Teach Me How to Second-Year: Studying as a 2nd Year Med Student with Step Coming Up

Welcome back readers, and happy almost-November.  I wish I could've been able to experience more of October: it was an incredibly busy month and I'm just now free to experience the beautiful change in the weather.  


I thought I'd write a post about how to handle 2nd year as I'm almost done with basic sciences.

What books should I use?
I think a good idea is to study First Aid and/or Goljan's Rapid Review Pathology, instead of buying a specialised book for each subject.  I feel like keeping up with the curriculum keeps me busy enough!  I end up studying First Aid for the first 2 weeks of the block in the morning, then take the last week to just do 100% curriculum.  


You can study FA/Goljan thinking you'll do well on your tests, but if you go to a school like me where the faculty writes the questions over specific things mentioned in their lectures, it won't be of a huge benefit.  Preparing for NBME exams and the Step is a long process, don't think you can really cram anything unless you're super amazing.


I feel good with those two books: FA is pretty condensed and hits high points and Goljan is more detailed and deals more with pathophysiology.  I like how Goljan actually tells you how common certain diseases are in percentages, as most-commons are really important to know and crucial when you're coming up with differential diagnoses.  I feel that steers you in the right direction when seeing patients as well as for exam purposes.  I feel like epidemiology is the other half of medicine, or at least a huge component to it, and instantly helps steer you in the right direction when coming up with differential diagnoses in a speedy way.  I really like the "most-commons" kind of mentions in Goljan RRP.  Also, there are plenty of pathology photos included with each chapter that are helpful (instead of all at the end like in FA).

I feel like FA has more diagrams for pathways and stuff, more mnemonics, I dig the "crunch time review" kind of thing at the end, as well as its own pathology photos collection for common stuff.  FA is really condensed and should be more of a companion to another text like Goljan's RRP, Robbins', and a Q-bank.  I also want to read Renal Pathophysiology by Helmut and some other German-sounding guy since everyone raves positively about it.  By read I mean "actually read" because I felt like it's hard to keep up with reading textbooks outside of the assigned curriculum as you always have so much going on.  


If I could fit Robbins' in my study schedule, that would be great, though I feel it's unrealistic given my time frame.  I feel like those books are more than enough, but I'll keep you up to date as time progresses. 


Remember, our brains work best with repetition and no one single book is the best: so variety with a few great books and plenty of review is the key!  I will do another post on Q-Banks because they're very popular with students and very helpful!


 Thanks!