should i be flipping through brain stem slides

[herewego]

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Anyone who has taken the test, can you remark on if memorizing brain stem slides was worth it? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[johndoe3344]

Anyone who has taken the test, can you remark on if memorizing brain stem slides was worth it? Any help would be appreciated.

Any anecdotal answers to your question (what you are asking for) would be utterly worthless. Everyone's test is different. You can get 0 questions on brain stem slices, or you can be the lucky winner with 10 questions on brain stem slices.

Whether or not it's "worth it" depends on how pressed for time you are, how lucky you think you will be, and a whole bunch of other factors.

 

[jatt12]

Anyone who has taken the test, can you remark on if memorizing brain stem slides was worth it? Any help would be appreciated.

Yes, it is worth knowing brain stems for step1.

 

[mdquestion]

Anyone who has taken the test, can you remark on if memorizing brain stem slides was worth it? Any help would be appreciated.

I'd mainly work to be able to just identify a slice by which section it is (i.e. medulla, pons, midbrain). Know in general which nuclei will be there. Motor tend to be more medial, sensory more lateral. And, also, where some of the important tracts from peripheral input might travel through.

To be honest, it can be helpful with deciphering some pathology as well. (i.e. PICA vs AICA strokes make more sense once you are able to different which cranial nerves are going to be affected in the pons vs. medulla).

I would say they are definitely not super high yield, and If I had to choose some neuroanatomy to learn...it probably would be spinal cord slices. I've generally seen at least one of these on every NBME I've taken. Not the same for the brainstem slices (some had none).

 

[msbbc833]

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[Guyton Killah]

Anyone who has taken the test, can you remark on if memorizing brain stem slides was worth it? Any help would be appreciated.

You should start studying and stop flippin thru, bcos this aint no game