Pathoma (book and lectures), USMLEWorld Q-bank, South Biochem, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple, BRS Physiology (5th edition, Linda Costanzo), Robbins and Cotran Review of Pathology, First Aid 2013, Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy, Kaplan’s Q-bank, Goljan audio, NBME exams, Kaplan Q-book.
I first bought Pathoma during the school year since we got a good deal on it as students. Same with a USMLEWorld Q-bank that I didn’t touch until last week.
In April, I bought: Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple, BRS Phys and studied from those, borrowing a Kaplan Q-book and Robbins and Cotran Review of Pathology from a friend to do micro questions. Was thinking about buying Lange/other pharmacology flashcards, but decided not to after reading reviews.
Later, I of course bought First Aid 2013 (new and improved from the 2012 version and much less errata), and also Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy (for reference) and my own copy of Robbin’s Path (see above). I also bought Kaplan’s Q-bank last-minute last week just in case, but I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to do it yet.
Other resources include: Goljan audio (a classmate at school also downloaded short-audio versions, which is great to put on an mp3-player/ipod), South Biochem (audio and handouts) and NBME practice exams. Hopefully no one sues me for putting this up or takes away resources because of this post T__T.
Medical school ended around March 22, which was about 9 weeks ago or so. Most of my MD classmates start clinical clerkships this week, so they all had to finish before May 2. However, us MSTP’s have an extra month because we still had grad school throughout April. From what I’ve heard from upperclassmen/current MSTP classmates is that people in the grad school “themes” all finished 2 weeks ago, and that they either have tests or had a presentation or two on journal articles related to their classes. Each class is also usually only about a month long. I, on the other hand, actually had it pretty tough this time since I’ve decided to do a Nutritional Science PhD, which is off the beaten track, so I have to pioneer the way so to speak. I only had 2 classes this semester, but both were whole-semester long classes that only ended last week, with writing assignments every week (this is all on top of taking all the regular med school classes mind you), and one of them was a grant writing class that also had a couple quizzes and required a grant proposal written throughout. The final grant proposal was due last Monday, which was the same day my final review paper was due for my other class (along with other projects) Basically, April for me was spent working on grad school – Class 1: writing/editing the grant proposal and peer-reviewing other people’s grant proposals for hours, and preparing a powerpoint scientific presentation on a paper (which takes hours for me, even for a 15 minute presentation), then Class 2: Researching/preparing for a mock, taped interview session (on acupuncture), researching and presenting another powerpoint scientific review on green tea, then preparing for a consumer presentation on the topic with a handout that also took hours T__T, and finally, writing a review paper (on different studies!) on green tea. I should say that the grant proposal was on the Paleo diet. So no overlap between classes unfortunately, which many of the other students were lucky enough to be able to do. (My topic for the Paleo diet was already chosen by someone else so I was told to choose something else for the other class). I think the mindset of studying for tests and med school is drastically different than the mindset of a writer/presenter. I never really realized that so clearly even in undergrad with my double major in the humanities and the sciences. But here, while trying to flip the way I organize my thoughts so much in such a short space of time, I have recognized that they really are like two sides of the brain. Needless to say, studying was very difficult in that context.
So, not much studying was done during April, and I am currently left with basically the same amount of time as a regular med student (or maybe less since I didn’t study for Step 1 at all during med school except for chapters 4-5 of Pathoma during Heme-onc, which I re-did anyway for Step 1). There are two major things that I did accomplish in April though, and that is to go through all of South’s biochem review (audio along with the handouts) and read through all of Clinical Micro MRS (minus the last 2 chapters on antibiotics in the future and a recap of diseases for bioterrorism, both of which I just skimmed), and did a few micro questions in the Kaplan Q-book and Robbins Path. I may have also gotten in a few chapters of Pathoma and BRS phys in. Hah, so I did do a little more than I thought, phew.
Since last week, which was my first week of full day studying (which I was not nearly as productive at as I should have been…), I did Pathoma, BRS Phys, and First Aid (FA) for pulmonary and 1 question block on UWorld for it. Man, going through answers for the test block took literally 4 hours, I kid you not (and I thought my friend who just took it was exaggerating when she said that… she was spot on.) I also did manage to go through the same 3 resources for GI and finish a question block, but that was all for the week (including yesterday). I suppose I did lose a couple days because of clinical orientation on Thursday and I flew home Saturday (listening to Goljan and annotating FA on the way as best as I could with a passenger that kept trying to talk to me on the 4-hr leg of the flight >.<), but still, it’s been hard to focus.
So yes, need to really ramp it up. Did Renal on Pathoma yesterday, and a question block for hepatobiliary on UWorld that I am currently going through right now before I decided to type this up hehe. I am way behind my schedule (I thought I’d be done w/ MSK and onto neuro by now HAH as if) so my goal today is just to catch up as fast as I can – hopefully after going over questions, I can finish Renal on FA and BRS phys and do a question block… won’t be too expectant that I can do much more than that.
Oh a comment on studying schedule – I’ve only been doing like <8 hrs previously, but starting yesterday I’m doing around at least 10 hrs, waking up at ~6:30am (thank goodness for jet lag in my favor here) and working until 10pm, with breaks for meals. I have heard that an avg of 12-14 hrs a day is normal at this point (and really should have been true starting at least 4 weeks out from the test).
Ok, I think I’ve spent enough time here… I hope it was somewhat helpful on understanding the life of a med student while studying for boards and what the timeline should be like for your own studying if you decide to go to med school. I would eventually like to also post some of the crazy/weird mnemonics/ways of remembers stuff I’ve come up with on a separate post to keep track of all of them, but we’ll see if I have time haha.