all sorts of other nice things that you can get out of it. I do want you to learn medicine and become a great practitioner, of course, but that’s not my goal for this program. My goal for this program is passing the PANCE. What we do will also have the added benefit of all those other things, but those are secondary goals. Those aren’t primary goals. And like I said, so this program is a little tough to explain. That’s why I like to do it in a sort of live setting because the way that we cover the material and the way that we do things, like I said, is a little bit different.

There are four basic components to this program. Actually five, but I’m not getting into all of it tonight. One is the, oh, there we go. Another person on the camera. Thank you. One is the content schedule, the content calendar. I provide you with a content calendar.

So you go through the material at the pace that I set with the entire group moving through the content at that pace. I do not lecture material during the program. I provide the entire blueprint twice through in the podcast, which gives you access to what I would be lecturing if I were going to be lecturing to you. So you have all of that. I provide to you the digital version of Wallace’s Notebook, which is the entire notes for the entire blueprint. So I give you a lot. You have a lot of content.

Plus, my thought is you probably bring a lot of content with you at this point in your career. You probably have purchased things. You probably have stacks of books. You probably have too much stuff. And that’s one of the things we’ll talk about is whittling that down to the things that will help you rather than things that will increase your anxiety. So that’s part one. As I set up the schedule, you’re going through the material on your own, but as part of the group in any way that you see fit.

So if that’s through the materials I provide, great. If that’s the materials you’ve got, fantastic. The second big part of this program is the group. But the group dynamic has been fantastic. And this group has already actually shocked me. We haven’t even started yet. And I already have a bunch of people who are in there sharing stuff, doing a whole lot of connecting, setting up study groups, that kind of thing.

I have one of the… I wanted to read to you because someone just posted in our group where to go. It said, dang, this class hasn’t even started, and I already feel not alone. This past year has been so tough not passing and watching my classmates move on with their careers. Just reading about others who are in the same position is so comforting. And I’m excited to get started with this. I find a lot of people who are either taking the PANCE for the first time or the second time or the third time feel very alone during the process because you’re kind of with a whole group of people.

You were in school, you had your study groups, and then everybody sort of goes their separate ways. So one of the things that this provides for people who are interested in that is this group setting, these people who are heading towards the same goal as you. The next thing we do are the daily lessons, which is the part where I come in and give you a daily lesson on getting through this process. Meaning I go through 33 Days of lessons on studying tips, ways to improve what you’re doing with ideas and techniques that you’re probably not using. Test taking skills and strategies, ways to approach questions. We do full question walkthroughs, live question walkthroughs, where I will go through with you exactly how I approach questions, how we do things. We go through ways of preparing for a high stakes exam like this, ways to get yourself ready and in, like I said, the proper mindset.

One of the terms that seems to keep popping up in previous cohorts is the intrusive thoughts was the one word that keeps popping up. So it’s how to control those intrusive thoughts and control that anxiety and trust yourself as we move closer. I tend to feel that most people, one of the reasons I set this program up the way I did is because I feel like most people, by the time they graduate, are far ahead in content knowledge than they think. I think most people, programs, have summed them up really well with content knowledge. What tends to be the problem is once they get onto an exam that’s this important, that this level and over a five to six hour period of time, it’s a lot to handle, right? And all that information that people have, sometimes it doesn’t come out as clearly as they’d like. Sometimes they stumble over things that they shouldn’t stumble over.

I like to talk about losing three points and picking up three points. So one of the main things that I teach is how to pick up lots of free points on your exam and how to not be losing points that you should be getting. And I feel like pretty much everybody, if they can do that with the content knowledge they have, they should have no problem at all passing this thing. So that’s the lessons that I teach. Every day I post one up for you to go through. And then the hard part, like Ealum and I were talking about before, is implementing those lessons. One is I can talk you through them.

And I posted the list of them in an email a couple of days ago. But the really tough part is implementing them. And I’ll walk you through how to do that. And then in addition to that, we do weekly coaching calls with the group. So for a couple of reasons. One is in case you struggle with any of the lessons, we can go over how to implement it better. We can go over what some other people are doing within the group who may have a separate take on things in a way of implementing that I haven’t thought of, which is something I thought has been fantastic with the feedback from the groups is I get to learn a little bit too.

I have my ways of doing things, but it’s nice to bounce them off 30, 40 other people and see them tweak them a little bit and see what I like differently about that. So that’s where the weekly coaching calls come in, where we go through some of those ideas. We go through some medical content. If people are stuck on things or not having a good experience with certain things and talk about different resources. Like I said before, we’ll also go through question walkthroughs where we pick up full length questions that somebody picks out of a question bank and we just go through them as a group. And we talk about how each one should be worked through, how different people work through questions. Because one thing, excuse me, I just have a cough shot in because my throat went out earlier today.

One thing that we find is everybody goes through questions a little differently. Everyone thinks that their way is the only way, but there are a number of different ways to approach questions. You know, the simplest thing is to ask, you know, do you start with the answers or do you start with the vignette or do you start with the question? Just there, you can realize there’s three different ways to start a question, right? So there’s lots of different ways to go about it. And we’ll go over a bunch of different ways and what works best for you. And you’ll practice what works best for you as we move through the course.

So a big part of that is through the group, through sticking with the schedule through the daily lessons, we start to build your set of skills for this exam, your preparedness for this exam, and finally your trust in yourself and your confidence that you’re going to get through this and everything is going to be fine. Because unfortunately, that’s a big part of the day of your exam is maintaining that confidence, maintaining that trust in yourself and in your knowledge and in your ability to to get the information out of your head and onto the test paper. That’s really, to me, is the hard part. I think, like I said, most people have the information in your head. It’s getting it onto that piece of paper. That’s the struggle. At least for me, I know on rotations and with preceptors, it wouldn’t be knowing the answer to the question I got asked.

