Friday, March 18, 2005

Kaplan Online Web Prep adn Q-Bank

Kaplan's Online Q-Bank (www.kaptest.com) has been a staple of USMLE Step 1 prep for many medical students. Usually, during the month before the exam, students study for 8 hours during the day, and then they take a few hours to take the 2,000+ questions available online.
Online Web Prep provides a few hundred lectures based on subjects. A 9 month subscription is available from Kaplan for a reduced price at medical schools. Its a good way to learn during the actual class itself, and review related materials. The Web Prep comes along with Kaplan's lecture notes books.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Web WordNet 2.0

Web WordNet 2.0
Provides definitions. It's good for medical terminology including pathology terms and medicine names.

USMLE - United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 Outline

USMLE - United States Medical Licensing Examination
The official USMLE site shows an outline of what will be covered on the Step 1 examination.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Flash Cards

Flash cards are available for many topics including anatomy, pathology, and pharmacology. Pharmcards is a thorough source with information about mechanisms of action, therapeutic use, and side effects. BRS pathology flash cards provide one line qeustion and answer flash cards. Lange's flash cards seem to go into more detail for pathology. Netter's provides pictures on their flash cards.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Memorizing

Medical school requires memorizing 300 pages of a syllabus within 3 weeks, especially during the second year. If you're a person that can recite passages from a textbook, you would do pretty well in medical shool. Ofcourse, understanding concepts would make the material easier to remember. For help with memorizing and reading, try Ron Fry's "How to Study" Program including the books Improve Your Memory and Improve Your Reading.

Last Year of College

I would have to say one of the most beneficial things to do in your last year in undergraduate is take some graduate level courses similar to medical school. Courses in medical school are usually very compressed into 12 weeks or less, and they would be easier if you had previous experience. Examples of good courses would be human based anatomy, embryology, physiology, biochemistry, histology, and neuroscience. Taking advanced courses would probably look good for your application proccess.

USMLE Prep

Two good options are Kaplan (www.kaptest.com) and AccessLange USMLEasy (www.usmleasy.com). AccessLange will create a reading list of their online textbooks based on practice questions. Free registration gives you access to 1500 questions.