Pathoma

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

dude1344

Full Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2006
Messages
768
Reaction score
8
Anyone use this and have any opinions? Dr. Sattar has been frequenting many schools recently and talking up his book. Does this add anything that can't be found in Goljan or FA?

Members don't see this ad.
 
Because summer just started and I was wondering why in the world an incoming ms2 would have spent all that time doing DIT. Made me feel like a slacker for a moment there.
 
Because summer just started and I was wondering why in the world an incoming ms2 would have spent all that time doing DIT. Made me feel like a slacker for a moment there.

Yeah, I figured.:) Med student mentality is to always compare.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I"m watching some of the videos on pathoma like the first set of videos, and it seems to be cut off at the end a little bit. Anyone have that problem too?
 
I"m watching some of the videos on pathoma like the first set of videos, and it seems to be cut off at the end a little bit. Anyone have that problem too?

I think you may be playing it on 1.4x where a second or two are cut off... or you're playing it on 1.7x where it's more like 4 seconds cut off. If you play it on regular speed you get everything until the end. You're not missing out on anything though. Literally it's 2-3 seconds if not shorter.

sorry if that's not what you were talking about.... i just happened to be thinking about the same thing
 
For those who already took the test and used pathoma, did you supplement path review with goljan or BRS path? Did you think a path supplement is needed if I'm doing pathoma + UWorld anyways?
 
I think you may be playing it on 1.4x where a second or two are cut off... or you're playing it on 1.7x where it's more like 4 seconds cut off. If you play it on regular speed you get everything until the end. You're not missing out on anything though. Literally it's 2-3 seconds if not shorter.

sorry if that's not what you were talking about.... i just happened to be thinking about the same thing

:thumbup:
 
I took the test last Thursday and my test was very very Path heavy. I have to say Pathoma was incredibly worth it. So many of the things he said like "this is high yield, test makers love to ask this" was on my test. For instance, on the Neoplasia lecture he listed out different pneumoconioses (sp?) and what occupations were associated with them and I had 2 questions directly off that chart. Just about every single question about Path was discussed about in Pathoma. I did not supplement any extra Path resources not even FA. I did do Uworld but not even all of it. For Step, Pathoma is wonderful. I wish I purchased it during my second year and listened to it multiple times besides one time on 1.4x.
 
FYI Pathoma users. I ran into a little problem downloading an update for Java (Java 7?), which opened up a can of worms on my Windows 7 computer. Advice, don't update Java (not sure if it was just me or what). Took a while for me to resolve, but I finally uninstalled all the Java programs then you have to navigate Java's site to find the Java 6 - 32 bit (not 64 bit) version. Java is pretty confusing, the default will install Java 7 right now and for some reason if you request the 32 bit version it was linking me to Java 5 - 32 bit.

Anyway, try not to update.:thumbup:
 
For those who already took the test and used pathoma, did you supplement path review with goljan or BRS path? Did you think a path supplement is needed if I'm doing pathoma + UWorld anyways?

I don't think you need a Path supplement. In my opinion, Pathoma + UW is very comprehensive. At least based on my exam form, Pathoma/UW were more than sufficient for the majority of questions in Path.

Wish there were resources like Pathoma for other subjects too -- esp physiology, anatomy. Pathoma = golden for Step 1
 
How I imagined Dr. Sattar:
Indian+guy+001.JPG

Dr. Sattar:
hsattar.jpg
 
Members don't see this ad :)
For those of you that used pathoma throughout second year, how beneficial was it for classes? I'm not quite sure how I want to do path next year. I'm currently thinking pathoma once at the start, middle, and end of each block + a couple passes through lecture notes (once right away, once at the end of the block) + robbins qbook / big robbins as a reference

I was originally planning on doing RR path along with classes, but think I might be stretching myself thin (will be doing gunnertraining and qbank alongside class)
 
For those of you that used pathoma throughout second year, how beneficial was it for classes? I'm not quite sure how I want to do path next year. I'm currently thinking pathoma once at the start, middle, and end of each block + a couple passes through lecture notes (once right away, once at the end of the block) + robbins qbook / big robbins as a reference

I was originally planning on doing RR path along with classes, but think I might be stretching myself thin (will be doing gunnertraining and qbank alongside class)

Pretty much wondering the same thing. My study materials seem to be identical to yours. At the end of each day, I will have about 8 hours to myself after school tuesday-Thursday. Skipping school on Fridays and Monday's unless I have a test. I wonder if that's enough time to hit the gym (one hr+Goljan audio), read 5 pages of rr and 5 of fa, and one Pathoma lecture juxtaposed with the corresponding lecture from class. And 1hr for tv and preparing lunch of course. I'm planning to do gt during lunch time and in class instead of paying attention. That leaves 6 hr sleep. :scared:
 
Does Dr. Sattar read off his book in the videos? Can one get by watching him only vs reading the book only? ('I'm just reviewing this the week before my exam as a review). Thanks
 
He reads whats in the book, but explains it with diagrams, etc as he goes along telling you extra info and HYs. The videos are $. I filled the margins of my entire book with pictures and explanations from his videos.
 
