I have heard about Firecracker, First Aid, Pathoma, and Goljan as pre-clinical education resources and board prep. Is there any advantage to using any of these during M1?
Outside Resources during M1
- Thread starter jw3600
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Ah first year. So...without knowing your specific situation, just a general bit of advice would be to:
memorize...as in...if you see part of the sentence on a multiple choice test, be able to pick out the rest for:
-Pathoma
-first aid
Knowing these...and really knowing, not just reading it and saying "yeah I got that" but actually having it all memorized, is probably 80% of the stuff you need to know honestly. If you know those two back and forth you can most of the time reason the other stuff out.
I used anki to memorize everything...but whatever works for you if just as good...be it anki or firecracker or whatever.
memorize...as in...if you see part of the sentence on a multiple choice test, be able to pick out the rest for:
-Pathoma
-first aid
Knowing these...and really knowing, not just reading it and saying "yeah I got that" but actually having it all memorized, is probably 80% of the stuff you need to know honestly. If you know those two back and forth you can most of the time reason the other stuff out.
I used anki to memorize everything...but whatever works for you if just as good...be it anki or firecracker or whatever.
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What about review books? Any recommendations? Pathoma, Step Up, First Aid, Robbins?
I tried and found 2-3 threads debating on which material/combo was best (still helpful), but all the posters seemed to be M2s and it wasn't clear to me if they started using the materials during 1st year, 2nd year, middle of 2nd year etc.
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You don't need any of these to do well first year. If you have a system based block curriculum, and your school introduces you to some path first year, pathoma can't hurt. It's a great resource during second year that many people use.
Robbins is a good reference but it has way too much detail. You do not need it to do well. I bought it and looked through it once or twice.
First Aid is a bare bones review book. It's useless first year IMO.
What you can do to prepare for boards during first year: 1) learn how to study efficiently, and 2) learn everything that is presented to you as well as you can. Using any kind of board prep during first year (before you have any kind of foundation) is pointless at best and counterproductive at worst.
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If your school has a 2-year preclinical curriculum (vs. 1.5-year), I advise studying your in-house materials to the point where you've practically memorized the powerpoints. But try to do at least 10 questions a day (Pretest, BRS, textbook Qs, you name it).
Everyone gave the same advice when I was an m1 so there's obviously rationale behind it...but why not use an SRS program to pound the stuff that is both in fa/Pathoma AND your classes (so not all class stuff) into your memory while its fresh? It was a really helpful strategy for me. But everyone is different and learns differently I guess.
