Not so much talking about boards. I know the importance of questions and mksap and uw and all that. But what about general day to day studying/reading? I've heard of journalwatch to get new articles sent to your email weekly or so. And then just uptodate or harrisons. But is there anyone who can expand on that? Like in a given week as an IM intern, how do you approach your studying/reading?
Thanks in advance!
It's mainly driven by your patients. Don't try to formalize the process. If you want a primer:
Primers:
1.) ACP's In Clinic provides solid review articles for ambulatory issues.
2.) Society guidelines: Ex.) IDSA, ACG, ACC, ASCO, NCCN, etc. provide guidelines for each specialty. You can print those and mark them up if you'd like but know they change.
3.) There is no good primer for Hospital Medicine. I have tried ACPs Guide to Hospital Medicine, NEJM for Residents, etc. None of them are practical. OnlineMedEd's residency version is pretty bad too.
Selected Topics:
>UptoDate is really king. Make sure to use it liberally on rotations
>Curbsiders Podcast sometimes has good topics on pain control, stress testing, etc. to fill in gaps, but they don't replace on-the-job training.
>I really like the blue "Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment" (UCSF Internal Med book) as a desk reference for advanced reading into topics. The cons are it's not a portable reference like the Washington Manual or Sabatine's Pocket Medicine (both of which I also use/have).
Pre-Patient H&P:
It's nights and you have a patient admitted with anemia, you realize it's pancytopenia and want to know what to ask/order/do. These are the best.
>UptoDate
>Sabatine Pocket Medicine >> Washington Manual IMHO
I want to emphasize 99% of your experience will be developed through on the job daily! This frustrates a lot of people because of everyone's trying to find the UFAP of IM residency but none has developed because you learn on the job.
Best of luck.