1st Aid - to annotate or not annotate?

[AK_MD2BE]

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Perusing this website and the various posts, it appears as if people fall into two distinct camps on the whether or not to annotate front. The differing beliefs seem to be:

1. Don't annotate 1st Aid b/c it is such a high-yield resource...so why would you want to clutter it with minutiae?

Versus

2. 1st Aid is merely a skeleton. You must completely understand every topic presented in a very thorough manner...annotate the poor book until it bleeds!

Do you just annotate the Path/Phys portions and not annotate the rest? Is that what people mean when they say FA is enough for the other subjects?
So, please help out all of us soon to be MS2's as to whether or not we should annotate our 1st Aid book (please state the "why" also).
Thanks for your time. 🙂

 

[Pinkertinkle]

I vote for annotate. Just don't over do it. The high yield facts should be pretty apparent once you're doing enough quesitons. I annotated mine and had no trouble going through it quickly.

 

[txguy]

Alot of my annotation into FA consisted of mechanisms--UW and Goljan scared me into learning them haha. Besides, knowing the mechanisms aids in your memory 😀

-tx

 

[medhacker]

Alot of my annotation into FA consisted of mechanisms--UW and Goljan scared me into learning them haha. Besides, knowing the mechanisms aids in your memory 😀

-tx

Mechanism help no doubt in memorizing. I personally learn better with mechanisms than with raw memorization of facts. However, how mechanism heavy is the actual exam?

 

[cdql]

Personal preference I feel.

I opted to annotate only very, very, very, very, very important items. I maybe put short one item per page.

Granted, it makes reviewing FA a bit more difficult because you need to be near a computer and your other in-depth review books should you want to review something deeper.

But I prefer that method to the annotaters method. It makes my heart sink to open FA and see an entire page of solid text (most of which, by the way, is probably useless anyway)

 

[Medikit]

I vote for annotate. Just don't over do it. The high yield facts should be pretty apparent once you're doing enough quesitons. I annotated mine and had no trouble going through it quickly.

I agree with this.


There's really no wrong answer here. Do whatever comes naturally.

 

[rspr41]

Do whatever suits your style of learning. Personally I annotate the heck out my first aid that way I have all the information I need in one book instead of looking through my books as reference. This especially helps when I'm trying to remember mechanisms because the test is more about the WHY which is what First Aid really lacks....

 

[DragonWell]

Could someone in the annotating camp give an example or two of the sort of things you find helpful to add to first aid?

I started annotating first aid, but found that usually the facts which struck me as high yield enough to add to the book, where, in fact, usually already in there somewhere, perhaps not on the page I wrote it on, but in another section.

 

[txguy]

Could someone in the annotating camp give an example or two of the sort of things you find helpful to add to first aid?

I started annotating first aid, but found that usually the facts which struck me as high yield enough to add to the book, where, in fact, usually already in there somewhere, perhaps not on the page I wrote it on, but in another section.

For acetaminophen toxicity, you use N-acetylcysteine....so you could annotate the "why" or mechanism of this.....

-tx

 

[sandg]

Just another view point here...

The only sections I annotated were those I felt weak in (such as skin path and musculoskeletal path) or those for which FA was my major source (e.g. added to the biochem section from Lippincotts when I wanted more detail). For the weak areas, the act of integrating additional facts into what was presented helped solidfy both in my mind. In areas in which I felt strong, I simply used FA as it was as a checklist near the end of board study to make sure I had covered everything.

 

[UCLAstudent]

I annotated a TON. My book looked ridiculous. Pages were filled with notes and summaries from other review books, especially the beginning pages of each chapter where there's a lot of blank space. Biochem, in particular, was heavily annotated. It was helpful in reminding myself of what I studied in the weeks prior --- however, I mostly did it because I learn very well by writing things down. You just need to figure out how you study best. I don't do well with pure reading --- gotta write it down! 🙂

 

[AK_MD2BE]

What are the most important sections to annotate in FA?

 

[SeventhSon]

I vote for don't annotate or keep it to a minimum.

The bigger principle though, is keep things compact and compartmentalized. If annotating the hell out of FA keeps you maximally organized, such that by the time you get out of class and have less than 3 weeks till the test you only want to look at one book or two, then annotate first aid.

Personally, my eyes would hurt if I tried to annotate FA to completion, but for many people that would not be the case. I think you are better off leaving FA alone and writing down in a different piece of study material.

 

[ginger60]

I annotated FA waaaaay too much and couldn't read through all the crap I wrote when I wanted to do a final review, so for my final review I just read what was in FA and only a few annotations on certain subjects I was bad at. Having taken the test and having received my score I know that not re-reading my annotations didn't hurt me at all. However, I'm the type of person who learns best by writing things down in my own words and so the actual act of annotating rather than the annotations themselves helped me a lot. If you are also that type of person, then by all means annotate the hell out of FA so that you have one reference source and learn the facts FA leaves out as well as mechanisms. However, realize that in the days before the test you should really only be reviewing truly high yield things--facts in FA--because that is what the vast majority of the test is made of and you will get overwhelmed if you try to do more. In all likelihood, if you wrote down the mechanism or the "why" of an FA fact at one point, you'll be able to remember it during the test regardless of whether you reviewed it a few days before; however you won't remember either the fact or the mechanism if you don't know your FA facts cold.