It was getting it out of my mouth and into the air. That was the hard part, right? That’s the transition point. So that’s one of the points that I really harp on during these 33 Days. So that’s the big overview picture of what this program is. Like I said, I opened it up so people could plan at the beginning of the month. So I do have a bunch of people in there already who are pretty active and ready to get started.

We don’t officially start until September 1st, but there are a few pre-preliminary activities and things we have to set up that they’re in there taking care of now. So it’s been really exciting to see that building already. But that’s the overview of how this system works. I had Ealum come on because he was a member of the June cohort who ended up having some wild success on his last attempt at the PANCE. And so I wanted him to come on and share a little bit of his story with you guys. And maybe, like I said, I know that’s a little bit hard for me to explain. And sometimes it’s easier to speak with somebody who has been through it than it is to ask me questions.

So I wanted him to talk a little bit about his story and then open up the floor to you guys to either ask me or him questions or anything else that you’re unclear on. So, Ealum, I’ll let you take the floor. Sounds good. Sounds good. Thanks, Brian. It’s good to see you guys, a couple of you guys. I know this is the weird, do I want to do this or not?

So thanks for coming in. Yeah, so I actually graduated from PA school last fall in the fall of 2021. I, did really well in school. I was like middle to, you know, upper middle of my class didn’t have any issues really with testing, wasn’t knocking scores out of the park, but, wasn’t, you know, in any danger throughout my program, had a really great clinical year, and actually had a job that I was really pumped about, kind of land in my lap, in my last few months of clinical year and was all set up, even had a contract signed. And so I got out of clinical year, pretty excited and ready for my future. And then I took, I took almost four weeks to study for my first PANCE. And I’ve got, you know, like three kids and wife and one of my one of my kids is pretty young, and we didn’t have any daycare.

So I had some at home kind of factors that didn’t set me up great for the exam. But I had been hearing about all my classmates who’s tested a few weeks before me who I did about the same as in school, you know, passing even like not amazing scores, but getting by. So I was like, you know what, I think I’ll I think I’ll be okay for this exam. And then lo and behold, I got back my first results. And it was not nearly close to where I wanted it to be. I got that red X and it devastated me. It crushed me just because of the pressure from home, pressure from the job, and just really the kind of surprise at the situation because I hadn’t really had this on my radar based on how I did in school.

So that was funny. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I’ve had that from a few people now. I don’t know if you guys saw the interview I did with Taylor that I posted up. She had the same exact experience where she had done really well and was like, I should continue. And then for all intents and purposes, I agree with you. Your scores should translate, but that day is a little different than other days. And you’re on a bit of a roll.

So I don’t want it. No, no worries. Yeah. And interject whenever you want there, Brian, I’m happy to happy to get your points in here. But yeah, so I knew I hadn’t set myself up super well with all the personal end of things that kind of interrupted my study plan and made things difficult, but I thought I’d be okay. And then I wasn’t. And it was it was hard.

It was mentally and emotionally. You know, is an implosion kind of feeling. And I don’t, if any of you that are in here are on more than one attempt, you know, it is a very isolating feeling. You’ve been like Brian was saying, part of this knit group for your two years of PA school. And then everybody kind of like splits and takes their tests and starts working and whatnot. And all of a sudden that’s not there. And all that, you know, support you had during school for studying is not there.

And it’s, yeah, it was just extremely isolating. And I also live in Alaska. So at that time, with the timing of things, it was very dark outside as well, which didn’t help with anything. If you’ve read anything on, you know, seasonal depression, that’s a big issue up here. So mix that in with, you know, this kind of event. And it was a rough time for sure. So then I kind of spent the next few months, kind of trying to get myself back mentally.

I even went and, you know, started some therapy and stuff. Cause it was, it was big. And luckily my employer at the time was like, you know what, we’ll really consider you still, just pass it on the next one. Right. And so went back hammered content, got myself in a little bit better of a mental place, but I still, you know, three months to the day had it scheduled, and went back in and again, did not get a passing score. And so, so again, this is like coming off the holidays, and it is PTSD, right? And so there was just there was so many emotions and feelings still swirling around that.

So for the third one, you know, I my whole thought process was like, Okay, well, I guess I just don’t know my content well enough. I just don’t know my content well enough. And so that’s what I did. I just devoted again another three months to harrowing my face into my resources and getting after it and making a better plan and this and that. And so I felt a lot better headed into my third exam. And again nightmarishly i came out on the other side and it was i did not get the big green check mark it was again a red x on the report so at that point i kind of sat down and it was you know it was this start of summer by this point and i was like okay what am i doing that is not working because i i i’m contented out till i’m blue in the face and yet there’s like only minor jumps in score. And so what I really did is broke it down and I was like, I don’t think I know how to take this test well enough.

Whatever it is, like the combination, the game that I need to play to win at taking this test, I have not prepared myself for or it’s just I don’t have those tools yet that I need to be successful. And so kind of sat down with my wife and we were looking through a few things and I did listen to Brian’s podcast as some content and whatnot. And, you know, signed up to get emails and this and that, and had seen his April cohort for the 33 Days. But at that time, you know, I read the email and whatnot, but I thought I was in a better place with how much content I was doing and this and that. And so I was like, you know, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. But then I saw that he had the June cohort coming up. And I actually jumped in one of these calls and listened in and heard him talk about, you know, this is not a review course.

This is a sustained over time prep and focus on all of the tools outside of just content review that don’t get talked about. You know, you can go to different review courses and whatnot, and the content is great, but not a ton of time is spent you know addressing the mental mountain that this test can be for some people or is you know and then just some of us do better with it or not but it’s it is a mental mountain that you have to climb as well as it’s a game like it is a game and sometimes people are really good at playing games and others aren’t and i needed the tools to help me improve and so talked to my wife and we were like you got to do something different and i was like i I need something different. I hope this isn’t just like same kind of, cause I did take a review course before the third one. But I was like, I hope this is different. You know, I’ve trusted Brian through his content and it, it’s been great.

