What books I used?

When you are going to school there is so much information going around that it throws you off sometimes and you are not sure what to study and where to study, So hopefully this post is to help put things in focus what to study and where not to waste your time.


KAPLAN BOOKS

1. Anatomy - Really helpful 
• If you have studied the BRS already and are good with the concept you can skip over the videos but otherwise i recommend going through it and also paying attention to neuro anatomy since it becomes important
• I really recommend High-Yield™ Neuroanatomy  (really cheap i believe $5-7 on amazon), because the usmle wants you to know more than its discussed in kaplan and some of the concepts are really vaguely explained.
2. Physiology - A must with videos very helpful 
3. Pharmacology - Amazing videos another book that must be done
4. Biochemistry and medical genetics - Helpful
• The videos are honesty really boring and i dont believe u need to go through all of them other than what you don't understand.
• This subject you need constant recalling and memorization i would say go over it one and while you are doing so have first aid open so instead of going back to kaplan you can memorize everything from first aid.
5. Microbiology and immunology
• Microbiology - NO 
• honestly, everything in micro is just memorization and kaplan goes over way more than whats important, first aid has everything you need for micro and i would stick to it, since its mostly memorization and first aid does an amazing job of mnemonics to help you memorize things better.
• Immunology - Very helpful
• Don't memorize this study it from kaplan especially the videos which are helpful and once you understand it you won't even need to memorize things it will come automatically.
6. Behaviour science - Amazing videos, first aid is better for focusing on high yield topics but videos are a must
7. Pathology - I honestly believe you can skip this book and instead do Goljan or pathoma
8. Q bank - it depends could be good , or waste of time for some.

If you really want to practice more Questions (never hurts) you can use Kaplan Q bank but totally up to the individual 

FIRST AID

 I think everyone knows that this is a must have for usmle, but make sure to utilize it for knowing high yield and strengthening the concept and material and not for the initial studying.

PATHOMA

I know I have recommended Goljan in the past but with the changing USMLE, everyone is using and benefiting from PATHOMA. Dr Husain A. Sattar has really outdone himself with the work. I highly recommend getting his videos and following the book along the video , to get the high yield and detailed knowledge you need to know to ace Pathology on Step 1, you can skip kaplan pathology even Goljan if you really want to but FOR SURE 100% you must do pathoma.  








GOLJAN RAPID REVIEW

Goljan audio and book is one of the good resource thought i say better to use Pathoma thas what helped most people

In my opinion Pathoma, Kaplan and Usmle World is more than enough to study, to fine tune youself can use Doctors in Training for Step 1, but try to keep it simple and focus :) 

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