1: Welcome to Board Rounds with BoardVitals

Check out our 25% Black Friday Sale now through 12/1/2025 at https://medicalschoolhq.net including our 1-on-1 advising and MCAT Winter Immersive Course! Session 01 The Medical School Headquarters and BoardVitals are going to help you prepare for your first board exam with questions, pearls of information, and guidance to make sure you have what it takes to score high and match into your specialty of choice! Board Rounds is a podcast for medical students as they prepare for Step 1 or Level 1 of the USMLE or COMLEX exams. Please follow us along with all our other podcasts on MedEd Media Network. BoardVitals is an amazing test prep company that helps medical students and almost everybody in health care with their exams. Whether it's the Shelf Exam while you're doing rotations or your clinical years, or even later on as a physician studying for your boards, BoardVitals has got something that will help you every step of the way! Today, we're joined by Dr. Andrea Paul and learn all about her journey and all about BoardVitals. [02:00] About Dr. Paul and BoardVitals A physician by training, Andrea took the Internal Medicine route and transitioned to Pathology residency until she decided to pursue her business idea before proceeding with her clinical training. Hence, the birth of BoardVitals, which she has been running since 2013. What got her into the field of medicine was having family influence having family members who are doctors. Following the traditional path, she enjoyed science and realized she loved learning and being involved in the education component more than the practice of medicine. [03:10] Her Thought Process in Jumping on the Education Route In residency, Andrea realized that the way people were studying and learning was inefficient and really low tech. She thought it was crazy and that she had to figure out a way to put content into a material that's more accessible and that it can be used wider than just one residency program. This was when the idea was born, starting with some medical specialties and working backward. Then they ended up focusing on all the medical student exams. Over the last five years, BoardVitals is now in 60 different all professional and medical exam areas covering everything from surgical tech, radiology tech, and nursing, all the way through to medical students, pharmacy students, and nursing students. Plus, the various medical subspecialties as well as some of the dental and podiatry areas. "Once we had a good platform and system, we realized that you just need to insert the content into that same learning system and it really works for every different area." [05:35] What Correlates to a Good Score Andrea explains that what correlates to a great score is to spend a number of questions that people take -- simulated exam questions with good, detailed explanations. Textbooks, lectures, or other things didn't move the meter as far as getting into that top core area but the number of questions that people did really made the difference. This then became their sole area of focus. They have questions along with detailed, informative explanations for each question. [06:45] Finding People to Write Their Questions The company has over 400 physicians, nurses, etc. across all areas that are creating their content. They look for people who have recently taken the exam or those involved in academics teaching students to prepare for a specific test. It's an expensive series of review afterwards. The initial writers go through medical editing and copyediting. Then, the get some feedback about any updates or changes that recently came out submitted right to their editors, who respond within two business days. [08:40] Medical Students Preparing for the Boards...

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