Going through First Aid too slow?

[KnuxNole]

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I made a schedule for my next pass of First Aid, and I realize that I'm going at it at a much slower pace than I imagined. I know First Aid is a dense book and all, but I dunno if I'm just a slow reader or what. It isn't unusual to take an hour just to get through 10 or so pages. Some of the material is easier, while some is impossible to just cram through...I basically have to read it and try to understand "Ok..wtf is going on, WHY does XX result in YY??"

For ex. I wanted to get through the Micro section in about 4-5 hours...and it ended up taking 9 hours(over the span of 2 days). The GOOD thing is that I know my micro quite well by not zooming through it, but the "bad" thing is not finishing it quickly.

 

[HopefulDoc1984]

I made a schedule for my next pass of First Aid, and I realize that I'm going at it at a much slower pace than I imagined. I know First Aid is a dense book and all, but I dunno if I'm just a slow reader or what. It isn't unusual to take an hour just to get through 10 or so pages. Some of the material is easier, while some is impossible to just cram through...I basically have to read it and try to understand "Ok..wtf is going on, WHY does XX result in YY??"

For ex. I wanted to get through the Micro section in about 4-5 hours...and it ended up taking 9 hours(over the span of 2 days). The GOOD thing is that I know my micro quite well by not zooming through it, but the "bad" thing is not finishing it quickly.

as you read it multiple times you get faster with each successive read. the two days before my test was devoted to first aid and i got through the whole thing.

 

[C5toC9]

it should get faster once you learn the material in school and use FA strictly as a review

 

[KnuxNole]

I guess i should mention that I'm currently preparing for Step 1 in the next few weeks. Its going slightly faster now, but that's the thing about First Aid I guess...LOTS of dense details. There are some facts where I have the feeling of "OK...this makes NO logical sense, I don't know how it relates to anything...I just have to memorize and move on!" Thankfully that's rare, but it can get annoying. Also when getting through a mechanism/explanation that takes a while to understand what's going on. But, at least it makes sense after multiple passes(the very first pass was much longer 🙁)

The "good" thing is some of those blind memorization facts have helped a little in Uworld. I had no idea how CO2 content increased in venous return during exercise, so I had to just memorize that tidbit...and it ended up helping for a correct answer in UWorld.

I wanna zoom through FA and the Blue Notes in RR during the last few days too...so it's good to hear it's possible!

 

[sumyounguy]

I had no idea how CO2 content increased in venous return during exercise, so I had to just memorize that tidbit...

Think about it, during exercise your muscles are working harder and thus will extract more O2 out of blood and put more CO2 into blood. So although your body maintains normal ABGs in arterial blood, your venous blood will have higher CO2 and lower O2 than resting state.

 

[HopefulDoc1984]

I had no idea how CO2 content increased in venous return during exercise, so I had to just memorize that tidbit...and it ended up helping for a correct answer in UWorld.
QUOTE]

your tissues make CO2. they make more CO2 when you exercise. the CO2 travels through veins to get to the lungs to be exhaled. thus, CO2 increases in your veins with exercise. thats not rocket science.