Schools using board material vs in house lectures

[inthesunshine]

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Pre med here and unsure if I’m asking the question the right way.

I’ve heard there are schools that use Boards and Beyond, ScholarRX, or other board resources as their main source of lecture material.

Is this common?

How would I find out what schools use these v in house lecture?

If your school uses board resources instead of in house lectures (unsure if this would be for all lectures or as a supplement), do you find them comprehensive enough?

 

[Goro]

News to me.

 

[Goro]

In general, your curriculum is Board prep.

 

[Billiam95]

Really depends on the quality of the in-house lectures and if your school uses NBME exams or uses in-house written exams. If NBME exams, you can pretty much totally rely on 3rd resources - the commonly recommended ones are UFAPS BnB (uWorld, First Aid, Anking, Pathoma, Sketchy, and Boards and Beyond). Boot camp is another one I've heard good things about but cant speak to personally. Amboss library and questions are also pretty solid too.
But if your school uses in-house written tests, then you'd really need to study both the in-house curriculum and 3rd party resources.

 

[inthesunshine]

I guess that’s why I’m asking. Ive heard that schools are going to more active learning and less lecture. If the school gives NBME exams and students use board resources, are there schools that have students review the material from board resources and use the professors to run active learning based on the board material.

If they don’t, wouldn’t this make more sense? Use professors to help with questions and run recitations or teach intro to clincial skills? I am not in med school yet so may be missing something obv

 

[Hollow Knight]

So there's a difference between what's best to train doctors and what's best to train test-takers. You could pass step 1 easily doing 3rd party resources and anki for like a year or so.

But there are other things- how to do a physical exam, etc, that you need professors to teach you. Plus some people just like how their professors explain things.

I've never heard of a school using strictly third party, that's weird.

As far as what would be better..... that's a complicated question. I think we should spend less time memorizing biochemistry and more time memorizing clinical presentations, common side effects of medications, indications for tests, etc. But to do that we'd have to change the content of the step exams, so until that happens, people will keep slamming anki and UWorld all through their preclinical education.

 

[inthesunshine]

@Hollow Knight
thank you for the response. I agree with you that faculty need to teach the physical exam skill. I am basing what I know from friends who are in med school. They mostly go to a school where basic science faculty lecture and physicians teach intro to clinical skills.

When I look at board resource websites they say they have med school partnerships. I assumed the med schools used the board material to replace basic science lectures and still used physicians to teach the integration with clinical medicine and physical exam skills. I guess that’s not necessarily the case

 

[Hollow Knight]

@Hollow Knight
thank you for the response. I agree with you that faculty need to teach the physical exam skill. I am basing what I know from friends who are in med school. They mostly go to a school where basic science faculty lecture and physicians teach intro to clinical skills.

When I look at board resource websites they say they have med school partnerships. I assumed the med schools used the board material to replace basic science lectures and still used physicians to teach the integration with clinical medicine and physical exam skills. I guess that’s not necessarily the case

My school pays for UWorld for us. That might be what they mean.

Our professors still teach though, it's not a replacement, it's in addition to our school's material