Is BRS Physiology really necessary?

[AK_MD2BE]

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I keep reading all of these posts that generally say, "Use RR Pathology or BRS Pathology + BRS Physiology + FA + UW and you're golden..." Then, other posts don't mention BRS Phys...so, what gives? As I read BRS Phsyiology, it doesn't seem that it would be all that necessary. However, I have never done any Q-banks or taken the exam. Would the Physiology in FA be enough if you annotate what is in there? Thanks for your advice...🙂

 

[Phallacious]

I keep reading all of these posts that generally say, "Use RR Pathology or BRS Pathology + BRS Physiology + FA + UW and you're golden..." Then, other posts don't mention BRS Phys...so, what gives? As I read BRS Phsyiology, it doesn't seem that it would be all that necessary. However, I have never done any Q-banks or taken the exam. Would the Physiology in FA be enough if you annotate what is in there? Thanks for your advice...🙂

I love how everyone has "the perfect set of books" that will get you buy.

Just go to the bookstore and pick up these books and see if you like them.

DOn't listen to anyone but yourself..

 

[blz]

BRS phys is a little dense. It's more useful to use it to clarify sections in FA rather than to read straight through. I would supplement this with RR path since it covers a lot of phys in it.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I think it depends on the strength of your physiology foundation.

A lot of the questions test reasoning in novel situations or applications to pathological conditions, so if you did well in your Physiology course the book may not be that useful.

Physiology was my strongest preclinical course, but I still found BRS Physiology a useful quick review. I did not spend too much time obsessing over it; I just read it and noted things I had forgotten.

Doing practice questions will probably influence your performance on this subject more than reading BRS.

 

[mudphudwannabe]

Physiology was my strongest preclinical course, but I still found BRS Physiology a useful quick review. I did not spend too much time obsessing over it; I just read it and noted things I had forgotten.

Agreed. I think you will need some source beyond FA for phys, even if you don't use BRS Phys. For me, some of the stuff in BRS Phys was so basic I just skimmed it rather than spending a lot of time on it -- however, there were a lot of things in there that were pure gold, especially when it came to which equations to focus on. There were a significant number of questions on my exam that were either straight physiology or required a very good understanding of basic physiology in order to apply it to a pathophys question.

FWIW I just used BRS Path, BRS Phys and FA, plus USMLE World for questions. I used the 2nd editions of the BRS books and got them very cheap from a 4th year student, so you don't need to spend the money for the latest edition unless the glossy cover and pristine pages are really important to you.

 

[Uegis]

You'll get a variety of responses. I never touched the book in my reviews. It's too detailed. The physio on the boards is very logical and can be done with some thinking. There are bound to be some "oh crap" questions on the test where you could've read a whole physio textbook and still get wrong. If you have time, read BRS. If not, skip it.

 

[Sage880]

Don't bother reading it unless you did really badly in physiology. Maybe it's worth borrowing from a friend or the library if you haven't done phys in a while and need to remember concepts.

By far the highest yield studying for phys is doing phys questions. Most M2 students understand all the phys concepts but some still get tricked up by the way some questions are asked. After you do some of them for a while you start to "get the hang of them". But I don't think I necessarly learned more phys by doing the questions.

The other subject that was like that was pharm. You could know everything about every drug there is and still not do great on pharm because you're not familiar with how the questions are asked. It seems like 75% of all the pharm questions come from the first chapters of a pharm book (ADME stuff).

 

[madeyedhl]

thanks for the info

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

I used mine mainly as a reference book. It was actually MORE useful when I was actually taking physiology. If you're ambivalent try contacting a fourth/third year. They can probably sell you their crappy, highlighted copy for a few bucks, and you can skim it if you think you ever need it.