What's up with Pathophysiology???

[LAZYGUY]

Those who have used Q-bank and/or taken the USMLE...can you point me in the direction regarding pathophys? Q-bank tells me I'm around 80ish on pathology but I'm not doing so well in pathophysiology. What did you all use to improve? I know physiology is the first thing to go over, and I have but those kaplan questions are not easy and I don't seem to be pulling that kind of understanding out of BRS. The questions are really clinical...should I use some kind of internal medicine review? Here are the books that I've looked at:

Pathophys for the boards and wards: good book, but emphasizes the path much more that the pathophys.

Pathophysiology of medicine: focuses alot on physiological principles, doesn't seem to really help. Too long and drawn out.

I may just need to do something differently (reread BRS).

thanks

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[LAZYGUY]

anyone?

 

[Mike59]

Pathophys for the boards and wards: good book, but emphasizes the path much more that the pathophys.

That's a decent choice that lots of people use.

If your school has access to "Ovid", there's a free "Handbook of pathophysiology" on there that is basic but perfect for instilling a general pathophys knowledge-base.

 

[TheLoneWolf]

I had just borrowed the Medmaps Pathophysiology book from our library. It is pretty decent compared to the long pathophys books (eg Porth) for showing you the mechanisms of disease.

 

[Day man]

Two things I use to kill pathophys:
1. Goljan audio
2. Davidsons. Your school probably has it on electronic reserve or something but if you have time it has amazing clinical physio reviews with pathophys of all the diseases (lots of color diagrams/tables). Youll understand after you read the sections and each section is small/doesn't take a ton of time. If you have the test like next week probably not a great option though, but if you need help on specific diseases it's more succinct then harrisons but not as dry/boring as cecils.

Hope that helps.

 

[Fuzuli]

I have to say that separating questions between pathology and pathophysiology groups is rather arbitrary. I can argue that almost every single one of the questions in the pathophysiology group can be considered as a pathology question as well.

Another alternative would be to focus on the organ systems. For instance, if your renal pathology/pathophysiology is weak, focusing on GI pathology would not be very efficiency. On the other hand, studying renal physiology together with renal pathology can be synergistic.

Hope this helps my friend.