So let’s, you know, let’s give this a try. I need something different. And so I, I signed up and you know, from day one, it’s, it was, totally different, right? Because like he says, and I’ve said now, like we have so much content coming out of school. We have so many resources for so much content, but there’s really not a way to give you tools for the test. So even from day one, this is a foundational layering process. And you need a mental approach that is not going to give you this response like, oh my god, it’s test like everything is so different, right?

If you have a strong layered daily foundation to rely on both mentally both through your approach to breaking down a test question to how you’ve been studying right that that takes time to build and what’s great about this program is brian gives you these different lessons whether it be for studying whether it be for the mental approach whether it be for the actual question breakdown but it’s all a layering process and it builds on each other and you know if you get into this there’s this thing one of the biggest things which seemed at first maybe like one of the smaller things is the he has these things called the dailies where you have to do these five different things every day and commit to that and you know put it on yourself to be responsible for doing that and even just from the get-go just committing to that process even if it feels silly at first was one of the biggest things for me that like ended up so i can go into all kinds of details on the course itself but that’s kind of my story. And for me, I needed those test taking tools. And I know I keep saying mental, mental, mental, but it is like, if you struggle with testing, or you’re worried, or this or that, having this foundational layered system in place makes walking into the testing center an extremely different experience than if you don’t. Sitting down in the test in your cubicle, putting in your your plugs, whatever, you have mental prep that you just wouldn’t have otherwise. Because nobody tells us how to do that. Nobody tells us how they tell us all the content, they tell us, you know, maybe you’ve taken a test taking course or something over the course of your career leading up to this. But like, this is this is its own beast.

And it truly is a game. And Brian’s a coach. And I needed that. I needed that personally. And after, believe me, like the three fail nightmare, I was more than happy. And just so out of my mind when I got my result here. And it’s because I have these tools, right?

I was telling myself before, like, I really hope I pass, like, I’m not a great test taker. After the course, and after I’ve passed, obviously, it’s great, you know, it’s always green on the side. But I walked in there saying not like, I’m not a great test taker, I’m saying like, I’m a pretty good test taker. Like I have these tools, like I have a giant tool bag to use today, that I’ve been using all month. So, I actually, my exam was, almost like three and a half weeks after the initial 30 days ended. But I truly feel like had I taken it, you know, the week after, or a few days after the course, I probably would have had a pretty similar result. Like you can always hammer more content and this and that, but, but it’s these tools that you’re going to develop over the course of this program, at least for me.

And if you struggle at all with tests or you’re worried about any of that, I think that is where a huge impact can be made. So I can ramble. I’m very good at rambling, but I don’t know if Brian wants to add me. Well, I love the way that you say it because you say, now I had this giant tool bag. That’s really what I’m trying to provide, right? Is these tools that you don’t even know exist, or maybe, you know, one or two of them exist, but you don’t realize how many more and how much you can use them together to create a much better situation. And the idea that the whole system, and I know this is where some people get a little frustrated with me in the very beginning because the system builds.

So in the beginning, we start slow and you get one or two things to work on, another thing to work on, another thing to work on, which on day one seems like, well, what do you mean? I’m ready to go.

Let’s go. But by day 30, you’ve got plenty to be working on. So it builds slowly. And like you said, it’s that very, the idea of adding those tools and that foundation so that when you get there, you have everything that you need. One of the most surprising things that for me, after the April cohort and the same thing after the June cohort, was people who reached out to me after taking their exams, didn’t have their scores back yet, but literally reached out just to say, thank you. I felt amazing. I can’t believe how good I felt sitting down to take that test.

I thought I’d be throwing up in a mess, and I wasn’t. I was comfortable. And honestly, like I said in the beginning, that’s a big part of my goal, is to make sure you’re in the best possible position to get the information that I think you already know out of your head and onto that paper. You know, the one thing I thought of while you were talking was we’re watching, I don’t know if you guys are Yankees fans, but we’re watching the Derek Jeter series with the captain with my kids. And one quote that he said that stood out to me was, if you play every day, like it’s your most important game, then when it is your most important game, well, you’re ready already. You’re prepared, right? Most of us show up there in the World Series and are stunned by the lights and the cameras and don’t handle it as well as we thought we should have or we thought we could.

And I think, like I said, that’s a big part of it. There is a ton of content to know. Without question, that’s a big part of it too. And I don’t mean to, sometimes I get carried away at the other end of it. There is a ton of content. And we said, like I said, and you spend 33 Days going through that and some people will, I have it set up so that you can be prepared, like Ealum said, to write as we finish, take your exam. I don’t know if you guys are already scheduled or not, or some people have waited a little bit or been scheduled further out.

And then you can just kind of continue with what we’ve been doing. Either way will work. But the design is to get you through the content, to get you through the material in those 33 Days. So on day 34, you’re ready to take your test. That’s really the point. But it does take time. You know, there is a building process.

It is a layer. Like you said, I like that term, a layered process. It is not a five-day cram course where we’re going to sock you with as much information as possible. It’s not the goal here. There are plenty of really like you mentioned plenty of really good courses to do that i didn’t want to redo something someone else does really really well so i’m going to leave that to them because i do think there are fantastic resources if that’s what you’re looking for this is not that at all and like i said hopefully you heard Ealum’s story you’ve had some opportunities to listen to some other people’s stories i went through the overview for you does anybody have have any questions for Ealum or myself? Thoughts, concerns, ideas, things that are holding you back, things you’re interested in, things you’re not sure about. I did have one question about the notebook.

Is there, I know that it’s not shareable, but is there a way that I can move it on to something where I can highlight, take notes? Currently, there is not. I’m hoping to have that ready, but at the moment it is not okay no worries and I had a question as well so I’m scheduled to take the PANCE in February I graduate in December okay having another like cohort start in January so I’m looking at March or April probably okay is what I’m looking at there will not be one this year there’s a small small chance I do it a little bit earlier in the year But if I did, it wouldn’t be January. It would be probably February, March. I’m looking more March, April.

