Start with biochem: 1 day on carb and lipid metabolism in the First Aid Guide. Then 6 days: half a day of endocrine pharm (the insulin videos explain the physiology), 1.5 days of active reading of First Aid pp. 330–361, 1 day of Mehlman, half a day of FA Foundation Anki, and UWorld for the rest.
Read this first
This is only for you if you have roughly 10–12 hours a day for studying, and you're an intern or a graduate.
Working, or studying 5–8 hours a day? Keep the same order and stretch the days. Step 1 while working →
Endocrine doesn't start with endocrine. It starts with biochem. Diabetes is built on glucose metabolism, and every steroid hormone is built from cholesterol. Spend 1 day on the metabolism of carbs and lipids first, and endo clicks.
Then you begin with pharmacology, half a day. Pharmacology is very important here, because the Sketchy Pharmacology videos explain the physiology of insulin and the biochemistry of carb and lipid metabolism. They make a lot of things clear before you open a single endo page.
After that, every step is the one you already know from the other systems. Mehlman is very good for endo.
Start here · before page 1
Endocrine: micro and pharm first
Endocrine has no organisms, so there is no Micro pill. It has a Pharm pill with 4 drug groups, and that is where Day 1 begins: the insulin videos explain the physiology of insulin and the biochemistry of carbs and lipids. These are the full guides.
Endocrine is the 5th system, right after reproductive (repro → endocrine is a fixed order), with 1 day of carb and lipid biochem in between. Cardio comes last. Tap a system to open its guide.
Biochem is never a block of its own: each piece sits right before the system that needs it. The whole method, once: how to study any system →
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1 day before Day 1Carb and lipid metabolism, from the First Aid Guide
Before beginning endocrine, spend 1 day on the biochem of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Just understand it, by active reading in the First Aid Guide: Focus On, the explanation, then the MCQs on each page.
Why right before endo: glycolysis, glycogen and insulin are what diabetes is built on, and every steroid hormone is built from cholesterol. Read them the day before and the insulin page (p. 338) and the adrenal steroid page (p. 339) read like a review. The amino acid pages (pp. 79–83) wait until before heme-onc.
9:15 AM–1 PMPharm: insulin and sulfonylureas (Sketchy), then metformin and the SGLT2 inhibitors (Osmosis). Each video twice. Read them in the High-Yield Pharmacology PDF, then the endocrine pharmacology MCQs.
9:30 AM–1 PMBlocks 11–12 (Qs 201–240): solve both in tutor mode, log each score, then review every bookmark in First Aid.
2–6 PMFA Foundation Anki revision: the endo cards you missed on Day 4. Then check the 3 finish rules below.
Same pages, 5 angles. Pharm, then active reading, then active application, then active recall, then UWorld. Every step hits the same 32 First Aid pages from a different direction. The method behind every system →
Want a day-by-day schedule that tells you exactly what to study next? The Vault builds it around your exam date.
Endocrine in the First Aid Guide on usmlevault.com: its First Aid pages, MCQ count, the micro and pharm pills it has, and the How to do Endocrine video.
Pharm · the FWRT method.Find the resource (already mapped for you, below) → Watch each video twice, back to back → Read the High-Yield Pharmacology PDF after all of them, and highlight only what did not survive → Test in the First Aid Guide → Endocrine → Pharmacology.
01 · Insulin (Sketchy)
02 · Sulfonylureas (Sketchy)
03 · Metformin (Osmosis)
04 · SGLT2 inhibitors (Osmosis)
The most mixed-up row on the map: metformin and the SGLT2 inhibitors are on Osmosis, not Sketchy.
Already did the pharm block months ago? Watch the Sketchy insulin video again today. It sits in the pharm block, so most students pass it long before endocrine and then meet insulin here without it. Watching it first clears up a lot of what follows.
Why pharm first in endo: the insulin video teaches you how insulin works and what it does to carbs and lipids. When you reach the insulin page (p. 338) and diabetes (pp. 350–352), you are reading about something you already understand.
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Before Day 1 afternoonWhat the First Aid Guide is, and why you read it
First Aid was written to remind you, not to teach you. Every line assumes you already understand it. That is why IMGs spend 3 hours on 1 page, Google half of it, and still remember nothing a week later.
The First Aid Guide on usmlevault.com puts the teaching back into the page. Every endocrine page (pp. 330–361) has the same 5 parts:
Focus On: what on this page is high-yield, and what to skip.
Concept Walkthrough: the page in the order you should think about it.
ELI5: each heading in plain English, with the trap the exam sets. What ELI5 is →
How is this tested?: Common Confusion → Core Concept → The Trap → Your Approach. See a real page →
Test Yourself MCQs on that exact page: 185 across endocrine (as of October 2026), with a Rule-out button so you practise elimination the way UWorld makes you.
Example: p. 338, Insulin.
Focus On tells you what matters on this page: insulin synthesis (preproinsulin → proinsulin → insulin + C-peptide), C-peptide to tell your own insulin from injected insulin, insulin's anabolic effects, which GLUT transporters need insulin, and the secretion mechanism: glucose → ATP → K⁺ channel closure → depolarisation → Ca²⁺ influx → exocytosis.
