To anyone who has taken USMLE Step 1 already....what is the level of detail you are expected to know for the drugs? Do you have to know how every single drug is eliminated, if it's safe in pregnancy, whether you need dosage adjustments in renal insufficiency, etc? I want to make sure I memorize what I need to know, but if I can avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary details, that's a plus. Any tips would be much appreciated!

That's the point of the test, nobody knows what will be on their respective tests. You are expected to have broad knowledge of EVERYTHING. But for pharm, everyone seems to believe that first aid is all you need. But don't forget to do as many questions as you can...and learn from doing them :D .

I personally found first aid to be pretty worthless in terms of studying for pharm. That isn't to say that there isn't enough info -- there definitely is. It's just that it doesn't highlight key drug-drug interactions, side effects, etc. First aid just has lots of lists, and each drug has like 5 side effects listed. Waste of time. I found the BRS pharm cards to be awesome. I used them almost exclusively, and I can say with confidence that the drugs that were on my test that I didn't know were in neither source.

FA is all you need for pharm, but I agree that it's poorly organized - just random lists and everything seems to have "rash, hypertension, headache, GI disturbances", etc. etc. Pharm was SO FRUSTRATING to study for and I really was so fed up with it by the end. But the thing is - the boards really hammers the autonomics, which is actually pretty decently covered in FA. Know all those drugs cold. Then focus on the CNS drugs, and then cancer drugs. I had about 10 pharm questions on my test and 90% of them were autonomics related. If you study FA and know that, especially the pharm section and the key points that are highlighted, that should be enough. There may be a few random difficult questions on the exam that weren't covered in FA, but they are so off-the-wall that I don't know if you could get them even if you read a pharm book cover to cover....

you only had 10 pharm questions?!?!!

isn't this like 20% of the exam at the minimum

So just to confirm again, people have taken Step 1 recently still think that FA is enough? Do you think its worth coupling with Pharm recall ie a question source?

THnx

Drug Name
Indications (vague is OK)
MOA -- know well
CLASSIC side effects
CLASSIC contraindications (no amoxicillin if EBV for ex.)

you only had 10 pharm questions?!?!!

isn't this like 20% of the exam at the minimum
Isn't the exam 350 questions? That would be just under 3%.

To anyone who has taken USMLE Step 1 already....what is the level of detail you are expected to know for the drugs? Do you have to know how every single drug is eliminated, if it's safe in pregnancy, whether you need dosage adjustments in renal insufficiency, etc? I want to make sure I memorize what I need to know, but if I can avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary details, that's a plus. Any tips would be much appreciated!


You can't know everything about every drug. It's almost impossible. Learn what's in First Aid. It's really good. I wouldn't bother trying to learn too much outside of that, with the exception of Qbank. You should be set with those 2 resources.

Isn't the exam 350 questions? That would be just under 3%.


I was also surprised by how few pharm questions there seemed to be on my exam in retrospect. The vast majority was path/pathophys if I remember correctly....