How to EFFICIENTLY prepare for Pharmacology? (and Microbiology)

[Knicks]

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One suggestion I got was that you should study for Pharmacology about 1 month before the exam. Otherwise, if you start too early, you'll forget the drugs.

Is that a good idea?

Also, what about microbiology? How did you guys go about studying all those bacteria, specific characteristics, associated things, epidemiology, etc?


PS: With regards to pharmacology for step 1, is all you have to know the mode of action and side effects? How do I EFFICIENTLY study pharmacology (and I guess Micro too)?

I'd appreciate a response to each of these questions

Thanx

 

[BobCat3]

first, how long are u gonna be studying for the boards in general? To study pharm 1 month in advance and then expect to remember much of it at test time might be asking too much.

i can tell you what i did and how i felt about it:

i studied for the board for 5 weeks exclusively. in those weeks i tried to do a systems approach and would add in pharm with each system but i found that i wasnt really doing a good job that way, so then what i did was i crammed pharm. In my last week of studying, where i crammed everything again, i spent about 2.5 days cramming pharm. I just used FA for pharm and added things to FA from USMLEWorld. Obviously there were some pharm q's on the exam i had no clue about but would i have known the answer if i spent more time on pharm, probably not.

for micro again i just used FA. I spent about 2 days studying it early in my study period and again crammed it in about 2 days in that last week of studying.

i felt those subjects were very detailed and didnt require much understanding, it is best to cram the details near the end.

i ended up doing well on the step 1. Hope that gives you some idea of one approach that could work for you too!

 

[flumazenil]

First aid is all you need for pharmacology and microbiology and immunology

 

[Knicks]

Thanx guys,

and I'm planning to study about 2-3 (3.5) months.

 

[Sage880]

I think a mistake everyone makes is overestimating the amount of facts there are on step 1. Only about 30-40% of the questions were testing "facts" on mine. The rest of the questions were all understanding and I kept relying on my time and experience in med school to answer them.

I studied 3 months and I just got burnt out. I got a 245 but was in the 255ish range on NBMEs after 2 months. The last month actually hurt me as I lost focus and my zeal for remembering and cramming details. I didn't listen to the advice of 6-8 weeks is optimal because I'm an IMG and figured I needed to "Americanize" my subjects, which would take longer. But med school is all the same no matter what country you study in. In my actual exam I had a couple detail questions where I thought "Crap, I used to know this a month ago".

Do yourself a favor and move up your exam to about 2 months after you start studying.

To answer your original question, I used Clinical micro made rid simple during the year. Then I used BRS Micro to review for the boards because it has all the stupid little micro details laid out really nicely. Pharm is the easiest section on the exam after doing Kaplan or USMLEWorld qbanks. They are SOOOO much harder then the actual exam. Most of the pharm questions on the exam are understanding type questions. If you're good at reading graphs and like those "agonist-antagonist-agonist again" graph questions you'll be fine. If not, concentrate on getting the hang of those. Also, the first couple pharm lectures from your school (the administration, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of drugs) is sooooo high yield.

 

[Knicks]

^^^^ wow. thanx for that input.

Funny thing though how you used BRS Pharm, and someone else in one of my other threads said not to use the BRS.

 

[Sage880]

Well, it's not a very good book. But besides biochem and behavioural science, that is the other subject that is taught with a slightly different focus in Europe then in the US. I didn't know which strepococci resists bacitracin for instance and stuff like that. The US micro also covers a lot of the culture media for differentiating the bugs and I've never had any lectures on that. So I needed to teach myself those kind of things. But if you have a better foundation in US micro from your classes then you won't need a book like that. It's terrible to try to understand anything. It really is strictly for memorizing.

 

[blz]

i learned micro well in the beginning of my studying (studied 6.5wks) and reinforced it daily with questions. pharm, on the other hand, i memorized 3 days before the test. i just used those lippincott cards and just crammed the hell out of it. i posted previously on how exactly i approached pharm in another post so you can search for it. in the end, i think i got every pharm question right. so cramming in pharm is very doable (btw, i didn't completely ignore pharm. i reviewed it with the organ systems but i made no conscious effort to memorize the drugs until i got closer to the exam). wrt to micro, i thought all the questions were easy in comparison to the question banks out there, so make sure you do all the kaplan and usmleworld micro questions.

to comment on the other posts about studying for 3 months, i also agree that its very counter productive. you'll forget a lot of details you've learned if you spread it out so much. if you're gonna study that long, you have to make sure you max out at the end. so step up your studying intensity as you get closer to the exam.

 

[blz]

Well, it's not a very good book. But besides biochem and behavioural science, that is the other subject that is taught with a slightly different focus in Europe then in the US. I didn't know which strepococci resists bacitracin for instance and stuff like that. The US micro also covers a lot of the culture media for differentiating the bugs and I've never had any lectures on that. So I needed to teach myself those kind of things. But if you have a better foundation in US micro from your classes then you won't need a book like that. It's terrible to try to understand anything. It really is strictly for memorizing.

lol...USA lectures dont even cover that culturing crap.