USMLE Anyone use Boards and Beyond?

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SLM914

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Has anyone found Boards and Beyond to be helpful? It's styled like Pathoma, which is great... but I haven't seen any reviews of it specifically. I can't really tell from the sample videos if it is worth the investment.

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I did and found it to be quite useful. Very clear and concise.
I am going to use it again a week or two before the test since it is the quickest way to review the subjects.

Disclaimer: I received a free trial.
 
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I received a free trial as well as did a bunch of people at my school. Great stuff. Well worth the investment. It was a matter of time until someone took the Pathoma model to other subject areas.
 
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I bought it. Tbh I feel like I wasted my money on it. A few good explanations but most is pretty basic.

150 for an unfinished product is too high. And he only has a year long subscription when I needed 6months.
 
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Great for basic info. Not so great otherwise. Kind of reminds me of khan academy for organic chem.
 
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Hi everyone - Amazon and iTunes figured out a long time ago that "Big Box" stores would go out and consumers would go online for their wares. This model works just as well with medical education, but it is simple: despite the competitive process to be accepted to medical school, there is very little incentive to improve the "business plan" and make it consumer friendly. Enter Boards and Beyond and Pathoma. These resources are nascent "disruptors " which are in the process of reforming and improving the way medical students access information. One thing remains true: no matter what, it is 100% up to you teach yourself and be disciplined about learning - no matter how good a resource is, it is only as good as the commitment you make the resource work for you, and then to understand and learn.

All this being said, my two cents: I was very successful with Boards and Beyond, Pathoma, and Qbanks (Kaplan and UWorld). It is simply not necessary to listen to lectures. The physiology of heart disease will be best understood taught by an experienced cardiologist (Boards and Beyond) who has an incentive to teach you the material. Is GI cancer taught better by an experienced pathologist (Pathoma) or your basic scientist lecturer, who is an ineffective teacher and has no clinical experience?

The medical profession will be better off by offering more skilled teachers available to more students via the internet, and I am truly grateful for Boards and Beyond and Pathoma, because I used both resources heavily, which paid off not only for exams, but I also credit these with my ability to cogently answer questions when pimped. It is not because I memorized, it is because I understand (...ok, and then memorized once all was understood).

I refer you to my original post, pasted below. The basic sentiment is that if you follow its advice, you will do well in your second year, do very well on boards, and then do very well after that when pimped in third year. Good luck everyone, if it worked for me, it can work for you too, and this will be very good for the future of patient care.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...dy-throughout-m2.1098501/page-2#post-15907135
 
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I bought it. Tbh I feel like I wasted my money on it. A few good explanations but most is pretty basic.

150 for an unfinished product is too high. And he only has a year long subscription when I needed 6months.

They just added micro vids. Maybe some of those will make you feel like you got your moneys worth.

Watch the videos on brainstem lesions, EKGs, and acid base. I found them pure gold - very HY and way above anything I got from school lectures. Some of the 3rd years at my school watched his EKG lecture for rotations. It's hard to think past STEP1 but nice to know I am learning stuff that is useful down the road.
 
They just added micro vids. Maybe some of those will make you feel like you got your moneys worth.

Watch the videos on brainstem lesions, EKGs, and acid base. I found them pure gold - very HY and way above anything I got from school lectures. Some of the 3rd years at my school watched his EKG lecture for rotations. It's hard to think past STEP1 but nice to know I am learning stuff that is useful down the road.

I have. Just still feel like 150 is a bit steep for it. Even some parts of the older material I feel they missed some topics.

And I know some people got free videos a while ago, so I wonder if all these super positive reviews are from those people. My 2 cents tho.
 
Bump. Watching some of the vids on youtube and he reminds me of Dr. Sattar... anyone use this resource?
 
Just wondering, why would the videos not be recommended for Step1 dedicated studying? Is it because they're too basic?


I'm with you as well. I would use it as an adjunct to my main sources but don't rely on it as a main source, simply bc the videos don't cover every single topic that you need to know. But they are solid and I'm definitely using it during dedicated if there's a concept I need to brush up on or refresh.
 
I absolutely love Boards and Beyond. I find that Boards and Beyond videos are amazing and I really liked Dr Ryan's flow of teaching. It's really simplistic yet gives you an extremely comprehensive overview of what one needs to know for step 1. I took a 3 month subscription (by the way, they have one month, 3 month, 6 month and one year subscriptions now and almost every system except musculoskeletal), finished all the videos and annotated them into FA, and this took me like 2 months (around 4 hours a day inclusive of notetaking and distractions). Wish I knew about these videos earlier, would have really helped in first and second year of med school. I know someone said that some of the info is not high yield, but in the NBME tests, non-high yield questions definitely crop up a lot and if you know those little extra facts, it can improve your score by several points. I think it was a great investment and all of this guy's videos are gold. That being said, while the videos cover non high yield info, they don't do it in an overwhelming manner; rather it's all extra facts geared towards the test and practical application of info and not nitty gritty details about untestable stuff. I also love the fact that there's no accent and his line diagrams are just so easy on the eyes.
 
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