Best book to prepare for internal med.

[ibavraham]

Hey Guys,

I am going to start internal medicine in about two months and was wondering what book I could use as prep before I started.

I was thinking about this book:
Pocket Medicine: The MGHH of Internal Medicine

Let me know what advice you guys have.

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[drdr2010]

i start medicine in 2 weeks (and have yet to do anything in preparation..eek), but my classmates who started medicine 3 weeks ago, suggested reading 250 Biggest Mistakes and possibly the medicine chapter of First Aid for the Wards.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I liked Step Up to Medicine

Pocket Medicine is a pretty dry read, and really intended as a pocket reference.

 

[Colba55o]

if you try to sit down and read pocket medicine, I would be surprised if you made it past page 5. It is meant solely to look up useful information on the spot.
The only thing that would be worth reading through would be Case Files for int medicine.
But has anyone else out there actually pre-read before a rotation? I sure haven't

 

[futuredo32]

I used Step Up and really liked it.

 

[OrnotMajestic]

Another vote for Step Up. Great book, easy to read, and really high yield for both the shelf and Step 2.

 

[Taus]

Step-Up

 

[vtucci]

For the wards, I liked Ferri's Guide to Caring for the MEdical patient better than Pocket Medicine.

Step Up is very dense and First Aid is not comprehensive enough. I liked the case file series.

 

[joe6102]

Definitely CASEFILES (capitalized for emphasis). If you get through it twice, then maybe pick up Step Up.

 

[delta1410]

I also would suggest Step Up to Medicine. I liked Case Files as well. I used the MKSAP questions as well, but I would recommend the first two sources be used first.

 

[JustPlainBill]

Does anyone read Cecil's? For our IM clerkship we have to do (as in required and automatically reported to the administration) IM QBank,
supposed to read around 30 chapters of Cecil's. That's from the
school....

I'm trying to do that and get through MKSAP,PreTest and Step-Up.....and
I've got about a month and a week to do it.....

The Cecil's isn't required so I'm wondering, from those who have taken the shelf, would it be high enough yield?

 

[Powel6016]

Stuck bet Case files or step up medicine. Which is better? What is step up like? Does it also have cases or is it more like blue print series book?

 

[QofQuimica]

Another vote for Step Up. It isn't *that* dense. But I don't think Case Files is a bad choice either. I haven't read the IM one, but the others I've seen were pretty good.

Powel, no, there are no cases in Step Up, though there are 100 practice clinical scenarios at the end. I haven't done those yet; I'm saving them up for right before the exam. 😳

 

[drbetty]

Does anyone read Cecil's? For our IM clerkship we have to do (as in required and automatically reported to the administration) IM QBank,
supposed to read around 30 chapters of Cecil's. That's from the
school....

I'm trying to do that and get through MKSAP,PreTest and Step-Up.....and
I've got about a month and a week to do it.....

The Cecil's isn't required so I'm wondering, from those who have taken the shelf, would it be high enough yield?

i bought baby cecil's and other than using it for specific reference, it has been resting on my bookshelf. IMHO, it was too long to read through everything during a busy rotation. i like NEJM review articles and my classmates recommended step-up to medicine or first-aid for medicine clerkship. i am a fan of all of the case-file review books, but it only covers a handful of possible medicine cases.

 

[drbetty]

Hey Guys,

I am going to start internal medicine in about two months and was wondering what book I could use as prep before I started.

I was thinking about this book:
Pocket Medicine: The MGHH of Internal Medicine

Let me know what advice you guys have.

loved this book, excellent reference. great summary of diagnostic criteria, gold standard treatment, etc. from NEJM, JAMA, and other journals

 

[drdr2010]

now that i have done 6 weeks of medicine, i still don't think i would have done much pre-reading before the rotation started. if anything, i think some sort of generic refresher, like how to read a CXR and EKG, basic fluids/electrolytes, normal lab values etc would be most helpful. i think first aid for the wards has some sort of chapter like that at the beginning and Step Up has an appendix at the end. i think, i don't have my books here to verify that.

pocket medicine is money for use on the floors (aka in your Pocket).

for studying i have been using step up, casefiles, and USMLEworld. i like all 3 of them, but obviously can't comment on usefulness for the shelf until i take it next month.

 

[medstylee]

i think the best thing to do is to take the medicine shelf soon after you've taken step 1 (obviously not possible for a lot of people). i felt like many of the questions on the shelf were much more specific or esoteric than things i saw on the wards. pocket medicine is not meant to be a study resource, but if you reference it on the wards i think it'll definitely help for the shelf, especially for the work-up questions. i also liked step up to medicine a lot. it helps a lot for the "what's the next step?" type questions. i did most of the mksap 3 book and i have mixed opinions on it. i felt like the question stems on the shelf were a bit longer and i felt like one the whole mksap was easier than the shelf. a good idea would be to try and time yourself while doing mksap, that'd probably at least simulate the stress of trying to rip through the questions like you'll have to on the real exam. i also bought usmle world for step 2 and did a bunch of the internal med questions which i thought were of comparable difficulty to the shelf. hope that helps.

 

[obiwan]

loved this book, excellent reference. great summary of diagnostic criteria, gold standard treatment, etc. from NEJM, JAMA, and other journals

Pocket medicine is a book that you reference when you are on the wards. It is not a primary text where you read cover to cover since it is excessive for the shelf which is nowhere near as detail oriented (for instance you won't be asked about well's criteria for PE on the shelf)