Studying your brains out for USMLE Step 1? Are you trying to keep your head above water on your surgery rotation? Are you an intern and can't remember why you ever chose medical school in the first place?
You need to watch this video put out by the Cleveland Clinic. It will help you remember.
This list is part of a series of articles about the best books for medical students. Click on the Med School Books Main Page to see other lists including the best books for each year in medical school, the best books for each clinical rotation, and the best books for USMLE Steps 1, 2, and 3.
This list of books was specifically created to help medical students. However, I would suggest the same books to anyone taking an undergraduate course in anatomy, to dental students, optometry students, podiatry students, physicians assistant students, advanced nursing students, etc. etc. When you are studying anatomy there are a few things you have to focus on: 1- Learning the name and location of the structures, 2- learning to identify the important anatomic relationships in the body, and 3- learning the clinical correlations related to the important relationships. Your tests will focus on each of these areas, so you must focus on them as well.
1. An Atlas:
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2. An Anatomy Textbook:
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3. A Dissector:
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4. Flashcards:
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5. Anatomy Review Book:
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6. Other Books:
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Choosing the right anatomy atlas is a stressful decision, and one that is quite important. For many of you (students in medical, dental, optometry, and podiatry school) this will be one of the first decision you must make at your professional school. In order to help you sort through some of the most popular choices, let me highlight some of the pros and cons of each text. I am a firm believer that education should be tailored to the student. If your school/teacher tells you to buy a certain anatomy atlas, do not listen. This is like telling a left handed student that he/she must take a test using their right hand. You must find a text that allows you to learn best. There are many options and each has its own strengths.
Check out each atlas on amazon.com, you can browse the pages of each book in full color by clicking the "Click To Look Inside" tab over each book. This is the best way to see what you are going to like.
The Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy
Unfortunately for me, I did not learn about Rohen's Color Atlas of Anatomy: A Photographic Study of the Human Body
Gilroy's Atlas of Anatomy
Grant's Atlas of Anatomy
The THIEME Atlas of Anatomy
Little known Clemente's Anatomy: A Regional Atlas of the Human Body
Gray's Anatomy for Students
Sobotta – Atlas of Human Anatomy
This list is part of a series of articles about the best books for medical students. Click on the Med School Books Main Page to see other lists including the best books for each year in medical school, the best books for each clinical rotation, and the best books for USMLE Steps 1, 2, and 3.
Before I plunge into the Top 10 books for Step 1 let me first explain that books were only the second best resource for me while studying for Step 1. I found question banks to be the most efficient means of studying for Step 1. In order to do well on an 8 hour test, you need to be accustomed to doing hundreds of questions in a day. Doing well on Step 1 is not just a question of learning the info in the books I list below, but also a question of developing the stamina to say focused on the 349th question of the day….it is like preparing for a marathon. USMLEworld and the Kaplan Q-bank in my opinion are the best resources for preparing for Step 1, but you can not do questions for 1 month straight, you need to spend some time in books. Now for the books…
1. First Aid for the USMLE Step 1:I don’t know how they do it, but the First Aid people have an unbelievable ability to know exactly what is important to the people who write board questions. First Aid is reprinted each year. I suggest buying one copy early in med school and study from it while you study for your other classes. Then, purchase the new copy when you are studying for Step 1. First Aid is not sufficient for Step 1, but it should be required reading for all students as it highlights the stuff that you absolutely must know. Some students also recommend Kaplan’s MedEssentials for the USMLE Step 1 |
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2. BRS Pathology:Another required book for Step 1 is a pathology review book. The two most commonly used books are BRS Pathology |
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3. Rapid Review Pathology:The other famous pathology review text for Step 1. This book is written by Dr. Goljan of “Goljan Lectures” fame. (If you do not have these lectures, see my article and links about the subject because they are fantastic). The content is similar to the BRS Pathology text but the delivery is quite different. This text is more visually appealing with colors, images, and many tables. Pick your poison. |
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4. BRS Physiology:A broad physiology text is another book that most students use when studying for USMLE Step 1. It is unlikely that you will learn anything new when ready a physiology text. However, a physiology text will help you cement concepts in your mind. A great understanding of physiology will help answer the difficult Step 1 questions. I found that reading the physiology text for one organ system, then the pathology text and First Aid for the same was great preparation for questions on that subject. |
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5. High Yield Biostatistics:You can not forget the small categories that are tested on Step 1. Biostat/epidemiology is one of these areas. I am sure I had 10-15 questions on these topics. The High Yield book is quick and easy; you can get through it in just a few hours. Don’t go into the test without knowing all forms of bias and all calculations of a two-by-two table. |
