Do any of you students read Cecils??

[lolomghelp]

Hi, I am a 1st year medical student.
My school requires us to read Cecil's for our exams. We will normally have about 6-10 chapters from this book that we need to know before exam day...
This book is VERY dense and I am not sure what is going on in it 75% of the time. I am not sure how to digest/learn the material, because it all seems very advanced for the amount of knowledge I know... How am I supposed to learn from this book if everything feels like a foreign language to me?

anyways, I was just wondering how some of you digest or break down cecils. Currently, I was assigned chapters 3/4 from Cecil's, and let's just say... After 3 days of staring at these chapters, my brain has turned into mush. I may be reading English but it is translating in my brain as ''huh?....''

Could use some tips, thank you.

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[slowthai]

Every textbook my school has required immediately goes on my list of required books to ignore. Hop on the Anki train. It'll change your life. Highly recommend Zanki/AnKing or some version of Lightyear.

 

[Ho0v-man]

My clinical courses that started in January of ms1 required cecils. I really did put in the time to learn that stuff well and barely passed. After that I just memorized the PowerPoint slides and it was a lot better. Still terrible though. The premade step1 anki decks don’t cover most of that material.

 

[lolomghelp]

My clinical courses that started in January of ms1 required cecils. I really did put in the time to learn that stuff well and barely passed. After that I just memorized the PowerPoint slides and it was a lot better. Still terrible though. The premade step1 anki decks don’t cover most of that material.

Unfortunately, we are all PBL! So we get no power points

 

[lolomghelp]

Every textbook my school has required immediately goes on my list of required books to ignore. Hop on the Anki train. It'll change your life. Highly recommend Zanki/AnKing or some version of Lightyear.

I downloaded the AnKing deck, but i am not sure how to go about it (got overwhelmed). My school is also pbl and so all the questions come out of the aassigned readings

 

[slowthai]

I downloaded the AnKing deck, but i am not sure how to go about it (got overwhelmed). My school is also pbl and so all the questions come out of the aassigned readings

First, search "how to use AnKing" on youtube, and you should get multiple results. Watch as many of them as you can/need.

Second, search "PBL Anki" on SDN, the /r/medicalschool subreddit, and the /r/medicalschoolanki subreddit. People have discussed this exact issue before.

 

[Ho0v-man]

Unfortunately, we are all PBL! So we get no power points

Sorry to hear that. You need to talk to an upperclassman at lecom then. The people here who didn’t do PBL are going to say all things are solved by anki.

 

[Goro]

Hi, I am a 1st year medical student.
My school requires us to read Cecil's for our exams. We will normally have about 6-10 chapters from this book that we need to know before exam day...
This book is VERY dense and I am not sure what is going on in it 75% of the time. I am not sure how to digest/learn the material, because it all seems very advanced for the amount of knowledge I know... How am I supposed to learn from this book if everything feels like a foreign language to me?

anyways, I was just wondering how some of you digest or break down cecils. Currently, I was assigned chapters 3/4 from Cecil's, and let's just say... After 3 days of staring at these chapters, my brain has turned into mush. I may be reading English but it is translating in my brain as ''huh?....''

Could use some tips, thank you.

What do the OMSII's tell you about this????

 

[MoTheGreatish]

Hey lolomghelp (best name)

As you know, I'm same school, PBL, different campus. My group also picks out 1-2 Cecil's chapters per case. Honestly, Cecil should be the last thing you read for any case. That's helped me for the most part. Initially, I though that reading the chapters in whatever order would not make a difference, but once I decided to always do it in a specific order, the load has gotten much more manageable. My group members have agreed on this too.
We always read the physiology chapters first, then pathology/genetics next, then pharmacology, and then end it off with Cecil's. Physio is, logically, the best place to learn physio, so why read Cecil's take on physio? The same goes for Pathology. There is almost always overlap between the texts, so make sure that you focus on the parts of the texts that are unique.

When you're reading through path, focus more on the diseases and not on any of the general physiology that they are obligated to write in (you've already read it in the Guyton/Hall!) Pharmacology is the same. Sometimes, I just jump into the second half of pharm and read the drugs in detail and then go back to the beginning and gloss over their included physiology/path explanation to see if I missed anything (usually I won't have because the other books are great). Cecil's is all fluff at the beginning that you already should have read in path and phys. Don't waste your time taking notes on it. Only read cecil's for the unique clinical insights they might have in regards to physical exams, lab tests, and treatment options. However, don't get too into the weeds in it.

