How to study clinical science

[Spodermin]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I finally developed a plan that works, or so I though...

My plan is doing uworld, reading a review book, and last but not least, uptodate!
The information in those three sources is more than enough for any discipline, but I'm beginning to think that it might be overkill. Especially for things that I'm not particularly interested in i.e. surgery.

I'm thinking about dropping uptodate or just using their algorithms.

How do you guys do it?

 

[BigRedBeta]

I think the most important thing to consider is how you're framing your objectives.

Third year students and even interns (and nurses and NPs, etc) tend to fall into this trap that if they can just see a particular disease then they'll learn it and know how to manage it. The problem is that even if you could memorize the top 100 diagnoses in each field, you're stuck when DX #102 walks through the door.

It's often better to look at your medications and diagnostics as tools in your tool belt that you can use on a variety of conditions based on symptoms. For example, there are 5 causes of hypoxemia, but giving supplemental O2 is rarely the wrong thing to do (though there are exceptions). The diseases that lead to those 5 causes of hypoxemia though are varied and expansive though they end up having the same final common pathway.

Lastly, Uptodate IS a review resource. It shouldnt' be thought of as inherently worse than a book. The key is not to CITE uptodate to your older attendings but to actually look at the source article. UTD has extensive citations throughout their articles which you can use a short cut to get to the heart of an issue.

 

[Perrotfish]

I finally developed a plan that works, or so I though...

My plan is doing uworld, reading a review book, and last but not least, uptodate!
The information in those three sources is more than enough for any discipline, but I'm beginning to think that it might be overkill. Especially for things that I'm not particularly interested in i.e. surgery.

I'm thinking about dropping uptodate or just using their algorithms.

How do you guys do it?

In medical school, I found it was helpful to just take the weekend before a core rotation and read case files cover to cover. It made me look more competent early and reduced my overall stress for a rotation.