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6. BRS Behavioral Science:The behavioral sciences will also take up at least 5-10 of your Step 1 questions. These are hard to study for but you must find a way to do it. There are a few books options in this category, the great asset of the BRS book are about 15-20 questions at the end of each chapter. Many students swear by High-Yield Behavioral Science |
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7. MicroCards:Flashcards will give you a nice break from question banks and books. MicroCards have a ton of information. It may seem like some of the information is superfluous, but after taking the exam you will realize that many Step 1 questions ask very specific questions about bacterial anatomy and antibiotic targets. I will never forget that on my Step 1 they wanted me to know the treatment for sporothrix schenckii. So, yea, get some microcards. |
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8. PharmCards:This is another set of flashcards that you can use in the bus, at night on the bed, during lunch, etc. Like MicroCards, these cards have a ton of information. However, you will be asked some very specific questions. One example I still remember is being asked the mechanism of action of ethosuximide. Even though it is “Step 1″ they will still ask pharm quesions. |
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9. First Aid Cases for USMLE Step 1:You will find a common theme here: find something to break up the books and question banks. Though questions and the first 4 books will be your main ammunition to study for Step 1, you can not do that for a whole month. Flash cards and cases will help break things up while still learning and picking up some questions. The First Aid case book is very good and highly recommended by all. I used case books when my mind was tired of memorizing, and I think they helped me pick up a few questions. |
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10. Kaplan Medical USMLE Step 1 QBook:As I previously mentioned, questions are the best way to study for Step 1. The first nine books are all necessary, but you will find that questions are the best preparation. The Kaplan Qbook is a great tool when you have a few minutes and just want to do a few questions. I kept it by my bedside and read a few questions before going to bed most nights prior to the exam. |
This list is part of a series of articles about the best books for medical students. Click on the Med School Books Main Page to see other lists including the best books for each year in medical school, the best books for each clinical rotation, and the best books for USMLE Steps 1, 2, and 3.
1. First Aid for the Basic Sciences, Organ Systems:Organ Systems is similar to the First Aid book tailored for first year medical students, First Aid for the Basic Sciences, General Principles You can get a $40 discount if you buy both the Organ System books together on Amazon. Click Here: First Aid Basic Sciences (VALUE PACK) |
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2. Pharmcards:Not only will these save you hours of time you would spend making your own flashcards, they have all the information you need for your first two years and Step 1. |
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3. Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple:A medical student favorite. Nearly everyone uses this book, and for good reason. It makes the ‘bugs and drugs’ months of med school much more concise tolerable. |
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4. Rapid Interpretation of EKGs:A must for learning EKG and for reviewing EKG interpretation later in your schooling and career. I learned EKGs first with this book and I still use it for reference during residency. Great book. |
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5. High Yield Neuroanatomy:One of the best of the fantastic High Yield Series |
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6. BRS Pathology (or Rapid Review Pathology
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7. Lippincott’s Microcards:Like the Pharmcards above, I found these flashcards to be high yield and very efficient. You save time by not making your own and they have all the necessary information. |
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8. First Aid for Step 1:You should buy this book early in medical school and make it your regular study companion. They publish a new version each year, it is probably not a bad idea to get one edition early and another one to study with for Step 1. Remember, your first two years are there to prepare you for Step 1. |
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9. Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease:Like Harrison’s above, this is meant to be a reference text. It is well written and easy to understand. It has always had the answer I was looking for. |
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10. BRS Physiology:I like the BRS series. I did not learn about them until I began studying for boards. I wished I had bought them earlier because they are a great way to get a broad picture of organ systems and helping put everything together. My knowledge of physiology and pathology were much more clear after reading the BRS books. |
I recently read a great article about preparing for the USMLE board exams an another great medical student website called Medical Student Insider. The author is a soon-to-be psychiatry resident from UCLA name Mike Frazier. Any time you hear or read advice about studying for boards you should always take it with a grain of salt; this is because we all study and learn differently. However, after scoring above a 250 of Step 1, soon-to-be Dr. Frazier’s words pack quite a punch!
is a priceless book. Buy it early, use it your first two years, and then devour it while studying for Step 1.
