Is Goljan audio necessary with Rapid Review Path?

[dropout87]

Should I use Goljan audio with Rapid Review Pathology or just use the book alone? I am using the book to supplement our coursework, since it is not always well taught at our school. The newer edition is longer than the older ones so I am not sure if it has everything that is also included in the audio.

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[Apoplexy__]

I think it would be great to do both. I recommend making the audio something you multitask with, not something you just sit down and listen to.

The audio explains things well and clarifies/emphasizes the book.

 

[Psai]

i used audio alone

 

[Apoplexy__]

i used audio alone

Same here, except for like 3-4 chapters of RR. If OP didn't say he was using it to help him study for classes, I would just say to ditch the book.

 

[dropout87]

Same here, except for like 3-4 chapters of RR. If OP didn't say he was using it to help him study for classes, I would just say to ditch the book.

Our school curriculum is subject based so there is little integration in lectures. I head from numerous students that Goljan does that well in his book and audio so I may use both since Step 1 seems to more about integrating different subjects. Also, students at my school recently managed to get a group Pathoma discount so my tentative plan is to use school lectures + Pathoma + Goljan audio for studying and if I get time, skim through RR pathology?

 

[Apoplexy__]

my tentative plan is to use school lectures + Pathoma + Goljan audio for studying and if I get time, skim through RR pathology?

That's exactly what I did and it worked fantastically.

 

[globe199]

I was a huge fan of RR pathology! I used it on its own, without the Goljan audio, and studied most of it during my dedicated study period. I attribute correctly answering most of the questions on my real Step 1 to a combination of Goljan and Pathoma, but I believe I was able to correctly answer the hardest questions on my test because of Goljan RR.

That said, Pathoma provides all of the essentials very well, and RR is pretty long and detailed, so it would probably more "high-yield" to use Pathoma on its own if you don't feel like you can get through RR. I ultimately suggest both resources if feasible, though, since you can never know enough pathology for the boards...

 

[seminoma]

I use book exclusively right now (in addition to pathoma). I use the audio when I can, but it is a lower priority than going through pathoma 2-3 times and doing qbank questions. Going to use the audio for sure during dedicated time though.

 

[PL198]

I don't get how people talk about Goljan being hard to get through.
Pathoma is great for the bare bones stuff, but the information isn't even comparable, there's probably 3-4x the information in RR. I mean pathoma is a 200 pg book . RR is 700 and an RR page is extremely more dense information wise than a pathoma page.

 

[seminoma]

I don't get how people talk about Goljan being hard to get through.
Pathoma is great for the bare bones stuff, but the information isn't even comparable, there's probably 3-4x the information in RR. I mean pathoma is a 200 pg book . RR is 700 and an RR page is extremely more dense information wise than a pathoma page.

Yeah, totally agree. The new version of Goljan RR is easily 3-4x more info than Pathoma. There is way more info in the newest Goljan than the previous edition.

 

[dropout87]

Surprisingly, new RR path is only 140 pages shorter than Robbin's Basic pathology, but I was able to quickly skim through relevant sections much quicker than I expected, especially after listening to Pathoma.

 

[dextor2003]

I don't get how people talk about Goljan being hard to get through.
Pathoma is great for the bare bones stuff, but the information isn't even comparable, there's probably 3-4x the information in RR. I mean pathoma is a 200 pg book . RR is 700 and an RR page is extremely more dense information wise than a pathoma page.

I think that's why people say Goljan's hard to get through..

 

[PL198]

I own both and will maybe listen to sattar anyway just because I love his lectures and think he's awesome but it seems to me a smart play would be to annotate a little more into the high yield margins of RR path instead of annotating into pathoma, then you could read through just the high yields + annotations and have your own super succinct version(essentially replacing pathoma) and also have your more detailed version(normal RR text) in one book. plus the information is literally right next to each other in that scenario so if you were unsure about something you can just move from HY + annotations to the normal text and figure it out.

 

[PL198]

I think that's why people say Goljan's hard to get through..

I mean it's path, it's going to be fairly intensive content wise. I don't really see the point in having something more concise than FA, but that's just my personal thoughts. I hate reading textbooks to the point where I'm not capable of reading medium robbins and I have 0 problems with RR path.

Plus the whole tie-ins with other subjects besides path is just a cherry on top.

 

[dextor2003]

I mean it's path, it's going to be fairly intensive content wise. I don't really see the point in having something more concise than FA, but that's just my personal thoughts. I hate reading textbooks to the point where I'm not capable of reading medium robbins and I have 0 problems with RR path.

Plus the whole tie-ins with other subjects besides path is just a cherry on top.

No I absolutely agree with you. I'd love to read RR myself. It's just making the time to do so that's difficult. Given we all have different curriculums, schedules, and priorities, some of us may have more time than others. Unfortunately, I'm in the latter category. I hardly even have time for Pathoma, so there's no way I'm going to even try to read a 700 pg book.

 

[PL198]

I completely ignore my schools lectures sooo thats how I do it lol

 

[dextor2003]

I completely ignore my schools lectures sooo thats how I do it lol

haha fair enough. are you guys p/f?

 

[dropout87]

I am at p/f and the schedule is fortunately well designed so we get time to few extra things.

 

[PL198]

haha fair enough. are you guys p/f?

pseudo-p/f but I've found if I understand everything in RR, FA and Uworld, I can figure out almost any thing a PhD can throw at me and their tests are the opposite of board-preparing.

 

[dextor2003]

pseudo-p/f but I've found if I understand everything in RR, FA and Uworld, I can figure out almost any thing a PhD can throw at me and their tests are the opposite of board-preparing.

so then what do you use for micro and pharm?

