Step2Haki
Clinical board briefs for USMLE Step 2 CK and the clerkship shelves.
Live: https://step2haki.vercel.app
What this is
A study reference built the other way round from a textbook. Each brief starts
from the decision a question actually turns on — the one finding that separates
two diagnoses, or the trigger that licenses the next step — and works outward
from there. Disease description that would not change an answer is left out.
Every brief carries the same spine:
- the decision point — the fork, and the word or finding that settles it
- defining criteria, when the question turns on a stated threshold
- a mimics table or a management ladder, whichever the question earns
- a decision spine — the questions to ask the stem, in collapse order
- a scenario bank of variants that each change the answer
- the traps, named by the mechanism that makes them tempting
- a transferable rule — what to carry to a question you have not seen
Briefs cross-link: where two topics share a complaint and diverge on one
finding, each names the other and stores the discriminator as a question.
Using it
Shelves. Step 2 pools everything; each shelf narrows it to what that
clerkship tests. The choice is in the sidebar and travels in the URL —
?shelf=peds opens there, so a shared link lands where you meant it to. Shelves
are added as they are written.
Study mode masks the answer column, the transferable rules and the criteria
definitions, so a brief becomes something to answer rather than something to
read. Tables reveal as you work down them.
Scenario banks toggle between Review and Quiz. Review shows the whole chain;
Quiz turns each item into a question with the prompt the exam would use.
Review puts five briefs in front of you at a time, in study mode, chosen by
a spaced schedule — briefs you know come back at widening intervals, briefs you
miss come back tomorrow. Mark each one and it reschedules itself. There is also
a quiz mode that interleaves questions with no surrounding brief, for cold
retrieval.
Profiles keep schedules apart when several people use the same link, and
sync across devices, so the phone and the laptop stay on the same rotation. A
backup code is available for anything the sync cannot reach.
Structure
discriminator-briefs-site/
index.html the whole study page — no build step, no dependencies
api/progress.js sync endpoint; without it the page runs on local storage
DEPLOY.md setup and update notes
Updating
Push to main and Vercel redeploys. Progress lives outside the deployment, so
no upload can disturb it, and new briefs join the review rotation on their own.
One rule: never rename a brief's id. Ids are how deep links, cross-links and
everyone's review history find a brief. Move briefs between systems freely.
Caveat
Assembled from question-based study sessions. Clinical content reflects standard
board material and is unverified against primary sources except where noted.
Guideline-dependent figures — screening intervals, vaccine schedules, treatment
thresholds — change. Check USPSTF, ACIP/CDC, or the relevant specialty society
before relying on anything here clinically.
A study aid, not a clinical reference.