Read the full article to see what else Mike Frazier says about studying for Step 1.
Throughout college and medical school I had to buy thousands of dollars worth of textbooks. During my first year of medical school I came across the world’s best textbook website: http://www.dealoz.com/. DealOz allows you to search all available websites, auction sites, book stores, and online sites for the textbook you are looking for. All you need is a title or IBSN and DealOz will do the rest of the work. If you have every used www.kayak.com for flight tickets, DealOz works the same way by comparing all available options.
After inputting the book of choice, DealOz will compare all of these locations and report back to you the lowest price available. You can search for all available books, or you can choose to search only for ‘new’ books. DealOz will then link you to your seller of choice. Try it, you will like it. I have saved hundreds of dollars using their website.
Again, here it is
If you are anything like me, you will do anything to avoid paying thousands of dollars for the next Adobe product. After ten years of higher education (and at least 4 to go!) I have tested hundreds of software packages; in this post I will list the best free and open source programs I have found. Learn to love open source software…and you will soon learn how to spend those thousands of dollars you saved! My software list will certainly not be a comprehensive list of all the great open source programs. For a complete list of free software programs I have three recommendations.
WEB BROWSER
Google Chrome is a no-nonsense, super fast web browser. Here is just one reference proving Chrome’s speed superiority (from cnet.com). For mac users, Safari is a distant second. While I used to enjoy Firefox, it takes nearly twice as long to load web pages than Chrome. We all know how terrible Internet Explorer is.
WORD PROCESSING, PRESENTATIONS, SPREADSHEETS
OpenOffice is a well known counterpart to Microsoft Office. The free software includes a fully capable word processor, a presentation organizer, and a fully loaded spreadsheet tool. In essence, you get Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for free. An added bonus, you can save any file in OpenOffice format OR in the corresponding Microsoft format so there will never be compatibility issues.
CALENDAR
My love for Google products will now show through. Google Calendar is simple and highly effective. You can merge nearly all online calendars into your Google calendar account. You can send yourself reminders using email, phone call, or text message. You can list recurring events in any imaginable patter (e.g. same date each year, 2nd Saturday of March each year, etc.)
IMAGE MANIPULATION / GRAPHIC EDITOR
1. Gimp is a professional image editor with a student’s pricetag. This free program comes with nearly all the bells and whistles you would find in the newest version of Adobe Photoshop. The user interface is not idea and takes some getting used to. However, with a price tag of $0 this is a great piece of software.
2. I have heard great things about Paint.Net. I must admit, I have never used it because I have spent so much time using Gimp that I don’t need anything else. However, it is worth a try if you are looking for more free graphic editing options.
AUDIO EDITOR
Audacity is a free, open-source program that facilitates the recording and editing of all audio and sound files. I often use it to make my own ‘radio edited’ song versions.
PDF READER AND WRITER
Foxit Reader is far better than the free Adobe Reader. It requires far less resources when it is running on your computer, and it provides free mark-up tools including text editing, highlighting, commenting, and basic geometric shapes.
PDF CREATOR / CONVERTER
CutePDF Writer is the free version of CutePDFs vast line of products. The free writer allows you to convert any image, document, or screen shot to a PDF. I use this product all the time. I save documents as PDFs and place them on my thumb drive rather than printing everything out.
ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
There are actually quite a few free antivirus options out there. Many of the web giants (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc) have their own free antivirus software. My personal favorite is Avast!, which the program that comes with GooglePak. Just be sure you click on the FREE version, as they have other options.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Mint.com allows users to track all bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments in one place. The software is similar to costly software like Quicken, but is free and is web-based: which means you can check your information on any computer, any time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY, CITATIONS, REFERENCE MANGER
The best resource in this category, I must admit, is not free. EndNote is a must-have resource for research and reports. It is user friendly and will save you hours of time by automatically plugging in your references and bibliography. There are a number of free programs that try to mimic EndNote’s features. Some are good, but after trying them I ended up purchasing a student edition of EndNote because it is so much better. Here is a list of free bibliography and reference managers. Or you can check out the wikipedia page which compares all reference managers, free and non-free.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
R (The R Project for Statistical Computation) is a free text-based statistical computational software program. It is not for the feint-hearted. The learning curve is steep, but once mastered, this free software provides all the tools to run any statistical analysis, graph, or plot.
