It is satisfying to work on a topic area you are already good at. It feels gratifying and makes us feel good about ourselves. Additionally, you are probably good at the topic because you find it interesting. The problem is that exams and life as a doctor will find a way to test you on your weaknesses. You can only do as well as the weakest link in your knowledge.
Focus on your weaknesses!
Doing one hour of work on one of your weaknesses will reap far greater benefits in terms of overall understanding, knowledge and exam results than an hour’s work on one of your strengths. This relates back to the learning curve. If you are strong on a subject, chances are your learning on that topic will have plateaued. Starting afresh on a new topic will give you greater gains to start with. A good analogy is a person weightlifting. Someone new to weightlifting might do a training session for the first time. The next time they train, they might lift an extra 50% of the weight from last time. A professional athlete, by comparison, may train for a year and add only 1% to their personal best, and be happy with that result.
Our knowledge on a single topic can become held back by our knowledge in other areas. I have found on many occasions that when I am struggling to get to grips with a topic, moving on and learning about a different topic altogether allows my brain to make new connections and patterns of thinking. This then means that when I return to the original topic, it is far easier to get to grips with and understand. Time spent learning other skills can allow you to transfer those skills back to the original topic to help you reach new heights not previously possible.
A good example of this was a weakness I had in immunology. I did not put much effort into learning immunology in medical school. I learnt the most superficial level to get through exams and completely forgot everything shortly afterwards. I never really understood it. Then, in late 2017, I decided it was time to really get to grips with the topic. I sat down and read through several books on the topic. I challenged myself to understand every detail and create a set of notes and videos on the topic. Suddenly, so many things that seemed a bit mysterious to me in the past started to make sense. I started to understand autoimmune conditions, autoantibodies, antibody testing, antigen testing, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and the pathophysiology of conditions like HIV, hepatitis C, lymphoma, leukaemia and myeloma. Addressing my weakness in immunology unlocked my understanding of many other conditions and processes in the body.
So start with your weakness. Identity which topic areas you feel least confident about and hope never come up in your exams. Even better, test yourself on a broad range of topics and identify your weaknesses from your scores. Then, attack them with everything you have until they become your strong areas. This applies to every aspect of studying medicine and to anything else you want to do in life.