textbooks in medical school

[prn2oblivion]

I did very well in college by only reading the textbook when professors said it was absolutely required (rarely). I focused mostly on taking good lecture notes. Would I be just as successful in medical school if I relied mainly on lecture notes? I’ve read some threads where students say I should buy review books instead. Other threads are dedicated to multicolored systems of highlighting, annotations in the margins, summarizing on paper, etc. Do I need to read though textbooks in medical school to be successful student? Am I better off relying mainly on lecture material?

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[pincheeric]

Do what you've been successful with. If you excel by taking thorough notes, then do that. If you prefer to use textbooks do that. So long as you learn the material well you will succeed. You might, however, consider that it could be important to have more than a single source since invariably the professors will not be able to cover all of the relevant and important material. Even if you don't use a review book for your 1st and 2nd year courses, you will probably want them for USMLE Step 1 studying.

 

[gro2001]

Some profs are very good at covering what you are responsible for and/or have good lecture handouts (heard them called syllabi here). In these cases it is much more efficient to study from their handouts and notes you take in class.

Other professors just dont get everything covered and spend way too much time on their research interests that have little or nothing to do with what you are responsible for on the exam. In these cases I find it much less frustrating studying from textbooks. IMHO, review books dont usually have as much detail as you are responsible for and generally arent very good resources to study the material first time round. The following are textbooks I found useful:

Pathology: Robbins

Physiology: Costanzo

Anatomy: Moore (I used the Big Moore but I hear Baby Moore is pretty good too), Grant's dissector (my main resource for anatomy), and Grant's atlas (I prefer it to Netter's).

Biochem: Lippincott

For other subjects I either never found a textbook that I would call really good or the prof's lectures were sufficient.

 

[Law2Doc]

Do what you've been successful with.

I would probably change this to, what worked in undergrad often doesn't work in med school at all so you are best off trying a variety of things and seeing what works. Textbooks per se are not really used that much in med school. Most med school syllabi are as substantial as a textbook, and so most use them along with the lecture slides as the primary resource, and board review type books as a secondary resource. When you talk of relying on "just" lecture notes, you may be underestimating what med students mean by lecture notes/note-sets/syllabi. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of pages. A textbook would be shorter in some cases.

 

[Flaxmoore]

I would probably change this to, what worked in undergrad often doesn't work in med school at all so you are best off trying a variety of things and seeing what works. Textbooks per se are not really used that much in med school. Most med school syllabi are as substantial as a textbook, and so most use them along with the lecture slides as the primary resource, and board review type books as a secondary resource. When you talk of relying on "just" lecture notes, you may be underestimating what med students mean by lecture notes/note-sets/syllabi. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of pages. A textbook would be shorter in some cases.

I concur wholeheartedly. Speaking from my experience, undergrad wasn't that difficult. I could get As simply by taking good notes and just doing a quick rereading of them before exams. I always studied alone- at that point, study groups didn't work for me.

I tried doing the same thing with the first block of medical school, albeit expanding the rereading and studying. It took two exams in the low 70s to wake me up to the fact that I needed to change something up. I added in rewriting the notes and listening to the lecture audio again, as well as a study group, and the change was instantaneous. Exam 2 was a 70.3, exam 3 was an 83, exam 4 an 86, the final an 89.5.

It's hard to do. You've spend at least 4 years honing study skills for one environment and level of difficulty, and then everything changes. You may not have to change things up, but be mentally prepared to do so.

 

[prn2oblivion]

Some profs are very good at covering what you are responsible for and/or have good lecture handouts (heard them called syllabi here). In these cases it is much more efficient to study from their handouts and notes you take in class.

Other professors just dont get everything covered and spend way too much time on their research interests that have little or nothing to do with what you are responsible for on the exam. In these cases I find it much less frustrating studying from textbooks. IMHO, review books dont usually have as much detail as you are responsible for and generally arent very good resources to study the material first time round. The following are textbooks I found useful:

Pathology: Robbins

Physiology: Costanzo

Anatomy: Moore (I used the Big Moore but I hear Baby Moore is pretty good too), Grant's dissector (my main resource for anatomy), and Grant's atlas (I prefer it to Netter's).

Biochem: Lippincott

For other subjects I either never found a textbook that I would call really good or the prof's lectures were sufficient.

Thanks for the list of good texts. How do you gain a sense of how sufficient a professor's lecture is? Or do they straight up tell you that they can't cover everything in class?

 

[OncoCaP]

Thanks for the list of good texts. How do you gain a sense of how sufficient a professor's lecture is? Or do they straight up tell you that they can't cover everything in class?

Ask the students who had the class before you if they have suggestions on how to study for that class (and other classes). However, what works for other students may not work well for you. I know this sounds intimidating, but you will need to look at each class, see what it requires (which may be the opposite of what the well-meaning prof is telling you), and do that. In some classes, the lecture notes contain most of the material, in other classes you're better off skipping lecture and reading for the maximum grade. Think of it in a positive way ... you're patients aren't going to have a diagnostic code that pops up on their forehead; you'll need to figure out what is wrong with them from a combination of methods and sources. Similarly, you'll need to figure out what works best for you in each class. However, in many cases, if there is a syllabus for a course, you are going to want know that material quite well. If there are textbooks, you'll need to evaluate the number of questions that are coming exclusively from the reading. In addition, I would rather spend time with a fairly complete resource that I can read and memorize easily than a very complete resource that is confusing and difficult to memorize (with which I wind up not learning as much anyway, even though it has more information). Once I know the key information, it is much easier to go back and fill in the gaps.

 

[Law2Doc]

Thanks for the list of good texts. How do you gain a sense of how sufficient a professor's lecture is? Or do they straight up tell you that they can't cover everything in class?

They always tell you the latter, but it may or may not be true. If they repeat things multiple times, they think it's important and it will be on the exam. Other stuff in the lecture and syllabi are all fair game as well though. Many profs tell you outright that they use the more obscure stuff from the syllabi and not mentioned in class to separate out the honors from the rest of the pack. Plan to study it all. You will study a lot in med school, no way around that. The folks that used to review lecture notes the night before and do well in college often get hit hardest in med school, because med school requires you to continue to review things daily as you go along, not wait until the end. A good rule of thumb is that many folks who do well will structure their studying so that they have had 4-5 passes through the material (eg preparing for class, attending class, preparing after class, reviewing the week's material on the weekend, reviewing everything again the week before the test) before each test. Repeated review is one of the surest ways to cement the kind of volume you will be facing into your longterm memory -- you are going to need it again down the road.

 

[gro2001]

Repeated review is one of the surest ways to cement the kind of volume you will be facing into your longterm memory -- you are going to need it again down the road.

As always, Law2Doc speaks words of wisdom.

 

[prn2oblivion]

thanks everyone for your words of wisdom