 

[PL198]

RR for micro and if you annotate every pharm explanation uworld has more good pharm stuff than any book I've ever seen

 

[seminoma]

I think that's why people say Goljan's hard to get through..

The number of pages can be a little deceiving though. If you go through Pathoma first and have a good understanding of the general pathologic mechanism, Goljan is a fairly quick read to fill in the details. It's basically all bullet points and tables, whereas Robbins Basic is the typical textbook format.

 

[dextor2003]

RR for micro and if you annotate every pharm explanation uworld has more good pharm stuff than any book I've ever seen

The number of pages can be a little deceiving though. If you go through Pathoma first and have a good understanding of the general pathologic mechanism, Goljan is a fairly quick read to fill in the details. It's basically all bullet points and tables, whereas Robbins Basic is the typical textbook format.

so then do you guys just do one pass through RR or multiple?

 

[Phloston]

Recommend the audios when travelling or on down time.

RR Path should be used as a reference, not as a primary resource. I spent a total of no more than ~10 minutes looking at RR Path for my entire Step 1 preparation.

 

[Phloston]

so then do you guys just do one pass through RR or multiple?

If you're early in MS2 and are weak in path, then it's okay to use it alongside coursework, but I wouldn't recommend RR as a Step1-specific text. Just do a bucket load of practice questions, the vast majority of which have overlying path concepts.

 

[Phloston]

so then what do you use for micro and pharm?

RR for micro and if you annotate every pharm explanation uworld has more good pharm stuff than any book I've ever seen

Microcards for micro. Lange pharm cards for pharm. Then read FA and do questions. That's all you need.

 

[seminoma]

so then do you guys just do one pass through RR or multiple?

Single pass for me.

 

[seminoma]

Microcards for micro. Lange pharm cards for pharm. Then read FA and do questions. That's all you need.

Do you think the 2013 lange cards are necessary? I inherited the previous edition (from 2009) from a friend.

 

[PL198]

I do like 5 passes of RR. If a school module is 3 weeks, that's a lot of time. Will do brs phys in first couple days of module along with phys questions then onto path and also look at transcript of goljan audio

 

[Phloston]

I do like 5 passes of RR.

That probably takes what? A year

 

[PL198]

That probably takes what? A year

it's 1 chapter at a time. I'm not in dedicated study time. It takes me at most 3-4 hours to do a chapter if I'm being extremely detailed.

 

[mcloaf]

it's 1 chapter at a time. I'm not in dedicated study time. It takes me at most 3-4 hours to do a chapter if I'm being extremely detailed.

Is that 3-4 total, or per pass?

 

[PL198]

Is that 3-4 total, or per pass?

lol per pass I'm not rainman, jesus christ

 

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

That probably takes what? A year

Anybody can do 5 passes of RR if they "completely ignore school lectures."

 

[PL198]

I said it takes 3-4 hours per pass. If you don't have a spare 20 hours per 3 weeks for supplementary materials I'd say you're doing something wrong. But you might have good school lectures so it might be more important to follow those

 

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

I said it takes 3-4 hours per pass. If you don't have a spare 20 hours per 3 weeks for supplementary materials I'd say you're doing something wrong. But you might have good school lectures so it might be more important to follow those

Most of the lectures are OK, but we do have a few professors that love to test on Step 2/3 stuff. Fortunately those types of questions are uncommon, but either way you would have a difficult time trying to find that information in any of the usual Step 1 resources. Oh well. I usually do a couple passes of RR before the exam because I do have to read and understand the lectures slides. I love it when I don't have to read lectures notes more than once because I already read and understood the material from reading RR, Pathoma, FA, etc.

 

[seminoma]

I'm with @PL198. 3-4 hours for 1 chapter of RR Path is reasonable. I do one pass because most of the RR details are covered in other materials that I use and it's not worthwhile for me to read RR more than once. I know people in my class who do 3+ passes though.

 

[globe199]

I only read through RR Path all at once during dedicated Step 1 study, but I felt it was immensely helpful for long-term retention to read a chapter, close the book, and reproduce all the information and concepts from the chapter in a notebook. I only did this once for each chapter, but this really helped me integrate and understand everything, to the point where I still feel like I know pathology pretty well even though I haven't done anything clinical in months...

I actually thought it was pretty important to do well in class on top of studying for the boards; I explicitly remember getting questions correct on Step 1 because of information I had learned only from class and not any review resource. Internal data from my own medical school shows that preclinical course exam scores have by far the strongest positive correlation with our students' Step 1 scores (even though our grading is "true P/F").

 

[PL198]

I only read through RR Path all at once during dedicated Step 1 study, but I felt it was immensely helpful for long-term retention to read a chapter, close the book, and reproduce all the information and concepts from the chapter in a notebook. I only did this once for each chapter, but this really helped me integrate and understand everything, to the point where I still feel like I know pathology pretty well even though I haven't done anything clinical in months...

I actually thought it was pretty important to do well in class on top of studying for the boards; I explicitly remember getting questions correct on Step 1 because of information I had learned only from class and not any review resource. Internal data from my own medical school shows that preclinical course exam scores have by far the strongest positive correlation with our students' Step 1 scores (even though our grading is "true P/F").

there's no way to correct for effort though so that stat isn't very useful IMO. all it says to me is " students that care the most, they care the most "

 

[dextor2003]

there's no way to correct for effort though so that stat isn't very useful IMO. all it says to me is " students that care the most, they care the most "

i'd be interested to see if the class performance-step 1 score correlation is the strongest one in all med schools or just some

 

[dropout87]

Thanks for your help.