How do you study biochem/micro?

[1nycdoc8]

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Thanks for your ideas!

 

[MilkmanAl]

FA and UWorld all day long. I did them all at once and now I'm doing them by system.

 

[hallucinated]

1) Did UWorld once, blindly

2) straight reading through Rapid Review Biochem in 3 days, 10 days before the exam

3) I will tell you the results later.

 

[mordounhas]

Basically reading first aid over and over again (3rd time through, will probably do two more before the test) and I'll go through USMLEworld twice (always random questions). I've also got a copy of the Kaplan study at home stuff from 2007 and I've read the biochem section 2 or 3 times now.

Micro- due to weird last minute scheduling, I ended the year with micro and Infectious disease. So it's still relatively fresh and I'm just doing first aid and usmleworld, maybe I'll flip-through microcards at some point.

 

[username456789]

Haaaaaaaaate micro/antibiotics.

 

[1nycdoc8]

Haaaaaaaaate micro/antibiotics.

nothing is fun about it...

For viruses, do you guys know if we have to pay close attention to whether or not it is a SS RNA, DS DNA, enveloped etc... that was all important during micro in med school but I'm hoping they'll relax on that kind of stuff on the boards.

fml

 

[username456789]

Micro- due to weird last minute scheduling, I ended the year with micro and Infectious disease. So it's still relatively fresh and I'm just doing first aid and usmleworld, maybe I'll flip-through microcards at some point.

Consider yourself the luckiest man in the world.

I'm really struggling with micro. Doing antibiotics now, and nothing's sticking. I can't even begin to remember the list of bugs that they throw in for each drug.

Overall in that chapter there are so many mnemonics floating around that I'd need a mnemonic just to remember the mnemonics.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I'm really struggling with micro. Doing antibiotics now, and nothing's sticking. I can't even begin to remember the list of bugs that they throw in for each drug.

I've been in your shoes all year long. I remember a few really basic things, but on the few questions where they're like, "This patient has [bacteria] and is allergic to [primary treatment]. What do you give him?" I poop myself. Basically, I have strep, UTI's, staph, and neonatal stuff down to a passable degree...I hope. I don't think it's going to get much better than that. Fortunately, it seems like that's usually enough for UW questions.

Overall in that chapter there are so many mnemonics floating around that I'd need a mnemonic just to remember the mnemonics.

That's why I dispense with mnemonics completely. Basically, I see learning mnemonics for stuff as trying to learn twice as much material as you have to. That is, you have to learn the material plus the gimmick for it. That doesn't help me at all. I know those little cheesy sayings are awesome for a lot of people, but they just cloud my thoughts with a bunch of useless garbage.

 

[username456789]

I took a break to do a few usmlerx iPhone micro flashcards and sucked a fat one. Either I knew the fact cold (likely due to it randomly sticking way back in micro first semester), or (much more often) I had no idea whatsoever.

Might just have to wash my hands of it after tonight, and then do microcards and pharmcards for abx little by little over the next month.

 

[username456789]

By the way, how are you guys going about getting all the antibiotic stuff down?

 

[badasshairday]

By the way, how are you guys going about getting all the antibiotic stuff down?

Make flashcards. Talk it out with a friend and quiz each other. Makes it so much easier.

 

[Pirlo]

MicroCards are phenomenal for micro. They also have the right treatment for each pathogen, so you can hit two birds with one stone using them.

I can't recommend them highly enough.

 

[1nycdoc8]

By the way, how are you guys going about getting all the antibiotic stuff down?

I found the antibacterial section in CMRS to be particularly helpful, gonna check out the other ones soon.

 

[username456789]

So, I still don't feel particularly comfortable with Micro (and certainly not with all antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, or anti-retrovirals), but I just took a 40 question micro block on Kaplan (by accident . . . I meant to select "Immunology" and got a 93% (the average for mortals was 57%).

So I don't really know what to think. Most of the questions actually seemed like they were spoon feeding me a ton of information (with stuff like "patient presents with cough, runny nose, pink eye, and hypopigmented spots on buccal mucosa, and rash that started on her head and moved to her trunk") that I don't normally see (at least not in such textbook format) with UW. So I feel like it's a false sense of accomplishment as far as me really having micro nailed down.

Either way, it's at least encouraging, if nothing else.

 

[PokerDoc]

For micro drugs I'm spending a lot more time associating each drug with its side-effects and contraindications. I'll go back to which drug treats what later.. I seem to get way more questions asking me the drug used to treat X can cause Y in this patient:...

 

[donkeyboy]

So, I still don't feel particularly comfortable with Micro (and certainly not with all antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, or anti-retrovirals), but I just took a 40 question micro block on Kaplan (by accident . . . I meant to select "Immunology" and got a 93% (the average for mortals was 57%).

So I don't really know what to think. Most of the questions actually seemed like they were spoon feeding me a ton of information (with stuff like "patient presents with cough, runny nose, pink eye, and hypopigmented spots on buccal mucosa, and rash that started on her head and moved to her trunk") that I don't normally see (at least not in such textbook format) with UW. So I feel like it's a false sense of accomplishment as far as me really having micro nailed down.

Either way, it's at least encouraging, if nothing else.

thx for sharing

 

[username456789]

thx for sharing

No prob sweet pea.

 

[knuckles]

For micro, is it better to go through Kaplan Micro, or just memorize FA Micro inside and out (and use MMRS for reference)?