Bad at biochem prior to dedicated... worry about it yet?

[MackandBlues]

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So I've been making my way through USMLE-Rx and another bank prior to dedicated in May but there's been enough questions to notice a trend. I'm doing very badly at biochem, genetics, embrology and anatomy. Should I work on those topics now prior to dedicated or worry about relearning them in dedicated? Thanks!

 

[OrthoRehab33]

Definitely not an authority on this- as I'm in the process myself. But I was weak in immuno Biochem and micro and I worked my butt off during Xmas break and the past few months to bring up these weak points. It's definitely paid off during UW questions, not doing amazing or anything but at least I get a few and the explanations don't have me in the dust. Step 1 is about being well rounded and always working on weak points (imo), but I'm sure there's plenty of ppl who killed boards on here and only used dedicated

 

[tvelocity514]

So I've been making my way through USMLE-Rx and another bank prior to dedicated in May but there's been enough questions to notice a trend. I'm doing very badly at biochem, genetics, embrology and anatomy. Should I work on those topics now prior to dedicated or worry about relearning them in dedicated? Thanks!

Depends how bad you are doing. I realized in biochem and some parts of immuno, I had 0 knowledge in so I have been doing about 3 hours a night in those hours recently so that I can just do UFAP during dedicated.


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[worldbeater]

In general for biochem, know that when your missing an enzyme, everything before it will "back up" (higher serum values) and everything after it will decrease. Know the starting enzyme, the end product (what is the point of the cycle), and the intermediates that World is quizzing you on. You don't have to memorize every substrate. Known the rate limiting enzymes as well. I am not the best in biochem, but I was told that if you know it well it's one of the easier subjects. I find that hard to believe..haha.

 

[malin]

i used half of my spring break to go through kaplan's biochem videos. that certainly wasn't all the preparation i needed as i then had to go and re-review it all later. what i might do now is try to review a little bit of biochem everyday. all i really knew was first aid biochem but i used kaplan biochem to help make sense of it all (annotating from kaplan into first aid).

most importantly for biochem--at least for me--i used picmonic to learn half the biochem section. picmonic was gold for learning the multitude of diseases and the 1) enzyme defiency and 2) 3-6 symptoms, as well as the 10 things you needed to know for each vitamin. if you have a friend who uses picmonic and can screenshot the pics off of their account, i'd highly recommend using picmonic to learn the biochem section, and then keep review the pertinent parts of first aid as you go through uworld.

really try to learn the biochem as you go through uworld as well..

 

[Kazaki]

It's easy to get overwhelmed when it comes to biochem. Know what's in first aid, if you need to do kaplan to understand the stuff in first aid then go ahead. If you need to read a book then do that. BUT! don't sucked into it! when you know how a pathway is regulated, how to explain the symptoms of a metabolic or genetic disease, then you know that you've mastered that concept.
This is my personal opinion...we're probably not going to see a question on biochem unless its linked to pathology or pharmacology in some way. i.e. they'd give you vignette of a patient with Hers disease and ask you something about the deficient enzyme, the pathway or mutation, or someone with familial hypercholestrolemia, why would you prescribe a certain drug over the other? But that's just my opinion and that's the way I'm going about biochem and genetics
All the best