Exam prep material

This is a response to a comment from my last post.  Blogger is being silly and wont let me comment on my own blog.

Hi Bee,

Doctors In Training is one of a number of companies that do prep courses for the USMLEs (US Medical Licensing Exams).  I use USMLE prep material as there are so many resources out there as all US med students have to sit these exams.  They should all help me prepare for my med school exams, and the Australian Medical Council exam too.  They tend to be more revision and emphasising highly-examinable topics.  I use them as a guide as I go through my course to make sure I'm covering everything I should be.

I would recommend First Aid for the USMLE at about $40-60 each.  Step 1 is basic concepts, Step 2 is applying them to clinical situations, and Step 3 is preparing for unsupervised patient treatment.  These books are reasonably priced and my med school and Doctors In Training recommend the FA series.  Actually, FA for the USMLE Step 1 is on our required textbook list, I read it before I go into an exam, and I don't go anywhere without it (it currently smells like coconut milk, but that's another story.)  I recommend the latest version of these as they changed the format and is now even better.

Kaplan does good prep courses that are recommended by many students, but they are pricey!  I got my notes second-hand from eBay.  I don't believe you need the latest version of these.  They go into more depth than FA, but if it's revision then FA is prob enough.  I'm doing some first-hand learning from my Kaplan notes.  I would say it's half-way between FA and reading the textbooks.  They also do videos, but again too expensive for me but I hear they are really good.

Have you checked out http://www.almostadoctor.com/?  It might be just what you're looking for.  It's free and UK based, and I love their notes and I print them out to read more in-depth.  They have an OSCE section as well, but that's ahead of me atm.

I use DIT atm for their single pharm lectures because they're only $12 each and I need that visual/audio supplement for my pharm as my course is so heavily self-directed learning.  I would say it is too basic for you.  I will do the full DIT Step 1 course ($770) but not until next year before starting clinical placements as my med school has a Step 1-like hurdle exam, and I'm also considering doing the USMLE (so I can apply for US residency programs if I want, ie paeds).  Actually, $770 is one of the cheaper ones.  Check out their website as they have a recommended study plan and also recommend other sources too,but for you, being at the end of your course, look more at Step 2 and 3 prep.

Then finally there's USMLE World that is supposed to have the best practice exams (sorry Kaplan).  I get a 30-day subscription before each exam and do 10-20 questions per day until I've done all of them for the topic at least once, and read the correct and incorrect explanations.  They are presented in the way USMLE questions are presented, which is the way my med school presents them too.  (ie MCQs, clinical vignette followed by five possible answers, two of which are easy to discount, two distractors, and two maybes, requiring application and manipulation of basic sciences into a clinical scenario).  That is $100 for 30-days.  There used to be a free, wiki version, but it shut down.  Maybe someone paid them to!?

I'll need to do the Australian Medical Council exam once I graduate before I can apply for internship in Australia.  It's a slightly different format, but obviously the medicine is the same.  They say if you do your clincial rotations in Australia it is most helpful, so that is what I'll be doing plus all the USMLE prep.  The AMC have two publications - AMC MCQs and Anthology of Medical Conditions.  I would only recommend them for people wanting to sit the AMC exam to get used to the format as they're not particularly user friendly.

Hope that helps?

CJ