1st Semester Classes

[rickjames]

A few questions here, knowledgeable posters please....

1. Embro - what study materials did you use to pass? Class notes? BRS? HighYield? What is the best way to attack this course? Is it tough? Boring?

2. The same questions for: Biostats, Anatomy?

3. What books would you recommend for doing questions and quizzing your knowledge? BRS? First Aid Question Series? Pre-Test?

Any additional thoughts are welcome.....

[WSUCougar]

A few questions here, knowledgeable posters please....

1. Embro - what study materials did you use to pass? Class notes? BRS? HighYield? What is the best way to attack this course? Is it tough? Boring?

I used the required book along with High Yield. A lot of people did just fine with his powerpoints and just listening to him. I found the class not so tough, but I do like the Professor, Dr. G. He's very easy to listen to

2. The same questions for: Biostats, Anatomy?

for biostats, just study the professors practice tests a hundred times over, until you know every question/answer and then you'll ace the class.

for Anatomy, this is where you'll be spending 80% of your study time. I used Netters (of course), the Clinical Anatomy book, and then I used BRS, which had hundreds practice questions, which are vital for studying. Along with doing the practice test @ Medical Gross Anatomy - Home (http://anatomy.med.umich.edu/)

3. What books would you recommend for doing questions and quizzing your knowledge? BRS? First Aid Question Series? Pre-Test?

I never used First Aid, but I used it a lot for 2nd semester. I mainly used BRS, which I found to be very beneficial for Anatomy and Histology.

Any additional thoughts are welcome.....

...................

[IWillBeMD1day]

I just finished my 1st semester, so here is my assessment!

First of all, the whole experience was better than expected! Everybody is really nice and helpful, and the teaching is pretty good!

Embryo: For embryo, I just went to class (half the time not even paying attention), and then the night before exam studied the exam review from previous semesters which will circulate! (I did this for all 4 exams and still honored the class, but at the same time embryo is important for USMLE, so if you want to read beyond the class than I heard High Yield is good and BRS is good! Dont buy SADLER as it is too detailed) But again too honor the class, you dont need any books and you dont have to spend too much time on this class!

Biostats - Going to this class was a waste of time as it is heard to understand what the teacher is talking about! But for this class you only need to study his old exams for a 2-3 days before the exam and you can easily honor the class! But there are alot of old exams (maybe more than 10 for the first exam which is statistics and probablity) with 50 questions each! Make sure you go through all these twice atleast and you will easily honor the class as he uses the same questions word for word from his old exams or slightly different questions from his old exams! The second and last exam is epidemiology, which is interesting, but the exam is a joke! It is really easy and again straight from his old exams!

Histo - Histo is a very important class. Most of 1st semesters like myself made the mistake of not studying to much for this class and devoting most of our time to Gross which hurt us during shelf exams! But this class is very important b/c it is really needed for pathology (Lots of 3rd and 4th semesters told me they wish they histo more seriously b/c its very important)! Also the new teacher (Dr.O) is alot harder than the previous teacher and is a no nonsense type of guy so I highly recommend to take this class seriously and put in the same amount of time in this class as GROSS! (Also BRS is very detailed for the class, but it is very good for shelf exam is rapid review histology! So I recommend that you learn Dr.O's powerpoints first, than look at either of these books (Rapid Review Histo is great) if you want to do great on the shelf exam!)

Gross Anatomy - For this class, all you need is Netters, BRS, and the teachers notes! Most of the time i just studied the class notes with the Netters atlas! And used the BRS to do questions! Obviously you have to spend alot of time in this class, but it not hard at all, just alot of memorizing! Make sure you start studying for this class early or the amount of material starts piling up! Also the weekend before the exam, just study the teacher's review (only if you know all the material) b/c the exams are 90% from the review and in Dr.S's case 100% of the exam review!

Patient Doctor - Very easy, just study the powerpoints the night before or the morning before the exams!

Good Luck and if u have any questions hit me up on valuemd!

[rickjames]

EXCELLENT!!!

Thanks for taking the time to comment on this for me. Both of you have answered many questions. Again.....thanks!!