Okay. And then what would be the last one that you would have scheduled for this year? Would be this one. I’m not, I’m not doing it. Yeah. I’m not, I had considered doing one later on, but it’s, I don’t think it’s going to happen. That being said to me, it’s a balancing act.

I have a lot of people who are in your shoes, who did the same, who joined in April and in June. Who were graduating a little bit further out. And one person in particular, I interviewed during the last one of these, Andy, if you go back and listen to his, he actually was in a situation where he had to pass his last EOR or he failed out of the program. He was on his last attempt. So he joined the program in an effort to say, I’ve got to do something and figured this out. Kind of like Ealum did, where he was kind of stuck and eventually wound up with me for better or worse. And he He found it tremendously helpful for that exam.

So the content might be shifted a little bit for you because you’re not graduating a little bit later as far as how we move through the PANCE prep content and what the group is working on. But the lessons we go through and the group itself, still incredibly valuable for you and things that you can then use and hold onto as you move forward. So to me, I wouldn’t dismiss that. It’s just a question of where you’re at and what you want to do. But the like I said so so the schedule won’t be as valuable to you but the lessons we go through will absolutely apply to where you’re at and where you’re going okay awesome thank you yep I have a question right yeah sorry no go go go all right Ealum I’m in like the exact same situation that you’re that you were in I same thing wrote you know higher middle ground failed my first attempt thought you know that’s a fluke got a tutor studied same thing failed again and then the third time around I was like there’s no way I’m going to fail I know everything failed again So I was, I’m worried about the next time and about the content. Like, am I going to see the same stuff again? Is there anything else?

Like they could even ask me at this point. Do you like, I’ve listened to Brian, Brian’s podcast, like on the way to school, on the way back, you know, for years. And I just feel like, I don’t know what I’m missing at this point. Yeah so as far as if they’re changing the content and what content’s changing right none of us can know that but the nccpa unfortunately but i totally understand where you’re coming from right because you probably like like i said like I like mashed my face into either PANCE Prep Pearls or whatever it may be that your resources are just being like i i think it’s just because i don’t know enough right and i think what this program changed for me right is I knew plenty. I knew plenty. But at least for me, like on exam day, it was accessing that, it was having a plan, a strategy for actually attacking the test, getting into a game day mental space that allowed me to walk into that exam center in just such a better mindset than I had the previous three, right? Because it’s so hard, right?

It’s, it’s traumatizing. Like it is a trauma. It is PTSD. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Walking in there, like after you’ve had to walk in there and then knowing you’re going to have to walk back in again, when you get that score, like it is mentally, emotionally, like we could fit into, probably some of these diagnoses that we’re studying, right. And psych and behavioral, unfortunately, but, and that’s why this was so impactful for me, right?

Because it is, if you commit, this is the big word, right? With is if you commit to what Brian is saying to do not only on the daily, but as he gives you these different tools, both on the mental, just like everyday prep, but also like how to like attack, like attack the exam and break down questions and not let the exam, you know, play you, like you are playing the exam, you are playing the game, you are in much more of a controlled state than like, than I was previously in the previous three attempts. And my assumption is like you, like Brian will say, but he, it’s his program, right? And I’m not just like fanboying here. Like you, I guarantee know so much more than this exam is telling you, you know, I almost guarantee it. And so the big impact for me truly, it was, what can I do every day to them when I walk in there the next time? No, I just have so much more prepared to actually specifically attack this exam and mentally be in a place to walk in there to attack this exam.

And I’m so sorry to hear your circumstance. Cause like I, we, you know, unless you’ve been through this, this many times. And, like it is, it is a hard thing to understand, like how that feels. So, yeah, I would think if you’ve already had a tutor and this and that, like, I really don’t think, and Brian will echo this. I’m sure like content is not your problem, especially at this point, right? You need, you need a plan for the exam day and for shifting your mind in a way that’s going to allow you to just incrementally increase your chances of doing well. Like Brian will say it’s improving odds, right?

If we can improve the odds a small amount with how each question, even on an each per question basis, right? It’s a 300 question test. It’s huge. But if you can increase your odds on every question by a small amount, that’s going to add up, right? And it’s that kind of methodical approach and the mental combination that for me was like made the switch flip because I jumped up over 90 points. I was going to ask you if you wouldn’t mind sharing your scores. Yeah, my third exam, I’d only gone up incrementally and it was bad on the first one.

But my third exam was a 331, I believe. And then my passing score was a 422. Two. And, you know, looking at some of those questions I missed after there were some of them, I remember that 50, 50 or whatever that I, that I was on Brian. And I was like, Oh, that was a hard question, right? Like one more, this or that, but it was getting to that point. Yeah.

So I jumped up what 91 points, I think it was, which is huge. That’s more combined points than my previous, previous increments, right. In one test, like more, more than more than that and then if you listen to is it tabitha right if you listen to if you listen to the interview he does with taylor who’s another student who’s very similar situation yeah she jumped up 120 points right and it’s a similar story but i think what her and i both did is as crazy at times or whatever you however you interpret what Brian asks you to do every day you got to commit to it. You have to commit to it. And at first it’s kind of like, what are we doing? But like, okay, like I’m going to do this. Like, what am I going to do at this point?

Like, there’s nothing wrong with me. Like I’ve tried everything. So like, let’s, let’s try this. And it was crazy, crazy how much of a difference it made. So I don’t think you have a content issue. I think it is. I do want to point out that going up 90 or 120 points, or even I haven’t set a couple people now in 50s or close to 200.

Those are amazing. And I do show what’s possible, but they’re also very, those are big jumps. I’m not expecting that for everybody. You know, honestly, the average out of the June cohort was a plus 67, which I thought was amazing as I’ve gone through it.

