Reading

[stereotactic]

Hi guys,

As a new PGY2, I'm faced with the daunting task of reading about a few thousand (tens of thousands?) pages worth of textbook and papers. How do you guys do it? Honestly I feel like if I just start reading Perez Brady, my eyes start to gloss over after about 10 paragraphs and I probably only retain the first sentence....and if I start taking notes on it, well...they'll prob end up being as long as the book itself. Any advice on how to start the monumental task of studying for this specialty?

Thanks!

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[Cancerdancer]

As I new PG-3, I remember (and still experience, at times) your bewilderment . I found the Haffty/Wilson book to be a nice intro book to topics, as it has more of a narrative than the Roach book, and doesn't get too bogged down into numbers and details. Its chapters can form a nice backbone to the basics of management of a certain subsite, then you can dive into Perez/Gunderson (or Rad Onc wiki) for more detailed information as your understanding of the basics improves.

Also, I did very little reading outside of the topics relevant to each rotation I was on, and accepted that I would finish my first year rather ignorant of the areas that I didn't rotate through--no one seemed to notice or mind, and my inservice scores in those couple areas were still respectable, so obviously not all rest of your cohorts are mastering all topics either. Good luck!

 

[iradi8u]

Like cancerdancer, I'm a PGY3 who remembers (and still experiences) that feeling. I find that reading the pertinent Haffty or Hansen/Roach chapters at the beginning of each rotation and focusing on the pearls, staging, and natural history of the disease, I have a reasonably educated approach to my rotations. I then add in Perez or Leibel in small chunks to fill in the blanks. I look at the PGY-5s and realize that they didn't know much when they started & can now recite pertinent data like the ABCs, so I figure the training will get me there.

I wouldn't sweat the heavy-duty reading just yet.