Step I Studying between MI/MII?

[JP2740]

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Should this be considered?

 

[ipizzy]

Depends on your goals, I guess. I tried looking through FA for MS1 topics and promptly forgot everything I read. If I could do it over, I would probably not have done anything related to boards. If you must do something for boards that early, GT to review your 1st year material is probably the way to go

 

[mdquestion]

I'd say a definitive "DON'T STUDY". You're gonna be barraged with so much information second year that you'll forget it all anyway. I'd work on getting some good board resources (First Aid, Pathoma, QBanks). Do them along with your 2nd year courses. Boards studying will be way easier when you have time for it if you learn things well the first time around.

 

[celkon]

2nd year hard enough, take the time off to recoup, then you can crush school 2nd year. Not worth it, you will get burnt so fast

 

[Aclamity]

If your school neglects to cover certain subjects (e.g. cell/mol bio, biochem, immuno, etc.) it might be a good idea to take a gander at those while you're not bombarded with MSII material. Otherwise, FA really won't make much sense to you until you start second year since it's more or less path based

 

[elektroshok]

I would at the minimum go through the applicable sections of first aid along with your classes

 

[dragon529]

how beneficial is it to get FA at the beginning of 2nd year and study that along with classes? I've heard so many ppl say they "annotate" in it as they use it during the school year. What exactly does this mean? Is it writing down notes on FA that the class notes have but FA doesn't? Does it make a difference in getting a 2012 edition in Aug. vs 2013 edition in Jan? Thanks..

 

[Suncrusher]

If you are in a systems-based curriculum like me, it's possible to do very full reviews of the systems you learned in the second half of M1 during the summer before M2. You're not going to cover those systems again during M2, so...

 

[Thoracotomy]

I'd say at the VERY most start looking at FA during the start of 2nd year and only if it pertains to your current class. So if you're covering nephro, look at the nephro section in FA. You'll probably forget most of it anyways by the time you start your dedicated studying for STEP1. If you use the 2012 version instead of the 2013 there probably won't be much difference. In the end, you'll just want to crank through practice questions anyways in my opinion.

Something that was helpful for me for both STEP 1 and my 2nd year classes was listening to Gouljan, and only the listening to section that I was currently studying in class. Listening to him is more enjoyable then your FA book anyways 🙂

In the end, your STEP score will probably be dictated to how well you prepare for STEP 1 during your dedicated STEP 1 study time. Which IMHO should only be doing USMLE world.

 

[vicinihil]

I think starting Step 1 prep at the beginning of 2nd year is ideal. Note when I say this, I ONLY mean to use First Aid and Goljan along with your coursework, not review biochem and genetics. I would also suggest buying Lange Pharm cards and learning the relevant information on those cards.

I studied for each test using 50% first aid and goljan and a qbank and 50% my class notes. I certainly didn't get 100 on each test but passed with flying colors. Keeping up with this, I started my month of dedicated Step 1 studying with a 243 on a practice test and only went up from there.

 

[dragon529]

@vicinihil, Thanks for the info!
So Lange pharm cards are helpful? I haven't seen a lot of ppl using them (but maybe that's just me).. FA, RR path, BRS physio, UWorld, URx and GT is what I'm planning on using as my core. Thanks for the tip though!

 

[8t7x]

i guess it depends on whether you have an incredible long term memory. ive forgotten most of what i've learned a few weeks ago, so for me, it would've been foolish to try and study between ms1 and ms2.