USMLE Differences between First Aid 2013 and 2014?

[595164]

Hello everyone,

I have been using FA 2013 since last year and annotating it in prep for my exam, had to push it though due to some family circumstances. It's now 2014, and I'm wondering if I should bother getting the FA 2014 edition. For those of you who have used both - did you notice any key differences in content I should be aware of? Or would it just be smarter to stick with my 2013 edition? I plan on taking my exam in early April.

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[Chipster.]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/first-aid-2014.1046889/

 

[swoopyswoop]

the 2014 edition is better. better diagrams, for starters. if you haven't super-annotated 2013, i would just buy the new edition.

 

[ChessMaster3000]

Hello everyone,

I have been using FA 2013 since last year and annotating it in prep for my exam, had to push it though due to some family circumstances. It's now 2014, and I'm wondering if I should bother getting the FA 2014 edition. For those of you who have used both - did you notice any key differences in content I should be aware of? Or would it just be smarter to stick with my 2013 edition? I plan on taking my exam in early April.

the 2014 edition is a pretty solid update, a bigger update than most years I would guess. If you think you have a shot at 250+, I'd get it.

edit--if you are deciding between that and getting another NBME, I'd get the extra NBME.

 

[Jemeni]

2014 is a better book. But for you, sticking with 2013 is advisable, due to proximity of exam date and annotation of your 2013.

 

[Petypet]

I re-annotated all my FA13 (annotated with kaplan qbank) into FA14. It took 2ish weeks, and was like another pass through the material. There was probably 10ish things that were in 13 that aren't in 14, and a lot more that was in 14 that isn't in 13. I would at least make a pass through 14.

 

[Phloston]

As an author for FA14, I can say that the FA review process is a balance between trying to make the text as comprehensive as possible (i.e., even including what would be considered some LY details) yet keeping it HY enough so that it doesn't take on the superfluous characteristics that Kaplan notes are notorious for.

Basically for everything added, something is removed or consolidated. And the edits are generally reductive rather than additive. This explains why an entry like the lac operon didn't make it past FA12. It's not that this entry wouldn't have made FA13/14 more comprehensive; but other stuff considered higher-yield was added at its expense.

I've been a member of this forum for over two years, and I've seen / been PMed with pretty much every story possible about "absurd, wtf info" that has shown up on the real deal. In turn, apart from just using my own experience/judgement, I had done my best to "vouch" for certain content to be added to FA, based on people's feedback on this forum.

The net result is that FA14 now has quite a few new "factoids" thrown in there that are actually floating around on the real deal.

Examples are SLE is associated with lymphoma (end of path chapter), and the definition of a chaperone protein (biochem chapter).

People will frequently come out of the Step1 saying that FA was mostly comprehensive. The reason it's not fully comprehensive is because students actually screw other students over.

FA wants to stay HY and be affable to as many people as possible, so we recruit large numbers of recent test-takers to vote on the new material going in (democracy in a sense); lots of really really good stuff that some of the authors "know" is on the real deal gets voted down if students don't like it, and it's annoying because it won't get added even though it really would increase people's scores. Examples would be methimazole causing aplasia cutis congenita, exogenous PTH in pseudohypoparathyroidism causing normal effects at bone but expected non-response at the kidney, the function of importin-alpha as a nuclear shuttling protein. This stuff is actually on the real deal, but was voted down and not included. You can thank your upperclassmen for that.

Regardless, I'd recommend FA14 over FA13. Even if you're content with your currently annotated copy of FA13, your friends who read the newer edition will have an advantage based on the new content.

 

[thehundredthone]

Just because something is on the real deal does not make it high yield though. It must have shown up with a high enough frequency. Obviously the only way to have a truly comprehensive First Aid book would be to include every piece of information relevant to every question that has ever been or will ever be on the real deal. I would rather have a separate publication for "1000 in(s)ane factoids that are guaranteed to turn up on the exam (in the form of a maximum of 2 or 3 questions)".

 

[Leonidis I]

As an author for FA14, I can say that the FA review process is a balance between trying to make the text as comprehensive as possible (i.e., even including what would be considered some LY details) yet keeping it HY enough so that it doesn't take on the superfluous characteristics that Kaplan notes are notorious for.

Basically for everything added, something is removed or consolidated. And the edits are generally reductive rather than additive. This explains why an entry like the lac operon didn't make it past FA12. It's not that this entry wouldn't have made FA13/14 more comprehensive; but other stuff considered higher-yield was added at its expense.