LaTeX EDITOR
Not all LaTeX editors are created equal. WinEdt is a clean editor without the frills of other programs. I have used this software for 5 years and I have never had even one problem (something that can NOT be said about most LaTeX editors!) The free version will frequently ask the operator to purchase the full version, but it is never required.
BRAINSTORMING AND MIND MAPPING
XMind assists individuals and teams in keeping track of ideas and goals. If you have never used mind-mapping software, you need to start. XMind creates the prettiest visual map, but there are other options that work just as well. FreeMind is another great one.
Did I forget something? If you know of more great, open source software please leave a comment.
jpatrick.net
In recent posts I highlighted some great training videos on suturing and on one and two handed knot tying. In this post I will recommend a video tutorial for instrument tying. As with the other suturing and knot tying skills, it is very important that medical students learn early in their careers how to instrument tie. This is the bread and butter of knot tying. If you are proficient with the instrument tie you will impress residents and attendings and they will be much more willing to give you responsibilities in the OR. The video below is a straight forward review and tutorial of the instrument tie. As with all other knots, remember that a square knot is not complete until you have made two opposing throws; otherwise you are tying granny knots.
In two recent posts I recommended some great video tutorials for suturing and for instrument tying. This post will focus on learning how to tie one and two handed knots in the operating room. As with previous skills, it is very important that medical students learn to tie surgical knots early in their training. Let me offer one experience from medical school to illustrate this fact. This is a true story.
After finishing rounds with the residents on my OB rotation I was assigned to work in the OR with the chief of benign gynecology surgery at a community hospital. He also happened to be the rotation coordinator and was responsible for my grade and evaluation. The first case was an open tubal ligation. As the case was ending the attending turned to me and said, “hey, we have to close the fascia, can you tie knots?” Luckily, I knew quite well how to tie. I picked up the suture and threw a few two handed knots down. My attending was seriously impressed and told everyone on the team. He gave me a raving evaluation and spoke specifically about how I was “well prepared for the OR.” So, take it from me, learn these knots! Always remember Rule #1: tie square knots, not granny knots! Two throws are required to complete the knot.
1. The two handed knot. This is the knot that you will actually use in the OR. Most surgeons never tie one-handed knots and some even forbid them. So, this should be your bread and butter. After watching a few tutorial videos I am convinced that this is the best. It comes from the University of Texas at Houston and walks you through the basics. The audio is very good, so find some earphones. Always remember that a square not requires two throws to be completed.
2. The one handed knot: This is a more confusing knot and far less high yield because very few surgeons ever use it or expect it. It is notoriously difficult to teach and to learn. The best video I have found is shown below. Unlike the previous video, there is not audio to walk you through the knot. Rather, the knot is completed slowly and each difficult section is repeated. Remember, you must tie two throws to make a complete square knot. This is important when tying a one handed knot because the two throws are completed using two different techniques.
Finally, there is more than one way to tie a square knot. Here is one more video that demonstrates the two handed and one handed method clearly. Similar to the second video, there is no audio. Go get some gloves and some suture and practice along with this video.
My name is Andrew and I am a first year resident training to be an ophthalmologist. I created ShortWhiteCoats to provide medical students, residents, and the public with all the information I spent so many hours looking for during medical school.
because it is brief and very high yield. I have also heard good things about 
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works just fine. You will want to know all the important structures that you dissected, but you will NOT want to study out of your anatomy lab book! Gross.
, they are bright and color coated for easy memorization.
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review is concise (albeit 500 pages) and high yield review of everything to do with anatomy and its clinical correlations. The best book for high yield review, however, is likely the 
. This will include review of many other subjects, but it is very high yield and a fantastic resource.
and 
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and 
(#3). I prefer the BRS book because it is a no-nonsense text with a few pictures and tables but mostly focused on simple and clear text. You should browse through both books before deciding which one you will use.
. This book is also very good, more concise, and easy to read. It does not have questions.
, 
, and 
for second year students. Each is rated very well by students.