very nerd-ish of me

[studentologist]

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MSI here. It seems that the consensus is that the most important class during 1st year is physiology, regarding preparation for 2nd year and step 1. I'm not the smartest of the smart (like most on SDN), and I've adapted to use hard work (aka brute force) to learn, and this leads me to my question.

What are your thoughts on an MSI annotating FA in the physiology and biochem sections over the summer?

 

[LadyWolverine]

Actually, a good grasp of biochem and especially physiology is imperative for excellent performance during your 2nd year courses. You will not have time to re-visit all of normal physiology during your pathophysiology courses, nor will you have time to go over biochem in its entirety again. If you don't have a heavy summer, it might be time well-spent to go ahead and review those subjects.

Mastery of physiology, especially renal, cardiovascular, and respiratory, will help you immensely in both 2nd year coursework (particularly pharmacology and pathology) and on step 1. BRS physio and West (respiratory physio) were invaluable resources for these subjects. I found it worthwhile to review Lippincott Biochem and HY CMB, as well as Langman's embryology, during my "early" Step 1 prep phase. As I said before, you will not have much time to revisit these topics once 2nd year starts in full-force. And it is very important to understand normal physiology before you can figure out what is going wrong and how you can fix it.