Now, I haven’t heard back from everybody. And obviously, that’s a little skewed because people who didn’t do so well may not reach out to me to tell me they didn’t do so well. So it’s not 100% fair to use those numbers either. But overall, people who have, like Ealum said, really bought into the program, have done very well and have really moved forward. But that is a big part of it. Like I said, if you sign up for this, you’re signing up for something a little bit different. And I’m going to be asking things of you that are a little bit different.

At the beginning, you are going to think, oh, I don’t need to do this. Oh, I’m okay with this. Oh, I don’t need that. Unfortunately, those are all the things you do need and all the things that we’re working on. So I do ask that you buy into the system and work through it because that’s a big, big part of it. And actually, you can hear that in a few of the interviews that I have posted. In there are the people who in the beginning said, oh, this is, I’m not, I don’t need that.

I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. And then at the end said, like, just like Ealum did. Nope. That was the most important part. Jeanette asked in the chat, do students meet through Zoom meetings each day for the 33 Days?

No, absolutely not. No, for me and for you, no, that would be insane. I don’t want to take up that much of your time. Part of when I designed this was to balance your time and your, what was the best use of your time, right? I didn’t want to take up your studying time. I didn’t want to be over-involved and sort of make me the center of attention. That’s not my goal.

Like I said, my goal is to have you pass this thing. That’s my number one goal. So that being said, I post a recorded video lesson somewhere between, I think the shortest is eight and the longest is probably 45 minutes, something like that. That is all inside the app. You can listen to them on the go. Some of them you may not want to listen to on the go because they may be more complicated for you. You may want to listen to once or twice.

Some of them you can easily listen to on the go and you’ll sort of feel that out as you’re going through it. So the commitment, the daily commitment I ask of you is to get on that lesson. Like Ealum mentioned, I do have five daily activities I ask you to do. Those should take you about half hour, 45 minutes, maybe an hour tops. So there is a time commitment to the whole thing of maybe an hour and a half per day in that range, depending on how you do things. But I’ll talk you through that once we get in it. Then the rest of the time, quite honestly, is yours to work through your material.

And then however much time you want to spend in the group, answering questions and going back and forth in there. But the design is to not get in your way and not take up a ton of your time. I do not want that to be part of this. The Zoom meetings that we will have will be weekly. Just once a week, we’ll get together and we’ll talk over the struggles, those problems you’re having, things you need help with, the lessons. And like I said, and we’ll do some question walkthroughs in those as well, the things that I can most help you with. But all of that will always be recorded and posted inside the app for you so you can follow it up later.

I do not want to have a time commitment for you. I already have two or three people in who have three kids. I see Tabitha has one hanging out for her here. I’ve got kids. I know how hard it can, and I’m just using that one example. There are lots of reasons why people have stuff. Some people are working.

Some people are still in school. There’s all kinds of reasons. I went through the idea of having a set meeting time daily or even more frequently. And I said, you know what? I don’t think that’s the best use of our time. I think so it’s set up to be once per week. If you can make that meeting, I think it’s helpful.

I think there are a lot of ideas that get bounced around in those weekly meetings that I think you want to be part of. But if you can’t make it, that totally makes sense. And I will always have those recorded, provided my technology works and post it up for you. So that’s the very long answer to the, do we meet daily? No, we do not meet daily. And like I said, as much as possible, it’s prerecorded and loaded in for you, but I am available in the groups available to you most of the time. Should you have any other questions?

Like I’m, I’m four hours, behind Brian, right? So if he has a meeting in the morning or something like that, like I’m not getting up at 4am or whatever, whatever the circumstances were, but I still was able to access all that content. And then he’s great at responding to emails and stuff like that, which I don’t know how you respond to all those. But he’s awesome about it. So that should not be the gate that prevents you if you’re on the fence, whether or not you’ll be able to make all the meetings or do this or that. So just my two cents. I have a question.

I was wondering if you’d be able to just give a sample of one of the days of the 33 Days, like what does like, is like the content cardiology. And then we watch like one of your videos and then we do whatever we like would study for that day. I really appreciate your question because I, this is where I do struggle to get the point across and why I like to have people come on who have been through it and have been really successful because it’s a, like I said, it’s hard for me to compare it to other things. So what does a typical day look like? I guess is what it would be the easiest way for me to change your question to something that I can answer. Cause the way you phrased, it’s a little bit hard for me to answer. Typical day looks like, I post in the group and in an email to you and into the app, the lesson for the day, usually about eight o’clock in the morning.

I’m actually figuring out a way to automate that. So it’s to be more precisely at eight instead of it’s mostly at eight. So it’ll be eight o’clock in the morning, that lesson will go in. Those are about 10 to 45 minute long lessons that you can listen to whenever you like. Those lessons are the foundational layered skills that we’ve been talking about. Those are the tools that I’m teaching you to bring the best version of you to your exam. Those are the lessons I’m teaching to go through and show you how to get in the best possible space, how to read and write and answer questions, how to the easiest ways to retain information for a specific test.

All of that each day will be one of those topics in a very specific order so that you have time to practice those skills and time to learn them by the time we get to the PANCE and I start with the most important ones. And we sort of end up with things that are a little quicker, a little bit easier. Then each day is also a calendar for you. So that’s set up for the month ahead of time of what material you need to cover.

So let’s say, I think it’s day one to four is cardiology. So you’re going to spend day one to four covering cardiology, however you best see that fit for you. But the entire group does that at the same time. I don’t want to say together because we’re not meeting on a zoom call and going through a, a, you know, a strict lesson on cardiology, that’s up to you. So you’re going to move through the material with the materials that you have and work through that. All of that is then, like I said, the group is moving at the same pace. So you can ask questions in there.

You can have people have set up study groups in there, but that’s the standard day. Then once a week, like I said, then we’ll get together and we go over some information, go over any other questions you have. I hope that’s a little more clear. I know it’s a little bit, a little bit, like I said, a little bit different than the way things typically run. Does that help? Thank you. Yeah, that did help.

