First Year Study Supplements

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FreeOilChecks

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For first year are there any review books anyone would recommend to focus your learning or even start thinking along the lines of COMLEX/USMLE? I've seen similar allo discussions, but I am curious what some DO students think?
 
From asking a lot of students it seems just working extremely hard in your classes first year will be good enough. To supplement the courses, people recommended getting examcrackers to constantly review stuff...but after anatomy was over.

They aren't telling you to hold off to put you at any disadvantage. It is just from their experience that starting board prep that early is an inefficient use of time and mostly just burns you out early.
 
It not only burns you out but it makes you focus on the wrong thing. First year and even part of second year should be about learning as much foundation as you can. Then board review helps you solidify high yield items. You could memorize all of FA and still suck if you do not have the foundation to truly understand it. So get the foundation first.
 
To be more specific I am not exactly planning on studying for boards during first year. My school has some recommended texts on the book list including BRS physiology. I was more wondering if anyone utilized any additional review texts to supplement their classes.
 
The whole BRS series is pretty good. I used BRS biochem, physio, and behavioral sci. I used pretest anatomy and pretest physio. Greys Anatomy Review was also a good resource. Clinical neuroanatomy made ridiculously simple was excellent. West respiratory physio was good. I didn't use any
"textbook" textbooks.
 
BRS Physiology is great. You can get by with an older edition too. Do note that there are some typos (for example, the Nernst equation was incorrect in the edition I have); be aware of this for any book, if something doesn't sound right then it's worth looking at the errata.

I did not use any other review texts. I found BRS anatomy wasn't sufficient for the level of anatomy I was responsible for in my classes. BRS behavioral science is supposed to be pretty a great board supplement.

A lot of texts are simply not worth it, so exercise your judgement when buying books. For example, the neuroanatomy texts most schools use are not really necessary as there are plenty of websites containing high yield material.

I think you'll find that keeping up with your normal coursework is going to be challenging, especially at first. Build that foundation--that's what I've been focusing on and feel pretty good about beginning M2.
 
I liked Costanzo's physiology text. Short read and helped me clear up a lot of things in my class notes.
 
BRS Physiology and High Yield Neuroanatomy are the only board-prep books you need for the first year.

Anything more than that and you are wasting your time, money and effort.
 
I guess if I could do it again I would take a different approach than some and bring First Aid with me to lectures just so I could compare what was being taught and what is high-yield/board relevant. And it helps to have familiarity with FA so that come actual board prep time you will be able to flip to important pages immediately and have a better mental image of the layout/what's on that page for any given topic.

I agree that it's not a good idea to start real studying for boards until second year second semester though.
 
I used BRS Anatomy, but that was more to study for my Anatomy written exams than to study for the boards. I'd save that for next year. Maybe fill in First Aid as you go and to use some of the algorithms for things like Micro, if your curriculum has that first year.
 
The best thing you can do for boards this early is to learn the material well. That doesn't necessarily include learning class material well, though it can. But work hard, and more importantly, smart, your first two years. There are a lot of good lecturers out there that present material in a way very conducive to learning. Some students like Kaplan, some like Pathoma/Sattar, some Goljan, some Najeeb, and various others. I'd say give each of them a try and see what works for you and what you can fit in to your class studying. As for supplements, Costanzo's physiology is great and imo better than BRS for that initial first pass of the material as it flows better, with BRS being better for later passes. Goljan and Pathoma are great for path. With micro, I didn't like CMMRS and loved the Lippincott flashcards, but both are good resources presented in a very different style. These are the only resources I'd highly recommend to supplement the first two years. I didn't find a pharm, embryo, or neuro book I liked enough to recommend. Lippincott's illustrated review for immunology was good, as was How the Immune System Works, though the latter book was overly simplistic and the former too in depth. And anatomy comes down to whatever resource(s) fits your style best. I liked Rohan's and Netters. A copy of FA might be nice to follow along with in your classes in case your lecturers skip anything important or if you like the mnemonics, though it is not an ideal learning tool.

Also, Savarese's book was amazing for OMM. Wish I'd had it first year.
 
I actually just wrote a post on this particular subject: Books Every Medical Student Should Have For Basic Science Years. The suggestions above are a good start. One that I didn't see mentioned is Color Atlas and Text of Histology. This helped me tremendously for Histo.

Survivor DO

I've read a lot of your blog and I don't know how I missed that one. The Color Atlas and Text of Histology are both on my schools book list so it must be a decent book list if SurvivorDO recommends them.
 
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