Anonymous
08-14-2004, 11:30 PM
Just got back. I'm exhausted. The exam was pretty difficult in my opinion. Here are my random thoughts....
Lots of "why/how" questions....they will give you the diagnosis 70% of the time and ask why something happens. 10% of the questions were "what is the diagnosis". Majority of the quesitons are definately pathophysio I'd say 75%.
Cardio...gave cardio finding, and asked which vessel was occluded. Lots of physio diagrams arrows pointing all over the place. And Graphs. For Cardio, I would re-do physio. They asked it with a "patho angle" but really it was basic cardio phsyio.
Renal...know all GN and their respective micro finding esp EM, light mirco. Also know the RAAS system. Where the enz are secreted and what they work on. Again lots of arrows. PVR, renin, aldosterone, etc.
CNS...GREAT....my weakest subject. Unfortunately this is what made my exam hard. I had about 30% CNS in everything....patho, physio, pharma, anatomy. I had spinal cord lesions...they gave the actual pic of the spinal cord. Look in FA they got a sample cartoon drawing. Had a lot of stroke and need to localize the lesion...memorize the CoW. Asked all CNS drugs NE, Epi using graphs and diagrams, then asked questions using N receptor, M receptro, alpha-1, alpha-2, Beta-1, Beta-2 Ahhhg your head will be spinning....that is my other weak spot.
Mineral's post on rules of ethics by Valium is all you need for ethics. Straight forward Q. I had about 4 HardyWineburg (sp?) questions. ID study...ie. cohort, case control. sensitivity and specificity with graphs. No calculations just need to understand it's meaning and apply it.
Pharma, know MOA and s/e. I think they took it up a notch...I had multiple drugs in 1 pt. One drug causing problems with the other...ie. know the P45o drugs. Cardio drugs, CNS drugs. Didn't have any loading dose questions or any calculations related to it.
Biochem...I had all the enz def questions. Gauchers, G6PD, Tay Sacs, Pompe's, etc. All of them. There is so much I began to second guess myself. Try to keep them organized on your mind...ie. know which are glycogen storage dse, which are lysosomal dse, etc. The choices are A-K so you can easily get confused.
Physio...lots of endocrine. aldostrone, RAAS, conn's, cusings, etc. Know all of the causes of ammenorrhea, different types of pseudohermaphrodite dse., CAH, female hormones/cycles.
AIDS - know everyting! all etio, all dse, all s/e of the drug treatment, all drug interactions. Know all the gp120, gp41, tat, nef, p24 and their significance. There were no easy questions like screening test is ??? Or confirmatory test is ???? Those are ** questions. The USMLE really stepped it up to the molecular level regarding AIDS.
I'm so tired. I can't think anymore. I'll end it here. In my opinion there is too much to memorize. Try to understand the basic concept and apply them. I would study by systems starting with physio. Know the normal then you'll know the "why/how" for the pathophysio questions.
Books I used:
Goljan patho (also took a look at NMS)
Goljan 100pg notes
Kaplan Center Prep videos and books
FA
Mirco made simple
Qbook = overall ave 65%
Qbank = overall ave 67%
Q from the Kaplan books
Questions from this forum.
I'm a very average student. I study hard just to get the lowest passing grade. My biggest problem is memorizing....I hate to memorize. I try to understand what's going on. Unfortunately there are some things that rely solely on memory ie. drug s/e & MOA, pic of the spinal cord in cross section, etc. I guess that's the downside of getting older...I don't take things as facts. I question everything and want to know "why".
O.K. I'm done. Thanks to everyone on this forum. I enjoyed the discussions. I'm below average compared to all of you. Now the waiting begins.....
Lots of "why/how" questions....they will give you the diagnosis 70% of the time and ask why something happens. 10% of the questions were "what is the diagnosis". Majority of the quesitons are definately pathophysio I'd say 75%.
Cardio...gave cardio finding, and asked which vessel was occluded. Lots of physio diagrams arrows pointing all over the place. And Graphs. For Cardio, I would re-do physio. They asked it with a "patho angle" but really it was basic cardio phsyio.
Renal...know all GN and their respective micro finding esp EM, light mirco. Also know the RAAS system. Where the enz are secreted and what they work on. Again lots of arrows. PVR, renin, aldosterone, etc.
CNS...GREAT....my weakest subject. Unfortunately this is what made my exam hard. I had about 30% CNS in everything....patho, physio, pharma, anatomy. I had spinal cord lesions...they gave the actual pic of the spinal cord. Look in FA they got a sample cartoon drawing. Had a lot of stroke and need to localize the lesion...memorize the CoW. Asked all CNS drugs NE, Epi using graphs and diagrams, then asked questions using N receptor, M receptro, alpha-1, alpha-2, Beta-1, Beta-2 Ahhhg your head will be spinning....that is my other weak spot.
Mineral's post on rules of ethics by Valium is all you need for ethics. Straight forward Q. I had about 4 HardyWineburg (sp?) questions. ID study...ie. cohort, case control. sensitivity and specificity with graphs. No calculations just need to understand it's meaning and apply it.
Pharma, know MOA and s/e. I think they took it up a notch...I had multiple drugs in 1 pt. One drug causing problems with the other...ie. know the P45o drugs. Cardio drugs, CNS drugs. Didn't have any loading dose questions or any calculations related to it.
Biochem...I had all the enz def questions. Gauchers, G6PD, Tay Sacs, Pompe's, etc. All of them. There is so much I began to second guess myself. Try to keep them organized on your mind...ie. know which are glycogen storage dse, which are lysosomal dse, etc. The choices are A-K so you can easily get confused.
Physio...lots of endocrine. aldostrone, RAAS, conn's, cusings, etc. Know all of the causes of ammenorrhea, different types of pseudohermaphrodite dse., CAH, female hormones/cycles.
AIDS - know everyting! all etio, all dse, all s/e of the drug treatment, all drug interactions. Know all the gp120, gp41, tat, nef, p24 and their significance. There were no easy questions like screening test is ??? Or confirmatory test is ???? Those are ** questions. The USMLE really stepped it up to the molecular level regarding AIDS.
I'm so tired. I can't think anymore. I'll end it here. In my opinion there is too much to memorize. Try to understand the basic concept and apply them. I would study by systems starting with physio. Know the normal then you'll know the "why/how" for the pathophysio questions.
Books I used:
Goljan patho (also took a look at NMS)
Goljan 100pg notes
Kaplan Center Prep videos and books
FA
Mirco made simple
Qbook = overall ave 65%
Qbank = overall ave 67%
Q from the Kaplan books
Questions from this forum.
I'm a very average student. I study hard just to get the lowest passing grade. My biggest problem is memorizing....I hate to memorize. I try to understand what's going on. Unfortunately there are some things that rely solely on memory ie. drug s/e & MOA, pic of the spinal cord in cross section, etc. I guess that's the downside of getting older...I don't take things as facts. I question everything and want to know "why".
O.K. I'm done. Thanks to everyone on this forum. I enjoyed the discussions. I'm below average compared to all of you. Now the waiting begins.....