My email just "buzzed" me that someone replied to my post, so while I'm sitting at the keyboard....
Physiology worried me because I haven't had that course in 4 years. Actually, I haven't had any of this stuff in 3-4 years because I'm in an oral/maxillofacial surgery program where I had the courses in dental school, and now I'm just take the USMLE so i can do the 3rd year of med school. It's stressful, but not a bad deal to get an MD in a little over one year. You should know that my view of the exam is based only on the need to PASS (not get 240) because I've already been through "the Match," but, then again, it's still the same exam. Yeah, we have the same courses in dental school and do all the same renal pathophys, etc. but it's quickly forgotten (at least for me) because we don't use it that much in the clinical years.
My exam didn't have that much physiology, I guess. All I really read was First Aid. I have to agree with a previous post that the exam (at least mine) tests more CONCEPTS than nit-picky facts. I had an EM showing muscle fibers and it asked where the end of the sarcomere was (Z-line, page 351 First Aid, 2001 edition). I had a picture of that graph (First Aid pg 350) of the cardiac cycle with several examples and asked which one had the highest CO (stoke voulme). Another Q on inhibin feedback inhibition of which hormone (FSH). Basically, it was all in First Aid, lucky for me. I had one about how NSAIDS inhibit PG dilatation of afferent artriole of renal vessels (pg 357). I kept thinking to myself how much of the stuff was covered in First Aid and I wished I had looked harder at it. I think First Aid is definately enough to PASS, but only if you know ALL of it. I actually never went through the pathology section because that was always my highest score in Q-bank (about 70%). Oh yeah....high altitude phys associated with Oxygen dissociation curve.
No Phys calculations, which sucked because I memorized a long list of formulas. Several T3/T4 questions which were more Path or Biochem than Phys. Oh yeah, know about how Ca, Phosphate, and Alk Phos go up and down in different deficiencies or diseases. Several easy Q's on gastrin/secretin and what stimulates parietal cells, etc. Lots of acid/base, but pretty simple, like "what ABG's result from hyperventilation", etc.
Hope this helps. Overall, Phys could have been worse on my exam. I had more Pharm that I would rather have, but it was also in First Aid, mostly.
Good luck!
