I was wondering what resources some of you would suggest for someone that has little to no foundation in terms of studying for step 1?
I've heard USMLE RX is good for gaining the critical high yield info from FA. I've tried reading FA sections and I'm just not getting any traction. Would USMLE RX help in getting a solid baseline in order to move up to Kaplan and Uworld qbanks?
Thank you!
First, you're not alone in thinking that a page-by-page pass of FA isn't for everyone. I did exactly what you're mentioning, using Rx as a tool to learn FA rather than a way to confirm what I learned by reading through FA.
I think something worth acknowledging here is the fact that whatever resources you use, deep learning comes from synthesizing information in at least two different ways. When the medical school classes of antiquity were discipline-based, a systems-oriented approach to board review was helpful and probably served to usher in the systems-based curriculum. Now that we have systems-based curriculum, discipline-centric review resources like Pathoma and SketchyMicro are unsurprisingly popular. Whichever way you learned it the first time, I'd review it the other way this time around.
The next thing is that only some subjects warrant a "foundational" knowledge base. The old adage "you have to know the phys to know the path" is absolutely true, and especially high-yield for all of the systems affected by the abuses people subject their bodies to all the time (heart/lungs/liver/kidneys). Other subjects, like micro, you're better off to just use a great review tool like Sketchy. SketchyMicro does a great job of teaching you things you may have never been exposed to before. The rest you will learn through trial and error in question banks. A supplementary text for Micro that is great if you keep missing questions is Clincal Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple. I would wager that some of the original sketches, and maybe even the idea for SketchyMicro as a whole, came from this book.
If you have the time to put into it, there may be no better resource for Phys than Najeeb Lectures. There's about 750 videos, all an hour a piece. It is by no means comprehensive for all subjects covered on USMLE, but the things you learn from Najeeb's videos you cannot forget. He is very adamant about repeating what has been taught and where the discussion is going, and continues to do this repeatedly through each video so you always stay on top of the big picture. This is partly why the videos are so long, but they proceed at such a leisurely pace that it's very easy to sit down and watch his content for 5-6 hours at a time. I can't stress enough, however, that if you are in a traditional 2 month study period as most MS2 students are, this is definitely not the resource to use.
For pathology, if you want a text that does a great job of incorporating basic and systemic pathology, Rubin's is where it is at. Baby Robbins is not thorough enough, and I simply do not understand why medical students would want to use big Robbins. It's full of 6000 variant mutations for every disease along with epidemiology and prognostic remarks for every disease, which is just not appropriate for a Step 1 resource imho. Nevertheless, there will always be those kids who want to do ortho and think that carrying that infernal 45-lb tome to the bathroom with them is the key to unlocking all life has to offer.
Boards and Beyond is a great resource, but it's a lot of information jammed into 100 hours of video. Dr. Ryan's videos are made of short clips spliced together, and he talks quite fast even at 1x, so if you get into material you don't know, you'll find yourself wanting to pause frequently. If you're willing to take the time to watch the videos and take notes, however, I think there's a lot to be learned and in most systems he does a good job of expounding the salient points and not just regurgitating what's on the power point slides. He also underlines as he goes, which is similar to Pathoma, and helps keep your eyes and brain trained on what's important at the moment. BnB is also notable for being one of the few resources which has content review for laboratory science and behavioral science topics like Biostats/Epidemiology, Patient Quality/Safety, and Ethics. Finally, if you really struggle with Cardio/Renal, there may be no better resource than BnB (Dr. Ryan is a cardiologist). His biochem is also excellent.
Also, don't discount resources like UpToDate if you have access to them, or Merck Manual Professional if you don't. Obviously, don't use these resources as a primary way to learn, but often times if I just can't iron a concept out or keep getting a pair of them confused, overlearning them by going to a much more in-depth resource helps to ferret out their differences in a way that sticks. Also, every time you use a different resource, you expand the memory palace. You'll tend to remember the things you went out of your way to do Google Searches on or read about on UpToDate. Read about a lysosomal storage disease and then go watch a sad video on Youtube about a cute kid who died from it. If you invoke your emotions into the learning, it will help build foundational knowledge in a way that no ready-made resource can easily deliver.
I may not have even really answered your question, but I guess I just feel that in order to build a strong foundation of knowledge, you have to use the review resources to identify what you don't know and then go hunt to find the answer yourself to make it stick. Yes, the tables that delineate what happens with platelet count, PT, PTT, and Fibrinogen are nice for clarifying wrinkles in your understanding if you keep confusing the coagulopathies, but it will stick a lot better if you recognize which parameters the table is bringing attention to and then go fill in the blanks yourself.
TL;DR - Najeeb Lectures is $69 for lifetime access and is a great partial curriculum substitute for phys and some path/pharm but takes a lot of time. BnB is a great alternative resource for covering the first half of FA's content (as well as the second half) but may be too in depth if you're just trying to get the mean score and don't care about the 90th percentile and above. SketchyMicro is great, but Sketchy Path is taking it too far imo. Question banks are best at ferreting out what you don't know, which becomes more and more valuable the stronger your foundation gets, so save them (mostly) for later.