Does Dr. Sattar read off his book in the videos? Can one get by watching him only vs reading the book only? ('I'm just reviewing this the week before my exam as a review). Thanks

Do you honestly think people would rate it so highly if all he did was read off a book? *cough* DIT sucks *cough* The book's decent, but the whole point is the videos.
 
He reads whats in the book, but explains it with diagrams, etc as he goes along telling you extra info and HYs. The videos are $. I filled the margins of my entire book with pictures and explanations from his videos.

Yeah, so did I, but I'm kinda stuck on whether I should transfer my Pathoma book/notes into FA. It feels kind of pointless to do (annotating one book into another). What do most people end up doing? Keeping it separate?
 
Yeah, so did I, but I'm kinda stuck on whether I should transfer my Pathoma book/notes into FA. It feels kind of pointless to do (annotating one book into another). What do most people end up doing? Keeping it separate?

yep, just read it concurrently with FA
 
I reallly love pathoma!!! I am up to chapter 12 now and its really good so far!! I wish I knnew what he looked like in person. nice to put a voice with a face!
 
Does Dr. Sattar read off his book in the videos? Can one get by watching him only vs reading the book only? ('I'm just reviewing this the week before my exam as a review). Thanks

I am just listening to his videos, not reading the book because I dont have time. His videos are awesome b/c he draws things out and explains things written in his text.

If you watch his videos it will cover all his text and pictures in his text. I have been doing one chapter a day and its very manageable.
 
You guys sold me, just ordered it after reading this thread for 20 min. Now that I have it, would it be best to supplement with Goljan or with RR?
 
You guys sold me, just ordered it after reading this thread for 20 min. Now that I have it, would it be best to supplement with Goljan or with RR?

my suggestion. Master pathoma. then worry about goljan and rapid review and whatever else.

seriously. I wish i had more time to master pathoma. it would be worth it.
 
Thanks for all the replies! I did about 8-9 hours of today. Love it so far! After having done RR/UWorld and an NBME, he's defn answered a lot of questions so far. Wish I had this during classes. Good motivation to continue to hopefully review everything before my exam.
 
After skimming through this thread and hearing such amazing things, I finally caved and bought it... So excited to see how it goes. I plan to use it during my MS2 year (very path heavy).

Are they pretty lax about resetting their limit on video viewing? Have any of you needed to reset your usage?
 
After skimming through this thread and hearing such amazing things, I finally caved and bought it... So excited to see how it goes. I plan to use it during my MS2 year (very path heavy).

Are they pretty lax about resetting their limit on video viewing? Have any of you needed to reset your usage?

If you reach the limit (8 views) you can just send them an email and they will reset it for you. They just don't want people sharing passwords.
I bought pathoma about a week ago to go along with my M2 classes and so far they seem great!
 
i've used pathoma nonstop over the last year (used it during M2) and I definitely saw each lecture 8 times if not a lot more. I've never had anything happen where I was denied access due to reaching my limit. I've only used one computer to access pathoma - not sure if that has anything to do with it.
 
For those of you that used pathoma throughout second year, how beneficial was it for classes? I'm not quite sure how I want to do path next year. I'm currently thinking pathoma once at the start, middle, and end of each block + a couple passes through lecture notes (once right away, once at the end of the block) + robbins qbook / big robbins as a reference

I was originally planning on doing RR path along with classes, but think I might be stretching myself thin (will be doing gunnertraining and qbank alongside class)

I thought Pathoma was amazing for Step 1. It is great to provide a foundation for classes, but depending on how in depth you go for Path, it probably will NOT be detailed enough at all for classes. MS2 Path just covers way more depth & breadth than Step 1 Pathology, at most schools I think.

So I would definitely add something to use along with Pathoma for classes, even if that just means your lecture notes.
 
Anybody know which path lectures for Pathoma are especially good? I've finished about half way (up to ch 10), and prob wont spend more than another day on it b/c my test is soon and gotta review other stuff.

I thought Dr. Sattar was great up till the heme/onc stuff! Then the amount of high yield info compared to what ive learned in FA/uworld has toned down. So yeh does anybody have an order they think is best for remaining "high yield" lectures (Renal ch 11 to ch 19)?

Thanks
 
Anybody know which path lectures for Pathoma are especially good? I've finished about half way (up to ch 10), and prob wont spend more than another day on it b/c my test is soon and gotta review other stuff.

