pathophys boards and wards instead of BRS Phys?

[neurotrancer]

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I have heard many people use BRS Path, BRS Phys, + Qbank as cornerstones of their step I prep.

Why not pathophys for boards and wards instead of BRS Phys? I have heard from many people there are so few straight phys questions on the actual exam, yet BRS phys seems popular. I have already gone through BRS Phys and actually felt like FA + Qbank would have been better (I'm an advocate of using qbank as a learning tool more than as an assessment tool so burning questions by understanding them and revisiting them is more a means of encoding high yield info than assessing my phys knowledge gained elsewhere).

peace!

 

[MDFACC]

pathophys, IMO, is a terrible book for board review.

too many irrelevant facts and its HIGHLY unreadable. i am curious what special deal FA and Dr. Ayala have to make that book the 'best comprehensive' book for step 1. i don't know anyone personally who has used that book or has told me to use it. the only place i've heard it is on SDN--and this is notorious for its trolls.

i think what people mean by making brs phys a cornerstone is studying it early to establish a background for the rest of your preparation. for example, if you don't know what happens in the action potential of an SA node, you won't understand cardiac drugs fully.

i think the correct approach to physiology is reading brs physiology in 3 days for understanding, memorizing FA, and practicing as many questions as possible. its easy to understand that COPD has low FEV1/FVC ratio. but when its given in the form of a complicated diagram which takes 2-3 steps to notice it represents a low FEV1/FVC, its easy to make mistakes if you don't practice dilligently. so in summary, i think its a true cornerstone book because you need to understand it well to understand the rest of medicine.

 

[MDFACC]

if its okay, i'd also like to sell my pathophys boards and wards + pharm boards and wards on this website. they are both unused and in perfect condition. i of course found them dead useless b/c of their extraneous detail. but they are VERY HIGHLY rated on FA for some reason


their combined retail price on amazon is 70.00. i will sell both for 50 + S/H. PM me if you are interested.

 

[neurotrancer]

I have both pathophys boards and wards and pharm boards and wards.

Actually, a lot of people at my school have been singing praises of pathophys boards and wards so that's why I was confused.

I still don't see much reason to care about BRS Phys (and again, I have read it and done some of the qbank phys). It seems like the phys that is important is re-explained in BRS path or in Pharm. For example, FEV1/FVC ratio is explained just fine in BRS path to understand COPD vs. restrictive pulmonary dzs. and Also, the graph issue....I read BRS phys and there were lots of graph q's in qbank without such graphs having been in BRS phys.

Anyone else have any comments on the relevance/irrelevance of BRS Phys cuz I'm seriously considering only using it as a reference when I go through all the qbank phys after my path shelf next monday (not this monday). peace!