Test Tools win the ENTIRE Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews Series!

That's right! You could win the ENTIRE Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews Series! 7 titles total, $400 value.

Just leave a comment below sharing how you survived or how you are surviving your basic science courses. Plus, tell us, which basic science course is the hardest? Winner will be chosen by the SDN staff.



NOTE: the LIR Biochemistry MedMap is no longer available.

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[Caristra]

Surviving basic science is - use review books like these and not huge textbooks your school assigns. It also helps if you paid attention in your undergrad prereqs Plus it's all going to be over in two years and you won't use much of this again.

Hardest Course: biochem. Too many esoteric reactions to remember.

 

[apumic]

The basic sciences haven't been too bad for me. I found courses like anatomy and histo lab to be toughest due to their high memorization load with little context. I think understanding and synthesis of knowledge is the most important thing for med school courses. That said, memorization is sometimes needed, which is really just annoying.

 

[Vita]

I survived the preclinical years by using mostly review books to supplement the powerpoints given by my professors. I found review books to be much easier to read and understand than the suggested text books.

 

[Bonne Chance]

I have utilized the Neuroscience text for the course and it helped tremendously, especially explaining the embryological portion of the nervous system and the ataxic disorders. I've heard that the Biochem edition is the best out of all. Haven't used any of the others aside from the Neuroscience one. Is there a Pathology version available as well?

 

[Donnie1310]

Review books with good diagrams has been critical. I've used the lippincott biochem only so far, but it was tremendously helpful. Summarizing all the high yield into one chart is really helpful, but time consuming, so the review books are great for this!

 

[IFBMD]

I'm doing great. The hardest course for me is Biochem... a lot of rxns to remember.!!

 

[Hemorrage]

I used lipincotts Biochemistry for my first biochemistry course and it was by far the best book i've bought for biochem. Do you think the rest of the books are just as good? Are they all written by the same authors?

 

[JoshSt]

The Biochem and Pharm Illustrated review books helped me survive those respective classes. The questions were especially helpful (our pharmacy professors actually used questions from the book).

Even though it is a "review", the books often had the material more clearly laid out than our lectures did and it helped me to score well on the exams.

 

[lauraLWW]

I used lipincotts Biochemistry for my first biochemistry course and it was by far the best book i've bought for biochem. Do you think the rest of the books are just as good? Are they all written by the same authors?

They're not all written by the same author however the series editor, Richard Harvey, always remains. This ensures a similar look and feel tailored to the subject throughout the suite.

 

[penguinism]

I was getting by using mostly the syllabus, but I hit a wall with immuno and microbio. The immunology course at my school is probably the least organized course of the whole year, so it was crucial to use review books to learn the concepts in a way that made sense. Microbio is just in a league of it's own right now! I'm trying out a variety of resources to learn the material, but I'm always looking for better options.

Pharm for us is sort of spread out amongst many basic science courses. We have a one week course devoted to it at the beginning of second year, and I've heard it's rough.

 

[kirbyross]

The Biochem and Pharm Illustrated review books helped me survive those respective classes. The questions were especially helpful (our pharmacy professors actually used questions from the book).

Even though it is a "review", the books often had the material more clearly laid out than our lectures did and it helped me to score well on the exams.

I actually found Immunology to be the most difficult for me to conceptualize, so it was very important for me to see illustrated examples. The moment I started using Lippincott's Immunology, the picture started to be a bit more clear.

As far as the other texts, it sounds like a resounding yes to Review books and power points over Textbooks, and I agree, but another important aspect is doing questions. You'll get questions on your USMLE exams, you get questions on each block exam, so why not study questions as well...

One thing the Lippincott's Series gives that others don't is QUESTIONS at the end of each section...and they're legitimate questions; that's what makes the series so appealing!

I haven't encountered a bad Lippincott's Review Series Book yet, and hope to keep using and referring to it as I continue tackling medical school; Thanks a bunch.

 

[sector9]

I would say biochem has been the most difficult basic science course for me so far. Too much memorization!

In my opinion, the best way to study in the days before the exam is to just do tons of review questions and study why you got questions wrong. I can then fill in gaps in my knowledge. I use my review books a lot as a good question source. I have found the questions to be on par with my actual exam questions so I definitely recommend review books to other med students.

 

[noofr]

Pre-clinicals were not particularly hard for me but they were sometimes rather dull mainly due to the almost nill interaction with patients and clinical scenarios. Pharmacology was one of my concerns though i love it since all you have to do is try to reverse a clinical presentation or complain but the rather long list of names of drugs was difficult to remember.Luckily our doctor helped us out by making mnemonics and study aids and showing how similar names are always together in groups .

 

[baraa123]

to survive :
1- must study and focus on the Dr's powerpoints slides , because it's what we will be asked in . so it mus be done .
2- read the textbook and focus as you can ( more than 2 times is great ) - to get better understanding -
3- use review books because it's really help to understand and stick the important stuffs (like goljian RR - LIR;biochem - CMMRS - .... etc)
4- do last years questions + review books questions .
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the hardest subject for me is microbiology ... it's need alot of route memorization

 

[rox]

I have used this series. Very concise and precise. Saves you time. I would benefit from newer versions!

 

[cbarne01]

I wish that I knew there were better resources out there because I struggled by for the longest time with only the class textbook. I know now that a good review book points out the intricacies and tricks that the text usually skips over, but gets you the good grades! My hardest UG course was Chemistry 2 because the prof didn't teach us how to answer the tough questions that would be on the exam (and there weren't any samples of that type in the text). I will be looking for good review books as soon as I get my acceptance package in the mail.