Like I said, my goal was not to create something where I recreated the podcast episodes I did and walked through the medicine. And that’s really the lectures I would be giving if I were putting them in front of you in this manner. So I decided that would be kind of silly to redo that. That’s all available to you. And like I said, I am one, I’m confident you have a lot of content knowledge to begin with. And two, I’m confident you have a lot of study materials to begin with. Most people who get to me have twice as many study materials as I want.

And that’s actually one of the first things. One of the first posts I have up in there for people inside of the group right now is to have them choosing their study materials because most people need to cut it way down and have way too much. So my goal wasn’t to add to that. It was to make it a manageable amount that you can work through. I think adding to that creates its own set of stress and anxieties. How many practice questions would you suggest we do per day? That’s always a tough question, Stacey, because that’s a very individual question.

I love practice questions. I could do hundreds a day and not study anything else and do just fine on my test. But I am a test taker through and through. That’s how I learn. It’s what I do. I make flashcards. That’s all.

I do tons of test questions. Other people like test questions, do okay with them, need to do a lot more. Some people will recommend 50 or 100 per day. I think it depends a lot on you and the material that you’re covering. Like I had said to Michelle, what I recommend or what I would do is if I had four days to do cardiology, I would spend the first two days just studying content. I’d spend the third day working on test questions, and then I’d bounce back and review it all on that fourth day is the way that I would handle it. That’s going to be a little bit different than somebody who would recommend doing test questions every single day.

It’s also going to be different as you move forward. During this program, I also require that you do a full length practice exam, because I think it’s really important to do a lot of questions and to get the feel for how long that actually is, how much work that actually is and how you feel during that exam. So that’s another big part of it. So to answer specifically how many, I don’t recommend a specific number because I think it’s very individualized, but I think there’s ways you can feel it out and see what works for you. It also depends. I also talk about inside the program, a couple of different ways to go about taking questions too and answering them. So it’s a little, it’s a more complicated question than you think is what I’m trying to say.

All right. Other questions, thoughts, concerns, things that don’t make sense. I had another question. Someone had mentioned earlier about a notebook. I was just wondering if you could clarify what that was. I might have missed it in the beginning of the video. Yep.

So as part of the content that I do provide is, so like I said, so people ask about content. And for me, when I went into this program, when I designed it, because this was last March, last February, March, I started getting emails from people who had failed their exams. And it was more and more people than I normally get, right? Usually I get a small trickle of people who had failed their exams. I was getting a lot of people. And to me i wanted to design something where i could help them the most i could possibly help them right and after everything i’ve seen after everything i’ve done to me the answer was strategy and mental tools it wasn’t necessarily content it was i i’ve always built a lot of content to help people that’s what like i said that’s what the podcast is that’s what the time the notes are. But in the back of my mind, I know it’s the tools that will be most valuable to people.

So when I built this program, that’s what I had in mind is how can I get these tools into people’s hands in the fastest way possible that will help them the most. And then I added in on top of that, obviously, the first question that people ask is, well, what do you mean? You’re not covering medical content. How am I supposed to get better, right? How am I supposed to do this? And so my initial answer is, well, you have the podcast always available to you. That’s certainly one option.

Then the second option, Michelle, is Wallace’s Notebook, which is, I’ve been putting together now for probably six months, and I keep saying it’s almost done, it is almost done, is the guidebook I’ve been building that takes all of the notes from the website and puts them into a really nice, really well-formatted structure for you. And you get a digital copy of that as part of the program and which the book hasn’t been released yet it is 99 done i have to add in a couple of like thank you pages and stuff to the front and the back but honestly this running this cohort these cohorts have taken up most of my summer so i haven’t gotten to finish that but that’s in the works is getting that completed but you will get the the rough draft version which like i said the content is 99 there and then it’s just missing like the table of contents is a little wonky and the front the back are a little need some added pages for it that i should have thank use and things. So that way, that’s where I’m saying that there is content inside of this that you do get. You get that entire, all of the notes from the website, all really, really nicely formatted for you, the podcast, all that stuff you get. If you’re looking for more content, there is more content available to you. That’s what that is. That asks, do you recommend we rely on a test bank or the NCCPA practice to take full length exams?

So the NCCPA practice exams aren’t full length, right? At least that’s my understanding. Those are 30 questions, 20 questions, 60? 120. 120.

Okay. So they’re not full length. I go back and forth. And if you’ve been wanting to read the emails, you’ll see I have a love-hate relationship with the NCCPA practice exams. I swore I would not take them because they were dumb and I didn’t need to. And then I took them and paid the money for it and whatever. I did it and it’s fine.

And that’s sort of how I go back and forth. I can’t see not using them, but I don’t want to use them because I don’t think it’s tremendously valuable, but I think, I think you have to, but they don’t make full length exams. So that’s a whole separate thing is if you want to go ahead and do that, I do think you need to have practiced. If you haven’t taken the PANCE, I do think you need to have practiced a full length exam one way or another. If you take this course, if you don’t take this course with me, please, please, please do a full length practice exam day. It is a lot of work. It is a lot of mental stress and a lot of focus, even when it’s a practice.

And you need to see how that feels. So even if you don’t decide to do it with us, that’s great. Please pick a test question bank out there and do at least one full length exam with them. I think it’ll tremendously improve your odds just based on how you feel when you’re done with it. Yeah. And I would say, even if you have taken the exam before and failed and you’re coming here, we can all benefit from more mental stamina and having that built to the program. I mean, it helps.

It helps because that’s not a regular thing you do. And so even if you’ve already done it and you’re like, Oh, I know, I know how long it is, you know, like if you don’t exercise your legs, you’re not going to be able to run a race very well, especially if you’re not training for a marathon, same, same concept here, at least for me, like it was, it was helpful for sure. No, I think that’s really important. I think people are taken by surprise when for some reason they can’t read for five hours straight and feel good about it.

