Azzarah,
Well I just finished path in May--it's ridiculous, I had only 4 months of path. Well I TRIED to read most of BIG robbins for path as it is gold standard across the world, and being such an important subject, I thought it would be good to have a solid foundation on it; however, i don't know if I would reccommend that because it ate up every single minute I had. Furthermore, it's really hard to retain all that information unless you read it multiple time, and I mean MULTIPLE. And like I said having the class for only 4 months, I didn't have time to get through it as many times as I would have liked to, plus you suffer on the exams because they test the amterial that is taught in class with slight emphasis on the text. So basically halfway through, i started reading baby robbins and my notes, but I hated baby robbins because it presents material in a bullet form, and it's hard to understand what's going on, so I alwyas found myself referencing back to the daddy of all. It wasted a lot of time--def big book for pics tho.
As for as review, I am going to start with BRS path and BRS physio and FA before I hit pharm in oct. I have a couple of one month elective/rotations in the mean time. So that should be good until end of jan when i will officially start studying for the exam--planning on taking it in march--we get a lot of time off (well considering what our schedule is like) to study--but yea from the posts it seems as if a lot of the HY and BRS is plenty to study for boards--it's so hard for me to actually accept that concept because all this time I have used full texts and now i'm going to learn random facts for the test--plus like honestly, the real knowledge we'll gain from med school is by preparing for this test, cuz anatomy and biochem from a year and ahlaf back for me--man i don't remember whether x never passes laterally or medially to the vagus, etc, you know?
I did take shelf exam for path and everyone said just read brs path. I got through about half of it and I "passed"--don't really know what that means, i never got to see my score report--so i guess i mite have learned something reading big robbins--lol, (nightmare days--ahhhh!!)