First Aid p. 338 (Insulin) in the First Aid Guide: Focus On, the ELI5s, the video guide, Concept walkthrough, Key takeaways, How is this tested? and Test yourself.
Why it works: you understand the page, then prove it with MCQs in the same minute. 60–70% of UWorld traces straight back to First Aid lines, so a page you truly understood is a UWorld question you already own.
Open Endocrine in the First Aid GuideFirst Aid pp. 330–361, page by page: Focus On, ELI5 and the MCQs on every page. Opens straight into endocrine.
Day 1 afternoon → Day 2Active reading: First Aid pp. 330–361
Active reading means that for every page you explain it, understand it, and do it. The MCQs are part of the reading. That is what makes it active. You do not move to the next page until all 3 are done.
Read Focus On for the page. Now you know what matters.
Run the Concept Walkthrough and the ELI5s. Explain each heading back in your own words, out loud. If you cannot say it, you have not understood it.
Read the actual First Aid page. It should now read like a summary of something you already know.
Solve the Test Yourself MCQs. Any miss → back to that heading before you turn the page.
Pace: 10–12 minutes a page, 4–6 pages an hour. Do not memorise. Understanding is the only job on these pages. Memory is the Anki step's job.
Day 1 afternoon · pp. 330–341 · development and physiology (12 pages)
You understand endo. Now you learn how the exam asks it. Mehlman's videos take each high-yield topic and show you which clue rules an answer in, which one rules it out, and how to get from the stem to the answer.
My note: Mehlman is very good for endo. Give it the full day.
Videos, not PDFs. The value is the reasoning, and the PDFs do not have it.
The full endo playlist, in order. Not random clips. Watch the how-to video below first.
Pause before he answers, and answer it yourself. Anything that exposes a gap → open that First Aid Guide page and fix it the same day.
Short on time? Sort the playlist by date and watch the last 3 years first.
Why: active reading gave you the facts. Active application turns facts into decisions, and a decision is the only thing a UWorld question asks for. How to use Mehlman →
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Day 4 morningActive recall: FA Foundation Anki
What it is: the FA Foundation Anki deck is First Aid, page by page. 1 high-yield point per card, and the First Aid page number is on every card. The Endocrine deck is 146 cards (as of October 2026).
How to use it: run the whole endo deck in this half day. Answer before you flip. If you hesitate, open that page in the First Aid Guide, read the line plus a couple of lines above and below, then go back to the card.
Why: this is your third full pass of endo First Aid, and the first one done without the page in front of you. Recognising a line and pulling it out of memory are different skills, and UWorld tests the second one.
Example card · FA Foundation Anki · EndocrineA type 1 diabetic is found unconscious with a glucose of 35 mg/dL. Family gives intramuscular glucagon and the glucose rises to 120.
Why does glucagon release glucose from the liver but not from skeletal muscle?
The liver has glucose-6-phosphatase, which turns glucose-6-phosphate into free glucose it can export into the blood. Muscle does not.
Run the FA Foundation Anki · Endocrine deck146 cards (as of October 2026), First Aid page by page, with the page number on every card. Opens straight into the deck.
Day 4 afternoon → Day 6UWorld endo: the RPSR method
Now you open UWorld. You are not meeting endo here. You are proving you already own it.
UWorld settings
QuestionsUnused
SubjectsAll
SystemsEndocrine only
ModeTutor, untimed
Block20 questions
Solve. Do 2 blocks of 20. Bookmark every question you got wrong and every one you got right by guessing.
Review in First Aid. For each bookmark, find the exact First Aid line it came from, highlight it, and read a couple of lines around it. 5–6 minutes a question, no more. Then the next 2 blocks.
Target:65% or above. If your last 2 blocks are under 60%, go back to the Mehlman videos for those topics, then the First Aid pages behind them.
Endocrine has about 240 UWorld questions on the USMLE Vault schedule. That is 12 blocks: 4 on Day 4, 6 on Day 5 and 2 on Day 6 (the plan above). Keep going until the 3 checks below are true.
Endocrine is finished when every endo UWorld question is attempted, every miss is traced to its First Aid page, and your last 2 blocks held above 65%. Not when a date passes. When is a system actually finished? →
Later, for your NBMEs: NBME Booster Anki · EndocrineThe endocrine questions from retired NBME forms 20 to 34 and the Free 120, as cards. Not for now: open it when your NBME phase starts. What the Booster is →
Do not open UWorld on Day 1. You will score 40%, decide you are bad at endo, and you are simply in the wrong order.
Do not read First Aid to memorise it. The reading days are for understanding. Memory is the Anki step's job.
Do not skip the page MCQs. If you cannot answer them, you read the page. You did not learn it.
Do not split endo across weeks. 6 days in a row. A half-done system behaves like an undone one.
Do not start endo without the insulin video. It sits in the pharm block, months earlier for most students. Watch it again on Day 1.
Heme-onc runs the same way. Heme-onc uses this exact shape: 1.5 days of reading, 1 day of Mehlman, half a day of Anki, then UWorld. Heme-onc in 6 days →
The schedule puts the biochem day and the insulin video in front of endo.
Enter your exam date and your hours. Every biochem piece lands right before the system that needs it.
Build my schedule →