I thought Dr. Sattar was great up till the heme/onc stuff! Then the amount of high yield info compared to what ive learned in FA/uworld has toned down. So yeh does anybody have an order they think is best for remaining "high yield" lectures (Renal ch 11 to ch 19)?

Thanks


I"m up to chapter 15, and I think you should watch RENAL and female repro in that order! Renal is a must!!!
 
To whoever may listen, I recommend going though Pathoma's systems sections FIRST and then going back and do the first 3 chapters, since those are REALLY boring and not really representative of the awesomeness the lectures contain.
 
My ten second review: Pathoma is awesome. I knew I wanted something to supplement FA for StepI studying. Goljan RR was going to take too long and doesn't really explain things. The explanations in the pathoma videos are ridiculously good, then you can take notes in the margin so that you remember these explanations. Then when you are studying intensely you don't need to watch the videos again and the explanations in the book are sufficient to remind you of the videos. With just FA, UWorld, Pathoma ended up with 261. Go get pathoma.
 
Pathoma is awesome. I just got my score this past Wednesday, and I'm sure most of it is because of Dr. Sattar. He is great at explaining pathways and the mechanisms. The book is also only ~200 pages, so it's much more manageable compared to Rapid Review (unless you're a really fast reader). You can easily watch all the videos on 1.7x speed in 3 or 4 days. I did Pathoma 3 times during the dedicated study period. The first time, I watched the videos and took notes. The other 2 times, I just read through the book.

At the beginning of the study period, my scores for UW question blocks (timed and random) were in the low and mid 70s. Once I started Pathoma, my scores jumped up to low and mid 80's. It definitely works!
 
if he lectured as good as he teaches in pathoma... man I really missed out by not choosing U of C. the teachers at my school don't teach nearly as well as he does.
 
IMO the text doesn't really add anything. He's basically reading his book and adding awesome explanations. So in watching the videos you're getting the effect of both.

What I'm doing for my first go around is watching the videos while having First Aid open. Then whenever he mentions anything not in First Aid I just annotate it into there.
 
I"m up to chapter 15, and I think you should watch RENAL and female repro in that order! Renal is a must!!!

You picked out his two very best lectures/chapters in my opinion. Helps that FA just screwed with my head in those sections. He breaks them down beautifully.

I have been trying to get MS2s to discard DIT and use Pathoma as bookends (start of studying and end of studying) plus referencing it throughout.

I studied 3 months, averaged in the mid 220s on NBMEs 6 and 7, then did pathoma and jumped to 240s on 11-13. Loved it, wish when I had bought it in October of 2011 that I would have used it from the start rather then letting it sit on my desk for half a year before cracking it open.

Helped me score 245 on step1 (low for SDN, but good for me an average student).
 
Hey guys,

quick question. My test is on august 29th. I have already watched pathoma lectures once and annotated alot. Then read pathoma few times since then. I can even visualize particular sections of pathoma (meaning i can tell u whether that particular piece of information is located on right sided of the page, top or bottom etc). However, in my last 3 nbme's i am missing approximately ~24 path questions. Even though some of those missed path questions are not really pathology questions (meaning micro related questions are listed under path etc). Some of those missed path questions are also due to overthinking and careless mistakes.

So real question: Do you think i should re-watch the lectures to probably get another round of explanations and may be better understanding? Thanks!

FYI: finished uworld with a 67%. All timed and random mode. Path average: 69%
 
Last edited:
I would do more questions. or maybe pick another path resource to read through. like spend 2-3 days on it.

I finished uworld with 67% overall. Done in timed, random mode. My path average was 69%. I think may be reading pathoma and then doing questions might be more useful. Perhaps Kaplan qbank. I have the bootlegged screen shots. Thoughts? And thanks!
 
I'm sure this has been posted before, but can someone summarize the best way to use pathoma?

What speed, follow along with class notes or the pathoma book, should i watch lecture first and then read or read then watch lecture, etc.

I started a method and I think it will work fine, but it will definitely take way too much time.

Any advice?

EDIT: I am not a very auditory learner, so i just wanted to figure out the best way to learn using the pathoma lectures
 
Last edited:
I pay my school 50,000 dollars a year. The lectures suck, they don't put the video online in a timely manner, and the video they do put up can only be played back at 1x. Oh, and I have to pay 70 bucks for black-and-white print outs of the lecture slides.

I pay Pathoma 99 dollars a year. The lectures are great, the video is always there, and I can play it back at 1x, 1.4x, 1.7x and 2x. Oh, and they throw in a nice full-color text book for free.

Makes you wonder.
 
This is not about Pathoma, but I'd like to add that Dr. Sattar is the author of "Female Genital System and Breast" chapter in the new edition of Robbins Basic Pathology.
 
Top