How important are preclinical grades?

[PL198]

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It's always interesting to me to see the different perspectives from people that are in medical school for different reasons: one being that they really want to help people and are good at science, and the other being they are really interested in the science and helping people is a nice bonus. Not saying that you two are necessarily in either category, but it just reminded me of this. I, myself, am in the latter category, and I find myself always wanting to know how things work..not just because it'll help me do well on a test, but because once you get passed the stresses of having to learn so much material, most if it turns out to be pretty damn interesting.

Or the third group that just want to provide a service that gives them a decent standard of living. I mean yeah it's cool to understand how COPD works, but neither that nor helping people are primary motivators for me.

 

[ChEMD]

Or the third group that just want to provide a service that gives them a decent standard of living. I mean yeah it's cool to understand how COPD works, but neither that nor helping people are primary motivators for me.

Very true, although it is difficult for me to understand how someone could invest so much time and money and sacrifice other parts of their lives for something that they consider to be just another job.

 

[DermViser]

Or the third group that just want to provide a service that gives them a decent standard of living. I mean yeah it's cool to understand how COPD works, but neither that nor helping people are primary motivators for me.

Very true, although it is difficult for me to understand how someone could invest so much time and money and sacrifice other parts of their lives for something that they consider to be just another job.

The problem is if your main motivator in medicine is having a decent standard of living, medicine will eat you up alive (save for certain specialties). You'll get a taste of this when you enter MS-3. MS-3 pretty much forces you to put your money where you mouth is when it comes to "wanting to help people". Just "loving science" also is not a good reason to enter medicine. It's really a combination of the two. The good standard of living is a byproduct.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe medicine is some sort of religious "calling" either, but if your primary motivator is the paycheck, the day-to-day workings of medicine will be too much for you.

Edit: If you enter Radiology or Pathology, then you can largely get away with not liking people, and by people I mean patients, bc obviously consultants will want to talk to you in those fields.

 

[EMDO2018]

Edit: If you enter Radiology or Pathology, then you can largely get away with not liking people, and by people I mean patients, bc obviously consultants will want to talk to you in those fields.

Pathology job market has been horrible for the past 30 years and shows no signs of improving.

 

[DermViser]

Pathology job market has been horrible for the past 30 years and shows no signs of improving.

I think that highly depends on which AP/CP Pathology program you enter.

 

[EMDO2018]

Do you guys think it would lead to a better step 1 score if M1s ans M2s supplement the first two years of studying with review books? I notice most review books are disciplined based, micro, path, pharm, etc, how would those of us who will be using the system based curriculum study using prep books?

 

[SBR249]

Do you guys think it would lead to a better step 1 score if M1s ans M2s supplement the first two years of studying with review books? I notice most review books are disciplined based, micro, path, pharm, etc, how would those of us who will be using the system based curriculum study using prep books?

I can only go by my experiences but my med school has the MS1 year being discipline based (anatomy, biochem, physiology, histology, etc) and the MS2 year being organ system based for pathology, pharm, micro, clinical.

1. You can get a copy of FA and annotate the systems and study as you go. When it comes time for step1 studying, you can get a fresh copy of FA and just look at the parts that have been updated but it probably doesn't change too much year to year.

2. Some of my classmates used BRS physiology and just went over each system as a review/overview before each block

3. Most of my class bought a 1-year subscription of pathoma and went through it system by system during the year along with the class. It helps that our pathology course component pretty much follows Robbins which pathoma is based off of

4. A few of my classmates bought a 1 year subscription to UWorld and went through questions system by system along with class lectures

5. A few of my classmates used firecracker throughout the year. But I heard it was very time consuming and required a lot of dedication and many of them dropped it after a while. YMMV

Those are just some of the things that my classmates have done. I don't know how much it helped them with step 1 as most of them wanted these resources to do well in class but the ones I talked to generally did well throughout the year and so I imagine they would say it was worth it. I personally only used pathoma and none of the rest.

 

[EMDO2018]

T

I can only go by my experiences but my med school has the MS1 year being discipline based (anatomy, biochem, physiology, histology, etc) and the MS2 year being organ system based for pathology, pharm, micro, clinical.

1. You can get a copy of FA and annotate the systems and study as you go. When it comes time for step1 studying, you can get a fresh copy of FA and just look at the parts that have been updated but it probably doesn't change too much year to year.

2. Some of my classmates used BRS physiology and just went over each system as a review/overview before each block

3. Most of my class bought a 1-year subscription of pathoma and went through it system by system during the year along with the class. It helps that our pathology course component pretty much follows Robbins which pathoma is based off of

4. A few of my classmates bought a 1 year subscription to UWorld and went through questions system by system along with class lectures

5. A few of my classmates used firecracker throughout the year. But I heard it was very time consuming and required a lot of dedication and many of them dropped it after a while. YMMV

Those are just some of the things that my classmates have done. I don't know how much it helped them with step 1 as most of them wanted these resources to do well in class but the ones I talked to generally did well throughout the year and so I imagine they would say it was worth it. I personally only used pathoma and none of the rest.

Thanks.

 

[DermViser]

Do you guys think it would lead to a better step 1 score if M1s ans M2s supplement the first two years of studying with review books? I notice most review books are disciplined based, micro, path, pharm, etc, how would those of us who will be using the system based curriculum study using prep books?

I would say yes, and that's what First Aid recommends actually. The goal is to get comfortable with using them as you're learning things in class so that it's not such a shock come review time. Unless your professor takes the time to tailor lectures accordingly, there may be somethings your professor doesn't cover and other things he covers that aren't important with respect to Step 1. Review books help in this regard. For the ones that split by organ system, you'd be using a discipline based book over a longer period of time (i.e. Pharm, Phys, etc.)