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Reborn24
Does the exam perhaps give us a list of normal ranges? If not, does anybody have a link to normal lab values?
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I believe it is a tab you can click on during the exam.
So do you advise to memorize them or not????
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deleted113029
sure if you have the time or are OCPD about it. but usually the values are either way out there that you go,'hmmm...that doesn't look right' or very unexciting. most of the questions don't have many labs to them so it's very low yield to memorize them.
During this year (MS2) I have become familiar with some already and know what is high. I do not plan on memorizing them at all. If I really need it to answer a Q, it's right there.
yes they give you a list of normal ranges....you are not left out to dry and hoping you have guessed on the correct values
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mountainman123
I think that you should know some of the normal values for the big ones such as Calcium, PT, PTT, Platelets, etc.. It will save you some time on the exam if you can know that a value is too low/high. It takes a while to look for certain norms, but they are all on the real thing if you need them.
my Kaplan director instructed my class to memorize the values. he said if we take 5 values, and memorize a different set every day, we should know them cold for exam day. nothing wastes more time than having to check and recheck lab values during the actual exam..
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mountainman123
I think that your time would be better spent with 5 drugs every day, or 5 bugs/viruses, or 5 diseases, etc... Knowing the lab values exactly will not help you with many questions as most will give you the norms in parentheses after.
Anyone think it might be somewhat of the best of both worlds to just memorize the labs in the back of First Aid?...its a pretty condensed (and I'm assuming high yield) version of a complete list of labs
I wouldn't prioritize memorizing the one thing you get a cheat sheet for.
The important ones you will learn by doing practice questions.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the layout of the normal values list so you can find what you need quickly.
The important ones you will learn by doing practice questions.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the layout of the normal values list so you can find what you need quickly.
