BOTH Can you prepare for COMLEX by preparing for the USMLE?

[Saleemrodman1]

I am going to attend an Osteopathic Medical School, so I have to take COMLEX. However, I am interested in specializing in Hematology/Oncology, and was advised to write the USMLE in addition to COMLEX,

My question is can I prepare for COMLEX by preparing ant taking the USMLE first? Besides Osteopathic principles on COMLEX, what is the difference between these two?

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[TheOther]

Yes
Comlex: poorly written
Usmle: well written

 

[sharpstickie]

Yes. I only studied for the USMLE and did relatively well on COMLEX with only a couple days of OMT studying.

 

[alprazoslam]

Just use usmle stuff like UFAPS then savarese and combank omm

Comlex is a crappily worded exam that’s a lot harder to prep for than usmle. And residencies unless former AOA don’t care about it as much. It’s essentially a waste of 660 bucks and is terribly written and has questionable reliability

Honestly I used comlex as my practice usmle test at same prometric center to get used to the place and build endurance then took usmle a few weeks later

Worked out well since comlex was longer and seemingly more difficult to get through than usmle.
Just make sure to still take it seriously tho you don’t wanna fail it

 

[dostudent545]

Yep. I took step 1 first and comlex less than a week later. Only studied for step up until my first exam. Did savarese OMM, neuro, repro during the few days in between and it turned out fine. (neuro/repro cause those seemed to be stressed on people's exams in the same testing period.

 

[deleted645092]

Let me put it this way; Have you ever heard of someone using First Aid for COMLEX? Because it does exist.

 

[073116]

I am going to attend an Osteopathic Medical School, so I have to take COMLEX. However, I am interested in specializing in Hematology/Oncology, and was advised to write the USMLE in addition to COMLEX,

My question is can I prepare for COMLEX by preparing ant taking the USMLE first? Besides Osteopathic principles on COMLEX, what is the difference between these two?

Main difference is OMM, but also subjects as Neuro, Pharm, MSK, Repro and Micro are tested more heavily on Comlex level 1, while subjects like biochem, genetics, physio and path are more in depth on step 1. For comlex patient presentation is key - you need to know associations, buzzwords and triads of symptoms etc. For usmle - it's more towards been able to analyze and logically deduct answer on a 2nd or 3rd order question. That been said prep itself could be almost same, with a bit of tweaking for each. In general colmex is a bit easier in terms of having more 1st order questions and buzzwords, BUT the thing is that scoring an equivalent score is a bit harder on comlex - maybe that's mainly because people think 600 is same as 230 lol. In addition comlex has 400 questions and is a bit more tiring and exhausting mentally and physically to take. Vagueness of comlex questions mentioned stems from folks NOT been prepared properly for comlex, but rather prepping for usmle step 1 with UW, FA etc. As I said previously UW and FA will NOT teach you to be able to overcome vagueness - because you need to prepare for comlex learning to diagnose by patient presentation only. You need to be able to read the presentation and say - bingo, I know what is the patient presenting with. Usmle step 1 will rely more on facts, labs and logical reasoning. Slight but substantial enough difference for folks to get mad and cry comlex is vague. Horses for courses.

P.S. It's almost like a family doctor who can recognize a female 23yo patient is having pain due to PID just by reading her symptoms and history (this is comlex). While a OB/GYN specialist in hospital will need to run tests, US/imaging etc to come to a definitive diagnosis (this is usmle). Not the best analogy, but you get the picture.

 

[Black Coffee 24/7]

I mainly studied for the USMLE and didn't prepare for the COMLEX.

In contrast to my colleagues, I have a very respectable USMLE Step 1 score while a straight up dog crap Level 1 score that isn't even worth mentioning.

We will see for Level 2 and Step 2. Wouldn't surprise me to do crappy on Level 2 again and kill Step 2.

 

[alprazoslam]

Just study for USMLE and take a few days to do OMM for comlex.

Don’t buy the following they all are bad
Com-bank- too easy. Bad explanations
Comquest- better than bank but still has a lot of errors and does not source stuff. Very nit picky and contradicts uworld, NLM, UpToDate.
OMGOMT- only good thing about this was the guy hates omm and you can feel it. Otherwise it blew

Just use savarese and whatever omm bank your school buys you.

I took comlex a month prior to usmle but you can do it either way and be fine but focus on usmle it’s easier to prepare for.
Working hard in class, sketchy, first aid, uworld was enough for me to get 780+ /// 270+ and I still did not have FA or uworld down completely cold. So if somebody truly has the above memorized you should blow it out of the water. Most people think they do have them memorized but they’ve literally forgotten half of what’s in it on test day. It’s a lot of info to know cold.

I did not use pathoma but you can if you want. I did not use Zanki

Don’t step off into any other resource until you
1. Uworld memorized
2. FA memorized
3. Pathoma and or sketchy memorized
4. NBME memorized
You may use zanki or whatever it takes to memorize the following it Varies person to person


Comlex was a very poorly written exam so focus usmle


If I had to go back I probably would have spent more time in firstaid and done zanki from day 1 but I didn’t start prep till a couple weeks prior to m2 (reviewing first aid first year stuff)