I've been a member of this forum for over two years, and I've seen / been PMed with pretty much every story possible about "absurd, wtf info" that has shown up on the real deal. In turn, apart from just using my own experience/judgement, I had done my best to "vouch" for certain content to be added to FA, based on people's feedback on this forum.

The net result is that FA14 now has quite a few new "factoids" thrown in there that are actually floating around on the real deal.

Examples are SLE is associated with lymphoma (end of path chapter), and the definition of a chaperone protein (biochem chapter).

People will frequently come out of the Step1 saying that FA was mostly comprehensive. The reason it's not fully comprehensive is because students actually screw other students over.

FA wants to stay HY and be affable to as many people as possible, so we recruit large numbers of recent test-takers to vote on the new material going in (democracy in a sense); lots of really really good stuff that some of the authors "know" is on the real deal gets voted down if students don't like it, and it's annoying because it won't get added even though it really would increase people's scores. Examples would be methimazole causing aplasia cutis congenita, exogenous PTH in pseudohypoparathyroidism causing normal effects at bone but expected non-response at the kidney, the function of importin-alpha as a nuclear shuttling protein. This stuff is actually on the real deal, but was voted down and not included. You can thank your upperclassmen for that.

Regardless, I'd recommend FA14 over FA13. Even if you're content with your currently annotated copy of FA13, your friends who read the newer edition will have an advantage based on the new content.

Wow....I'm really surprised that the FA team hasn't parlayed its knowledge of some of these "low yield but have shown up on the exam recently" facts/concepts into more cash. Call it "Second Aid" or something. You know med students wil gobble that up, especially since what separates the good from the great scores is these low yield facts (since everyone gets the easy high yield stuff)

On a related note - any chance you could drop any more of these facts/concepts that were deemed too low yield to warrant a spot in FA this year?

 

[Fatalis]

Wow....I'm really surprised that the FA team hasn't parlayed its knowledge of some of these "low yield but have shown up on the exam recently" facts/concepts into more cash. Call it "Second Aid" or something. You know med students wil gobble that up, especially since what separates the good from the great scores is these low yield facts (since everyone gets the easy high yield stuff)

On a related note - any chance you could drop any more of these facts/concepts that were deemed too low yield to warrant a spot in FA this year?

I second this notion!

 

[Transposony]

Wow....I'm really surprised that the FA team hasn't parlayed its knowledge of some of these "low yield but have shown up on the exam recently" facts/concepts into more cash. Call it "Second Aid" or something.

Actually they have. They're called:

First Aid for the Basic Sciences, General Principles

First Aid for the Basic Sciences, Organ Systems

 

[Leonidis I]

Actually they have. They're called:

First Aid for the Basic Sciences, General Principles

First Aid for the Basic Sciences, Organ Systems

those books are more expansions of FA and whatever minutia they contain are there to better explain the material. they are similar to kaplan notes in that regard.

i never got the impression that they were regularly updated every year and contained feedback from students about what has actually shown up on their exams like phloston just described.

 

[notbobtrustme]

Maybe if you want to score 100% on Step 1, you should memorize all the disparate sources. However, these boards and others, have people scoring >250 all the time with an "outdated" FA.

At the end of the day, knowing that inactivating mutations in GTPase activating proteins go from Arginine to Lysine won't make or break your score. I think we as med students tend to lose the forest for the trees, especially when it comes to the boards and especially when we get those questions in qbanks that come from left field and we've never seen the material before.

 

[DermViser]

Maybe if you want to score 100% on Step 1, you should memorize all the disparate sources. However, these boards and others, have people scoring >250 all the time with an "outdated" FA.

At the end of the day, knowing that inactivating mutations in GTPase activating proteins go from Arginine to Lysine won't make or break your score. I think we as med students tend to lose the forest for the trees, especially when it comes to the boards and especially when we get those questions in qbanks that come from left field and we've never seen the material before.

So true! I have to laugh at some of the posters many of whom have gotten 240+ who think that memorizing miniutiae was the key. Not surprising as the exams in MS-1/MS-2 tend to reward this behavior.

 

[rodmichael82]

have you read the announcements on www.usmle.org ?

?

 

[MsTeacup]

I know the 2015 edition isn't out yet but I was wondering if the 2014 and 2015 editions have much difference. If anyone might potentially know?