FA General Principles Series - Reviews?

[NickNaylor]

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Hey everyone,

I recently learned of these books and they seem absolutely incredible - exactly what I'm looking for especially when it comes to MS1 stuff. Unfortunately, though, reviews are pretty sparse (though generally positive) and I'm a little hesitant to use resources that haven't been through the meatgrinder of multiple years of endorsements.

There have been a few reviews posted here on these books, but nearly all of them are about the first edition which was littered with typos. I wanted to see if anyone has used these and would be willing to share their thoughts on them. I've taken a look at PDFs of both books and think I could probably get through both books in a week or week and a half while concurrently doing questions, so it wouldn't be too much of an investment even if they didn't end up working out too well. I was hoping to get some thoughts before I invest the money and time, though.

Thanks!

 

[Leonidis I]

i never touched the organ systems one but i used the first edition of the basic sciences one during part of 1st year but it was full of errors and i didn't get much out of it so i trashed it. and i never got the impression that those books meant to be used specifically for board prep but rather as an adjunct to coursework. good to hear they fixed it for the 2nd edition though.

how far away are you from your exam? while not specifically for 1st year material, deja review step 1 and step 1 secrets have a better track record than fa basic sciences and organ systems as a complementary source to fa and qbanks.

http://www.amazon.com/USMLE-Step-1-Deja-Review/dp/0071627189

http://www.amazon.com/USMLE-Step-1-Secrets-3e/dp/0323085148/ref=rec_dp_2

 

[NickNaylor]

i never touched the organ systems one but i used the first edition of the basic sciences one during part of 1st year but it was full of errors and i didn't get much out of it so i trashed it. and i never got the impression that those books meant to be used specifically for board prep but rather as an adjunct to coursework. good to hear they fixed it for the 2nd edition though.

how far away are you from your exam? while not specifically for 1st year material, deja review step 1 and step 1 secrets have a better track record than fa basic sciences and organ systems as a complementary source to fa and qbanks.

http://www.amazon.com/USMLE-Step-1-Deja-Review/dp/0071627189

http://www.amazon.com/USMLE-Step-1-Secrets-3e/dp/0323085148/ref=rec_dp_2

Thanks for the recommendations - I appreciate it. We have our last exam next Friday and I'm taking step 1 on May 3rd.

 

[JShephard]

Hey everyone,

I recently learned of these books and they seem absolutely incredible - exactly what I'm looking for especially when it comes to MS1 stuff. Unfortunately, though, reviews are pretty sparse (though generally positive) and I'm a little hesitant to use resources that haven't been through the meatgrinder of multiple years of endorsements.

There have been a few reviews posted here on these books, but nearly all of them are about the first edition which was littered with typos. I wanted to see if anyone has used these and would be willing to share their thoughts on them. I've taken a look at PDFs of both books and think I could probably get through both books in a week or week and a half while concurrently doing questions, so it wouldn't be too much of an investment even if they didn't end up working out too well. I was hoping to get some thoughts before I invest the money and time, though.

Thanks!

I have them . I like first aid better.

The 2nd editions are pretty solid, not tons of errata.

I tend to just supplement FA when necessary. I could see some people preferring this. I may make a single pass myself. Id rate them 4 stars with the strength of following FA organization.

 

[Jamiu22]

Hey everyone,

I recently learned of these books and they seem absolutely incredible - exactly what I'm looking for especially when it comes to MS1 stuff. Unfortunately, though, reviews are pretty sparse (though generally positive) and I'm a little hesitant to use resources that haven't been through the meatgrinder of multiple years of endorsements.

There have been a few reviews posted here on these books, but nearly all of them are about the first edition which was littered with typos. I wanted to see if anyone has used these and would be willing to share their thoughts on them. I've taken a look at PDFs of both books and think I could probably get through both books in a week or week and a half while concurrently doing questions, so it wouldn't be too much of an investment even if they didn't end up working out too well. I was hoping to get some thoughts before I invest the money and time, though.

Thanks!

I have them . I like first aid better.

The 2nd editions are pretty solid, not tons of errata.

I tend to just supplement FA when necessary. I could see some people preferring this. I may make a single pass myself. Id rate them 4 stars with the strength of following FA organization.

The F/A organ sys is just a wordier version of F/A... it has exact same info, but arranged better.

I only used the FA organ system book (2nd edition) during my 2nd yr coursework. I found it a lot better than the regular first-aid in learning the raw material; I found that the regular FA is more of a review book (duh!! right? but you had to be somewhat really familiar with the material for the regular FA to make enough sense for me). I did really well in my school exams a result of the organ system book....so I only have positive things to say about it.

But as the exam approaches, lets say if its only 5wks away, I would say just use the regular first-aid & u-world for your study aid. Eat those until you can breath them - at least that's what I plan on doing. And you if you notice that you keep getting stomped on any particular organ, then use FA organ sys to supplement your knowledge (on average each organ block is about 65 pages long), so you can definitely finish reading it in within 1/2 a day to one day.

good luck.... mine's in June

 

[NickNaylor]

Great, thanks for the input everyone.

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