Finally, if you take notes, do you use them when you study/commit to memory? If not, then maybe try making anki flashcards as you read. Some of us literally approach note-taking as "taking notes into anki." Study the cards right after reading. It may feel easy, but it actually helps. Don't let cards fall behind! Also, I've found it helpful to watch videos on the topics before reading the chapters. This could include lecturio, osmosis, or sketchypharm. Or just look up a bunch of youtube videos, but make sure they aren't excessively long; you still need to read.

Hopefully someone else from LECOM can pitch in on this advice, but I think this strategy might help!

 

[Oligodinero]

Hey lolomghelp (best name)

As you know, I'm same school, PBL, different campus. My group also picks out 1-2 Cecil's chapters per case. Honestly, Cecil should be the last thing you read for any case. That's helped me for the most part. Initially, I though that reading the chapters in whatever order would not make a difference, but once I decided to always do it in a specific order, the load has gotten much more manageable. My group members have agreed on this too.
We always read the physiology chapters first, then pathology/genetics next, then pharmacology, and then end it off with Cecil's. Physio is, logically, the best place to learn physio, so why read Cecil's take on physio? The same goes for Pathology. There is almost always overlap between the texts, so make sure that you focus on the parts of the texts that are unique.

When you're reading through path, focus more on the diseases and not on any of the general physiology that they are obligated to write in (you've already read it in the Guyton/Hall!) Pharmacology is the same. Sometimes, I just jump into the second half of pharm and read the drugs in detail and then go back to the beginning and gloss over their included physiology/path explanation to see if I missed anything (usually I won't have because the other books are great). Cecil's is all fluff at the beginning that you already should have read in path and phys. Don't waste your time taking notes on it. Only read cecil's for the unique clinical insights they might have in regards to physical exams, lab tests, and treatment options. However, don't get too into the weeds in it.

Finally, if you take notes, do you use them when you study/commit to memory? If not, then maybe try making anki flashcards as you read. Some of us literally approach note-taking as "taking notes into anki." Study the cards right after reading. It may feel easy, but it actually helps. Don't let cards fall behind! Also, I've found it helpful to watch videos on the topics before reading the chapters. This could include lecturio, osmosis, or sketchypharm. Or just look up a bunch of youtube videos, but make sure they aren't excessively long; you still need to read.

Hopefully someone else from LECOM can pitch in on this advice, but I think this strategy might help!

Yeah I made my own Anki cards of the material we assigned from Cecil's. I actually loved Cecil's but most of my peers hated it and trying to get them to assign readings from it was difficult....actually the PBL director got pissed at times because groups were avoiding readings from Cecil's and he actually made some groups add it.
Cecils is definitely a good "big picture" resource. I think the reason I liked it so much as I was a PA prior to going back to med school so I already had a decent baseline fund of knowledge.
I'm not sure if you're in Erie or not, but the PBL director in Erie likes to occasionally pick minutia from Cecils....just to make sure people are reading it and not doing LOLNOTACOP's Anki decks as their exclusive study material. So don't skip it. Do what was mentioned above....read all the basic sciences stuff your group assigns first, then go through Cecils and make Anki cards from the readings.
I'd suggest subjects you're having difficulty grasping....go back to Pathoma, Sketchy, Physeo, Pixorize, USMLE Rx....and watch the videos/do the practice questions.
Lastly....you gotta keep up with PBL...if you get behind you're toast. Put in 10 hours a day if that's what it takes to not fall behind on your readings.

 

[lolomghelp]

What do the OMSII's tell you about this????

I am so late, sorry. Well they weren't assigned Cecils in first year, they started it during their third year and state that its meant for third year students, so . I tried, its ok. Its getting somewhat easier to read now that I am getting used to it.

 

[cottoncandy90210]

I am so late, sorry. Well they weren't assigned Cecils in first year, they started it during their third year and state that its meant for third year students, so . I tried, its ok. Its getting somewhat easier to read now that I am getting used to it.

hi which campus were you at? did you make it through fine? hope you did!