Your "can't live without" resources

[Birdnals]

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For those who have made or are making their way through the ringer of medical school, I'm interested to hear what your "can't live without" resources (school related) throughout school have been and for what block or rotation. By resources, I mean anything from your favorite textbook to study aide to video; whatever you felt contributed the most to your success.

I'm going to update this post as people contribute to keep it as a running compendium of people's favorite resources. I'll add more subjects as people post.

Since I'm just starting this fall, I unfortunately have nothing to contribute. Sorry!

Anatomy:

Biochem:

Pathology:

Pharmacology:

Physiology:

 

[Taddy Mason]

Anatomy - Netter's Atlas of Anatomy, Rohen's (invaluable IMHO), Acland videos, and UMich anatomy website for questions

Biochem - BRS, Lippincott, and/or Rapid Review (BRS and Lippincott are good for review questions, especially Lippincott).

Phys - BRS (aka Skinny Linda), Costanzo Physiology (aka Fat Linda), and Guyton and Hall review/question book; some people highly recommend Dr. Najeeb videos, but I never used them. Kaplan videos are also good for supplementation.

Neuro anatomy - Haines atlas

Micro - Sketchy Micro (online video subscription); Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple was the go to before Sketchy and is still a decent source if you don't mesh with Sketchy.

Embryology - High Yield Embryo or BRS. I discovered the Kaplan videos while studying for step, wish I would've known about them 1st year.

Immunology - Abbas; a lot of people also recommend How the Immune System Works

Path - Pathoma or Goljan Rapid Review (I used both and they're both good, but ultimately I preferred Pathoma and dropped Goljan) and Robbins Review of Path for questions.

Pharm - Sketchy Medical and/or Kaplan pharm videos along with pharm sections at the end of each organ system chapter in FA. I preferred Kaplan pharm videos.

Histo/Histo path - If you feel you need a resource for these I'd recommend Netter's Atlas of Histology for histo and Robbin's Atlas of Path for gross/histo path.

Clinical stuff - Bates is definitely worth getting if you don't like relying on the internet to figure stuff out. For preclinical my school's attitude was to follow Bates to a T - if you didn't you lost points. So if your school recommends a different text I'd get that instead; but I'm definitely of the camp that feels getting whatever is recommended for clinical medicine/physical exam is probably worth it in the long run.

UpToDate is awesome if your school has a PBL type curriculum and you have to do presentations or group discussions.

For practice questions in general - I'm not sure what the PreTest series is like for pre-clinical topics, but for shelf exams they tend to be highly regarded and may be worth checking-out for pre-clinical exams.

 

[mackkdad]

Anatomy - Netter's Atlas of Anatomy, Rohen's (invaluable IMHO), Acland videos, and UMich anatomy website for questions

Biochem - BRS, Lippincott, and/or Rapid Review (BRS and Lippincott are good for review questions, especially Lippincott).

Phys - BRS (aka Skinny Linda), Costanzo Physiology (aka Fat Linda), and Guyton and Hall review/question book; some people highly recommend Dr. Najeeb videos, but I never used them. Kaplan videos are also good for supplementation.

Neuro anatomy - Haines atlas

Micro - Sketchy Micro (online video subscription); Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple was the go to before Sketchy and is still a decent source if you don't mesh with Sketchy.

Embryology - High Yield Embryo or BRS. I discovered the Kaplan videos while studying for step, wish I would've known about them 1st year.

Immunology - Abbas; a lot of people also recommend How the Immune System Works

Path - Pathoma or Goljan Rapid Review (I used both and they're both good, but ultimately I preferred Pathoma and dropped Goljan) and Robbins Review of Path for questions.

Pharm - Sketchy Medical and/or Kaplan pharm videos along with pharm sections at the end of each organ system chapter in FA. I preferred Kaplan pharm videos.

Histo/Histo path - If you feel you need a resource for these I'd recommend Netter's Atlas of Histology for histo and Robbin's Atlas of Path for gross/histo path.

Clinical stuff - Bates is definitely worth getting if you don't like relying on the internet to figure stuff out. For preclinical my school's attitude was to follow Bates to a T - if you didn't you lost points. So if your school recommends a different text I'd get that instead; but I'm definitely of the camp that feels getting whatever is recommended for clinical medicine/physical exam is probably worth it in the long run.

UpToDate is awesome if your school has a PBL type curriculum and you have to do presentations or group discussions.

For practice questions in general - I'm not sure what the PreTest series is like for pre-clinical topics, but for shelf exams they tend to be highly regarded and may be worth checking-out for pre-clinical exams.

Thank you for such great information! For the Kaplan videos, are they with the package that you buy to study for Step 1 or can you actually just get them on their own? Sorry I'm new at this.

 

[Taddy Mason]

Thank you for such great information! For the Kaplan videos, are they with the package that you buy to study for Step 1 or can you actually just get them on their own? Sorry I'm new at this.

...I bootlegged them...

 

[WilliamofOckham]

Anatomy: Reading the dissector before lab and afterward to review; Netter's as reference when necessary; images and questions from BRS Anatomy

Biochem: I used in-house materials

Pathology: For cellular pathology, the FA Path and Immuno sections. For pathophys, BRS Pathology for quick overview, Pathoma, UWorld, and FA.

Pharmacology: Lange Pharmcards, Kaplan videos, and FA.

Physiology: BRS Physio nailed down the solid knowledge base I got from my awesome prof's in-house materials.

Most important resource: my bourbon.

 

[t5Nitro]

Thank you for such great information! For the Kaplan videos, are they with the package that you buy to study for Step 1 or can you actually just get them on their own? Sorry I'm new at this.

I'd like to know also since Walter didn't actually answer this question. At one time I thought I read in another thread that they cannot be purchased independently. It looks like you have to purchase the entire course content to access the videos from their site.

 

[lampshade4u]

powerpoint slides + first aid... don't overwhelm it.

 

[Taddy Mason]

I'd like to know also since Walter didn't actually answer this question. At one time I thought I read in another thread that they cannot be purchased independently. It looks like you have to purchase the entire course content to access the videos from their site.

They're expensive to buy for 2 years, beings they come as a part of a whole step prep package (which you don't need for 2 years); I'm pretty sure wellllllllll over $1000 last I checked (if you're really curious just Google Kaplan Step I and your answer should be available within seconds to minutes...). That's why I bootlegged them. I quit torrenting almost a decade prior to med school, but the cost of additional resources adds up, especially if material is not taught well at your school.