Dr. Himanshu Gupta has secured Rank 62 in NEET-PG 2018 exam. He has done his MBBS from MAULANA AZAD MEDICAL COLLEGE.
Interview
Q. In what year did you pass out your MBBS (Completion of Internship)?
Ans. 2016
Q. What were your MBBS percentage marks (aggregate or final year)?
Ans. 58.3
Q. What ranks had you secured in any previous PG medical entrance exams you gave?
Ans. Rank 54000 in NEET-PG 2016.
Q. Could you please tell us something about yourself?
Ans. I am Himanshu Gupta. I have done my MBBS from Maulana Azad medical college. My father is a physics teacher and my mother is a mathematics teacher. After one year of intense studying, studying has become a passion. I like to learn new things. I have tried my hand on learning the new language, magic tricks, guitar and outdoor games like tennis. Though I am not perfect in anything. My aim in life to help as many people as I can in whatever way I can and make lives easier.
Q. What is the secret of your success?
Ans. There were many secrets. First was consistency, not even a single day used to miss by when I didn’t study, it doesn’t matter if I had a PGI exam or AIIMS exam or CBT exam, 8 hours minimum every day if I had a class someday it would be included in that. Second, having a false belief in myself from the first day I started that I will somehow make it. You have to stay positive at every point of your preparation no matter how bad you are. The third was the sacrifice. You should be able to sacrifice who you are for what you want to become. I had made a lot of sacrifices like there were no movies, no outings, did not go home, eating simple food and didn’t go to home for over one year.
Q. How was your internship?
Ans. My internship was fine. I focused on learning procedure during the internship and living my life.
Q. When did you seriously start preparing for the entrance exam?
Ans. I started preparing for my drop year from February 2017.
Q. How many hours did you study each day? How long do you think students need to prepare for cracking PG medical entrance exams?
Ans. I was a below average student and I had to give an above average effort. What I believe if you have to achieve something, you really want to achieve something you have to do that thing 24 * 7. You have to try studying all the time while you eat while you walk and even while you go to the washroom. You have to think about studies all the time. Though I was not able to do that but if you keep that aim in mind then you’ll be able to make an effective 8 hours a day. Effective means if you study 11-12 hours effective will come out to be 7-8.
Q. Which books did you read for the theory part?
Ans. Study as much as you can whichever best book is available in the market. I am telling you no book will waste your time or money. In the mbbs years try reading good books that will help form you make good concepts.
Q. Which books did you read for the MCQs? Which MCQ books were the most productive and which were least?
Ans. “I used theory part more from MCQ books and MCQs I used various online portals. Every book is productive if you read it multiple times, no book is least productive though. What I read
Anatomy, radiology, anesthesia – Arvind Arora
Physiology – Soumen manna
Biochemistry – Rebecca James
Path – Devesh Mishra
Pharma – Gobind Rai Garg
Microbiology – Apurb Shastry
Forensic – Sumit Seth and Arvind Arora
Psm – Vivek Jain
Optha – Utsav Bansal
ENT – Sakshi Arora
Medicine – MuditKhannaa and I read Deepak Marwah because I had joined sir’s class also.
Surgery – Pritesh Singh
Obs and gynecology – Sakshi Arora
Paeds – Taruna Mehra
Dermatology – Saurabh Jindal
Psychiatry – Praveen Tripathi”
Q. Which subjects did you focus on?
Ans. I focused on path pharma micro and short subjects. You have to be good in every subject. Once you have done with these you change your focus to weak areas because only that will improve your ranks.
Q. What were your study methods? How many revisions did you do for each subject? Did you make any changes in your study methods in your recent attempts?
Ans. Revision is a continuous process. Whatever you’ve read, you have to re-read it within 15 days, once you get confident you can re-read it in 30 days. You have to revise daily for 2 hours remote things. You will see once you finish reading something 6 times you ll start getting confident in that thing. I revised notes around 10 times and books 3 times. Revisions were more for weak subjects.
Q. Did you do any special preparation for image-based questions?
Ans. For pathology, I did see images from Robbins. Anatomy I used netters atlas. I looked at instruments in whichever book I got. You can Google images also you feel like seeing images are being picked up from Google in AIIMS exam.
Q. What was your strategy for the exam day? How many questions did you attempt and why? How many do you think you got correct?
Ans. In the exam, you need to stay calm. You don’t have to worry much if you don’t know questions. You don’t have to worry about results. You have to be very neutral, you cannot be too confident or less confident. Just try to feel it’s a normal exam and then you ll be able to perform better. This is what I really did.
Q. Do think there should be a different strategy for preparation of different entrance exams like AIIMS-PG, PGI and DNB CET?
Ans. For PGI and AIIMS you have to do previous year questions. Minimum last five paper you have to do and there is no upper limit.
Q. Did you join any classes or test series? Was it useful?
Ans. Yes, I joined AIIMS T and D. It helped me in forming a routine. I joined Devesh sir class, Pritesh sir, Utsav Bansal sir for opthalmoDeepakdeepak Marwah Sir. If you are weak in a subject you should definitely join a class because it will help you form a good Base.
Q. In which field do you want to specialize in? Why?
Ans. I want to specialize in radiology. I feel like it’s a blend of so many subjects and you have a good quality life in radiology.
Q. What seat have you been allotted in counseling? Did you join?
Ans. Ill be joining MAMC radiology
Q. What is your advice to future aspirants?
Ans. My advice. Study as much you can. Avoid wasting time on FB, gossips instead do MCQs in that time. There is no shortcut to success. But there is nothing to be scared if you study more no matter how much you remember you ll definitely get a pg seat of your choice. Whoever tries to get a good rank will never fail, your every effort to study will get in vain. Remember koshsish karne Walton ki haar nahi hoti. Try study each and every study without any vacations or long breaks, it should not depend on your mood or your days’ work. Always stay positive that you will one day make it there no matter how bad is your time.
Q. Indian PG entrances are highly competitive, so to crack them students end up in appearing for multiple PG exams with some of them having the same exam with different slots and papers, please extend your views on this and their pros and cons of appearing in multiple PG entrances.
Ans. I don’t feel like there is any competition today in this era. There is a lot of distractions when you 25, so if you cut out on your distractions alcohol friendships social media you ll feel competition is less. But if you don’t put efforts you ll have a lot of competition. The topics for most of the exams is same. If you have prepared well you should not have problem whichever exam it is.
We are ending this interview with our hearty congratulations and best wishes for future to this talented person, Dr. Himanshu Gupta.