medEssentials Vs First Aid

[Guyton Killah]

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I find this book beats FA hands down. The material is organized in logical manner and goes through each science for every system. It has more pictures and explanations than FA which I thought was a jumble of information. It also has a lot of COLOR images, which FA lacks. It has some information that FA doesn't have and vice-versa. If I had to choose just one of the two books, I would go with this one.

What do you guys think?

 

[Guyton Killah]

although i purchased both texts, I used medessentials foremost, thinking that since it had more fancy diagrams etc in it it would be better.


i learned all sorts of things.... too bad they weren't on my usmle.

afterwards, talking with friends i found myself saying, "gee, i didn't know this xyz..." and my friends would respond, "oh, that was right out of FA"


🙁 i thought i knew enough trivia, esp FA trivia since I did usmleRx and scored somewhere around (75-80%) on it...

anyhow, even though I read RR path 3x, BRS physio, HY neuro, Neuroanatomy MRS, and lippincott pharm all cover to cover I really regret not having read through the entire FA

 

[Guyton Killah]

While attending last year's AMSA conference I signed up with Kaplan to give feedback at an open forum with the authors of medessentials on what incoming MSII student's were looking for in a USMLE review book. Kaplan definitely did the leg work on their latest attempt to compete with First Aid. It seems that the idea behind medessentials is that it is very similar to First Aid in content yet instead of a skeleton outline that you must supplement with notes in the margins they already added "most" of that so you don't have to.

The big question...do you stray from the tried and true First Aid or do you step out on a limb and try something that could be better but just doesn't have the track record. I'm not sure what I'm going to do...I've been using First Aid as a primary review source and if I need additional info I consult medessentials before I crack open BRS or the texts. On a side note...I often find that medessentials presents the information in a way that I can understand and absorb more readily...although that's just my take on it.

Dilemma!!

 

[Deferoxamine]

LMAO @ this thread even existing.

 

[Whats_up_doc]

LMAO @ this thread even existing.

 

[ZagDoc]

I think its a tomato/tomahto situation. I know people who used medEssentials and did great on the boards. No matter what book you use, its all the same information, its just whichever source allows you to learn the information best. I think people get too caught up in the "if you don't use x you're going to fail" mentality.

The real bear for studying for the board is the QBank anyways. No matter what primary review book you use, its more of a foundation on which questions build the house.

 

[pseudoknot]

I didn't really use FA, and did well on NBMEs although I haven't gotten my actual score back. I think med students are very susceptible to magical thinking and very conformist, but the truth is that there are plenty of good sources of information out there and you should use what you are most comfortable with.

 

[ENThopeful]

I didn't really use FA, and did well on NBMEs although I haven't gotten my actual score back. I think med students are very susceptible to magical thinking and very conformist, but the truth is that there are plenty of good sources of information out there and you should use what you are most comfortable with.

 

[GreenShirt]

MedEssentials is a lot more detailed than FA. I prefer FA just to get the bare-bones bones stuff down and occasionally reference ME for more specifics. FA is in outline format while ME is more table format.

 

[Cooolguy]

i bought both, went to kinkos fedex and asked them to scrap the binding. Both books now sit in the same 3 inch binder with the corresponding chapters from the books in a back to back manner. It is awesome... I can just flip from behavioral science in FA to the next chapter which is behavior science from medessentials. I just read both

 

[defcon8]

i bought both, went to kinkos fedex and asked them to scrap the binding. Both books now sit in a 3 inch binder with the corresponding chapters from the books in a back to back manner. It is awesome... I can just flip from behavioral science in FA to the next chapter which is behavior science from medessentials. I just read both

I am doing something similar.. why not just have the best of both worlds 😀

 

[braluk]

Used both. First aid for the memory devices that will really come in handy on test day and MedEssentials for the comprehensive information. I started early and annotated First aid into Medessentials so I had best of both worlds.