All right. We’re getting up towards an hour and I know Ealum was nice to join us today. So I just wanted to be conscious of his times. Anybody have anything else before we wrap it up? Anything else we can help or answer for you? Hi. Hello.

Can you hear me? Yes. So I’m kind of in the same boat. I’ve failed three times and I’m scheduled to retake. Yeah. In the middle of September and I’m contemplating postponing it and joining this next cohort. And I’ve just really struggled with like motivation to even study.

And, you know, it’s like, I don’t know where to turn as far as like holding myself accountable. And at this point, and how does the program play into that? And, you know, study sessions and you set those up on your own. And how does all that work?

All right, I’m going to pass this one off because you can answer it better than I can. Yeah so brian has if if only you’re on your own and which i found myself just because my time change you know i messaged with some people in the app and whatnot and you know had a few kind of interactions but for me i ended up doing a lot on my own still just because of my kid’s schedule and being significantly off other people’s time zone schedules. But Brian has a way that’s built into the daily activities that at least for me was a big accountability factor and a way to not only for him to like, see how you’re doing, but also for yourself and to go in and keep yourself accountable day in and day out throughout the 33 Days. It’s also a great way when you are having a rough day to go and look, at one component of how much you have done and how far you have come just in these 33 Days. And for me, it was added on top of the fact that, you know, we’ve been doing this process or, you know, whatever it you want to call, you know, the last nine months plus, of your life. Right. It’s, it’s, it’s a measurable way to know like, Hey, this is something I’m doing to work towards every day and look how far I’ve come.

So for me, that accountability came in how he kind of tracks things. And it’s a very productive way to do it, a little unique. And you can also see how other people are doing as well. So even if you don’t make any connections in the app, you can check in via this system on how others are doing and how much others maybe struggled yesterday, you know, because we’re still living our lives. People are working, going to school, have kids, like some days are really hard. Right. Yeah.

And, and again, like I was telling Tabitha, like we, if you failed multiple times, like it, it doesn’t get easier to, you know, go and keep doing laps around the same track, of sorts. So, that for me was like, was a big factor having that and just feeling like, even if I didn’t communicate all the time with other people in this group. Like there were other people doing the exact same thing I was doing and struggling on days and having big successful days, right? And there’s a way to look into that. But I know Brian has talked about it and I know other people were able to connect and even maybe not meet every day on Zoom, but meet in a capacity to have somebody else to study with. Again, I am probably not the best example for that just because of the conflicts and the regional issue that I have and my own personal commitments. But I did see that within the app and I did interact with a number of people within the app just and answering questions and firing back and forth.

And I don’t know how you’re doing, but it, like I said at the beginning, it is a extremely isolating process to not pass and then to not pass multiple times. Extremely isolating. And so I feel you there. And to have even just a little bit of community of others that are doing the same thing you are doing made a big difference for me. But that’s not to say like they weren’t 33 Days of just like, oh, my God, I love what I’m doing. This is great. But it gave a framework for some consistency and a framework for at least at the bare minimum sense of community to be slogging through with other people.

And you see other people like building each other up, too. And that’s something that was very different. Right. And again, this is coming for me, which most of the days I was studying on my own. But I mean, that that was a factor of the many factors of positive outcomes from this program. That was one of them. And it did help with that.

That kind of crushing isolation, for sure, because it’s that’s very real. And I feel for you as well. And but yeah, that was big for me. So I don’t know, Brian, if you want to add anything else. The only thing I would add is obviously, so it’s a little bit odd for me because you have Tamara on one end of the spectrum and Sarabeth on another end of the spectrum, right? So talking to both of you and trying to make that make sense. One of the ideas as far as the accountability, I actually stole an idea, and what Ealum was talking about.

I’m not going to share exactly how I do it here. I stole an idea from somebody else on it just diabolical and got me to finish a project. I was never going to finish. This guy had a great system. So I stole it and I implemented it here. And it works really well for most people and provides that accountability. The other thing that it provides accountability is the group itself, right?

The group dynamic, all working toward a specific goal. You see people making progress. You see people talking to each other. You see people and not necessarily, like I said, it’s not like everyone’s working directly with each other, but you just see people in there making progress. And you’re like, oh man, I need to make some progress as opposed to on your own saying, oh, I could probably take today off. What’s the difference if I take today off? I’ll get back to it tomorrow.

So the group dynamic has become very strong in the sense of keeping people moving and getting that motivation and getting that accountability. I’ve heard people in some of these discussions and interviews after the fact say, they got a little behind and then they were like, oh man, I think people are watching and seeing what I’m doing. Nobody’s watching you per se. No one’s keeping in tab, but you definitely get that feeling because you’re in a group, right? And yes, there are a handful of people who have set up study groups with smaller groups and have met more frequently. That’s great. That’s fine.

That may be one thing you can do because if you’re in a position different from everybody else, that may be something that you want to do. So there’s a couple of different ways that we keep you accountable. The other one is as far as motivation goes, is the calendar. It’s also one of my favorite things. And surprisingly to me was a favorite thing I heard from people following is the content calendar pushes you along. You don’t have a choice. You can’t take time off because you won’t be able to keep up and you won’t be able to catch up.

Quite honestly, it’s not a ridiculous pace by any means. I think 33 Days, a lot of these courses are five-day cram courses, right? So you can get through it, but you’ll find it’s enough to keep you moving and enough to keep you motivated in most cases. So I think for a whole slew of reasons, it’s a good fit. Let me just put it that way. Thank you. Oh, my pleasure.

Yeah, so there’s a lot of different perspectives. And that’s kind of one of the things I really like about this program is there’s a lot of different people in it. There are people like Tamara who are not having graduated yet and are looking forward. You know, I have a bunch of people who still haven’t graduated from the June cohort. And I was just reaching out to them the other day. They’re like, no, leave me alone. I haven’t taken my PANCE yet.

I still have all this other stuff to do. I need to know your score. What do you mean? This is about me. It’s not about you. So I have people from that spectrum. I have people who are on their fifth PANRE taking this.

