better method? Annotating First Aid vs. Making Flash Cards

[lilPhysician]

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I want to start either annotating First Aid using supplementary sources (BRS, RR, etc.) or make flashcards, which does seem like a lot more wrk but I feel it'll end up being about the same.

The way I see it, I gotta know thousands of facts for Med School no matter what so it doesn't help if I think about the work. Just comes with the gig. 😎

 

[Dextrocardia]

Annotating FA. This takes less and less time once you get more familiar with the book. It also helps you passively memorize the most common passages in FA since those sections are going to be what you are most often annotating. Once you've annotated a review book or question bank into FA, you'll be surprised at how much of FA that you've already memorized. You can then create flash cards for the parts of FA that are harder to memorize.

 

[olemissbabydoc]

Annotating FA. This takes less and less time once you get more familiar with the book. It also helps you passively memorize the most common passages in FA since those sections are going to be what you are most often annotating. Once you've annotated a review book or question bank into FA, you'll be surprised at how much of FA that you've already memorized. You can then create flash cards for the parts of FA that are harder to memorize.

Seconded. Annotating throughout the year was probably the best thing I did to prep, honestly. Like Dextro said, you'll learn so much more than you think that way.

 

[Maalik Ashtaar]

Annotating FA. This takes less and less time once you get more familiar with the book. It also helps you passively memorize the most common passages in FA since those sections are going to be what you are most often annotating. Once you've annotated a review book or question bank into FA, you'll be surprised at how much of FA that you've already memorized. You can then create flash cards for the parts of FA that are harder to memorize.

Co-sign
you always want a primary source and you add extra info to help you understand into that primary source.
Good luck

 

[kaleerkalut]

Seconded. Annotating throughout the year was probably the best thing I did to prep, honestly. Like Dextro said, you'll learn so much more than you think that way.

When people say they annotate FA, what exactly do they put in? Being as specific as possible would be really helpful because I hear this tossed around a lot but I still don't know what I would put into FA from for example the Kaplan Lecture Notes or any other Review Book? Thanks in advance 🙂

 

[Gullain Barre]

Every so often I came across something in UWorld that I don't find in FA- that's when I'll write down the brief details on it so I know it exists. Depending on your study style, you may find it to be a waste of time. Which leads me to my answer to the OP's question- it may be long and verbose and I apologize.

I used a flashcard program (iFlash) to study. It takes time and patience- it can take up as much as half a day for a large chapter such as Neuro. What I did was read FA, and think about the concepts presented. Then I'd make flashcards on those more or less in my own words. Sometimes I just typed up what it says in FA. Then the program has a nifty image feature where you can copy and paste pictures to attach to front/back of flashcards- came in handy for biochem and pathology slides.

Then I'd read my other sources, mainly RR Path, but also RR Biochem, etc. for that relevant section and add new flashcards if I found anything relevant that wasn't mentioned in FA- and there is quite a bit, so I ended up adding a lot of new cards.

So more or less, I converted my major sources (FA, RR path, etc.) into an annotated form as electronic flashcard sets. I ended up with ~4500 flashcards, all divided up by organ system/section in FA. It came in handy because when I decided I needed a review in Heme, I just select that set, tell it to randomly shuffle the cards and begin reviewing. Or if I wanted to study Pharm, it had its own category containing all the pharm from all the sections.

Another benefit of this is that I am able to study the flashcards on the go using my iPod touch. So if I'm doing cardio at the gym, or waiting for an appointment, I can review pharmacology or renal.

Using this method, I probably went over all of my sources (FA, RR, etc.) 5+ times, and some chapters more so than others. Being able to mix it up (flagged cards, shuffling, etc.) probably made it a more stimulating experience than re-reading an annotated FA book. Basically once my flashcard set was complete after the first 3.5 weeks, I didn't look at FA/RR again. It's a long story which I won't get into, but I ended up getting scheduled so that I got 5.5 weeks so I had plenty of time. In those 2 weeks, I probably went through everything 6-7 times.

All in all, it takes a lot of time to read and type up flashcards as you read so I don't recommend it if you're taking 3-4 weeks to study. If you have 5+ weeks and have been making flashcards throughout MS1/MS2 and have become efficient at doing so, I highly recommend it.

P.S.: if you look on Quizlet or the other online flashcard repositories, you'll find that people have posted their flashcard sets for the FA Rapid Review section or Goljan's HY notes. I used those a little bit as well for some buzzword/pattern recognition work. But 99.9% of my review came from the flashcards I made myself.

 

[xlr8]

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