Systems-based curriculum and Step 1
Started by imadome
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
I would say Pathoma and Goljan are pretty relevant.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Dont know if your school is anything like my school but we revisit systems in second year and go much more in depth covering pathology and treatment. You may want to contact someone at your school and see if this is the case? Might just be focused too much on what you're doing right now.
Wow
You answered your question in your first post saying previous step 1 scores weren't great.
First year should be about fundamentals. Second year is about pathology and clinical medicine with pharm.
The reason pathology is second year is because first year enforces how the body should function normally with some minor emphasis on diseases that can happen. Then... You step into second year being more comfortable with the normal and basic diseases so that pathology is easier to understand and so is pharmacologic treatment and clinical medicine. You can't treat or diagnose diseases without knowing what normal is. Or, it's more difficult.
Like, it's way easier to see the pathologic changes on a slide when you see what's normal.
Something to keep in mind on SDN: different schools have different curricula. So when a poster says 'M1 is this, M2 is that' and so on, it may or may not be relevant to your school's curriculum. If your school is truly systems-based (and it sounds like it is), then you will get normal phys and pathology all in the same block. Thus, you would likely benefit from the patho gods Sattar and Goljan even if you're M1.
No just the vids and audio
Yes that is the title of the Pathoma text, but there is also a video component of Pathoma that you definitely don't want to skip. The Goljan text is Rapid Review Pathology, and I think he is the editor of all the RR series. Student Consult is an online companion to a bunch of Elsevier-published books--I don't know if anybody actually uses it though. There are also Goljan audio files that are not so legal, but should be easy to find in a google search.
Every school has different way of teaching. At my school there were quite a few topics not covered in M1 and M2 year that were covered in Pathoma, Goljan, FA, etc. Your performance on Step 1 is going to depend on how hard you study for class, and also on how hard you study high-yield material NOT COVERED in class. It is all important information. When I took Step 1 there were a few questions asking about topics from my classes that I thought were "low-yield" that I wished I had focused on more.
Step 1 is a moving target, and even the most up-to-date sources do not cover it all. Study hard for class and continue filling in the gaps with Pathoma, Goljan, FA, etc. Your Step performance will be a direct result of your hard work.
EDIT: Lastly, I did not start hitting Step studying hard until the beginning of second year. I studied behavioral sciences all summer before second year and it was STILL my lowest section on the real deal :/