And we have people, a bunch of people who have failed once or twice or three times who are taking this. So it’s a nice mix, a nice group of people. So you get, like I said, that community feeling. To me, almost like Ealum, it wasn’t something that I expected to be as a part that I would have used as much. I’ve been in groups like this before. And personally, I like to work by myself. That’s just the way that I do things.

And I found that I’ve gotten a lot out of the group and a lot out of the people inside of these groups and had a lot of, just learned a lot from them and gotten a lot of, like you said, a lot of motivation, a lot of movement from being part of something. Let me see. We have one more question in here and then we’re going to wrap up because we have been, we are at an hour and I want to, like I said, my job is not to interfere with your evenings. If we don’t have our whole day open to study, how do you suggest we tackle the information, study high yield topics, more than between clinicals and exams that I’ll get behind?

Okay. So I believe that you’re still in school. That may or may not be correct. Yeah.

Okay. So sorry, it’s a direct message. I’m not sure how much you wanted me to share or not share. So the question is, if I’ve got other stuff going on, right, how do I keep up? How do I tackle what you want me to get through? How do I get through everything? If my days aren’t free.

And like I said, there are a lot of people in this program whose days are not free. 100% my days are not free. There’s a lot of people who, and I don’t know, in Sarabeth’s position, you have work, you have other things to do at this point. There are other things to do besides this test for some people, not everybody. Some people are 100% focused on just doing this. Some people are still in school. There’s a wide range of things, right?

So I go through with you, you ask about high yield topics. I will go through with you very early. I can say two, I can say three, what I do to get through the most information. Excuse me. I don’t want to say the most information I can get through the most important information. That’s one of the very early things, early on things that I teach is my very specific style for covering material and covering information and teaching you how and throughout the process is teaching you how to see what’s most important and how to learn from that perspective. What’s most important for this exam?

How do I pick that out? How do I spend time on that? And how do I then move on? Because one thing I find people really struggle with is spending too much time in the weeds. People spend hours and hours and hours trying to learn everything. And I’m going to attest to this. I will tell you hundreds of times, you cannot learn everything.

It’s not possible. No one questions it, right? Because you know that there are libraries and libraries and libraries full of medical information that you will never, ever know in your lifetime, but still you feel like you have to learn every detail and it’s a dichotomy, right? That’s it’s, it’s how do I do both? I will do my best to teach you what I do to avoid that conundrum and get you through the material as fast as possible while getting the most important things out of it. Cause I think that’s one area people struggle with. They have trouble seeing how to separate the really important from the kind of important to the not so important to the absolutely don’t need to know stuff.

And I’ll teach you, I actually have a whole lesson on how to go through that and how to separate all those out and why I do it, how I do it. And it’s not an exact science. It doesn’t work perfectly, but man, if you’re crunched for a time, you don’t have a choice, right? You have to start deciding what to cover, what not to cover, how to get through the material and where to put your focus because you can’t focus on everything. And that’s what a lot of people try to do. So the long-winded answer to your question is, if you’ve got other stuff going on, time will be a factor and you’re going to have to manage that. But I’m also going to teach you a little bit on how to do that and put you still in your best position to get through what you need to get through.

And that may not be everything. Quite honestly, it may not be. And if your exam isn’t until February, you may not need to get through things in the same way. And I will absolutely explain what I mean by that on the inside because it’ll make a whole lot more sense but it takes a little longer than I want to give it tonight but you don’t have to cover everything in this and in the same depth that someone who’s covering who’s taking it you know October 5th is going to need to cover it but I do recommend that you get through it and again there’s a system for it and I’ll explain it all once we’re inside does that make sense Ealum, did I say that at least close to close to accurately yeah I think as best you can without launching into another, you know, hour, an hour at least. And that’s, you know, that’s the thing too, it’s, it’s building process. So you may learn something early on, but it’s implementing it every day and adding it that is going to increase your, your skills, increase your ability. So, yeah.

And then some people don’t agree with Brian, but he’s going to give you everything that he has. Right and i know some people in our cohort use some of it maybe didn’t use all of it but like blended some of it in right we’re all we’re all individuals we all learn differently we may have learned earlier in our career than we do now you know like everybody’s coming from a different place so but that’s the cool part right he’s going to talk to you about studying testing mental like it’s it’s not just like one aisle that you have to stay in into to improve it he’s going to give you multiple. And that’s what adds up to that, you know, heavy weighted tool bag you get to carry in on test day that you didn’t have before. So maybe heavy and weighted maybe wasn’t the best adjectives, but I think you guys understood what that was.

All right. Well, let’s wrap it up for tonight. And I want to thank everybody for showing up, Ealum. I want to thank you for coming on board. It really is helpful having somebody come in who can speak a little differently from a different perspective than I do. So I do appreciate you coming in here and thank you to every one of you for showing up. I do appreciate you guys stopping by and helping me to make this a little bit more clear for everybody else as well.

Take care. Good night. Thank you. Good luck, guys. See ya. Obviously a ton of fun, obviously an amazing human being. And I want you to see, especially those of you who are struggling, how intelligent, what a good person Ealum is, that just because he’s not, he struggled with the test, just because you’re having troubles doesn’t make you a bad person, doesn’t make it that you don’t belong or that you’re not smart enough or that you’re not as good as the other people around.

It’s just not, simply not true. This is just one hurdle. You’re having trouble figuring out how to get through. And one of the reasons that people struggle is because they’re using content review to fix skills problems. In 33 Days to Pass the PANCE, We fix skills problems by teaching skills, by demonstrating tools to help you improve with retention, improve your test taking, and improve your anxiety management and your peak performance so you show up on exam day and get the best possible score you can get. If you’re interested in joining us, registration closes on Thursday, January 22nd at midnight, but you can go to physicianassistantexamreview.com/33, just the numbers 33, to find out more and to register.

All right take care have a great week and look forward to talking to you again next week