Where can I find the detailed curriculum of US medical schools and some other questions?

[Ahmed ma]

Hi everyone!
This is my first thread here and I don't know if it's in the a appropriate place on not.

I study in a medical school in a developing country. We study too much stuff. I tried to stick to board review books like First Aid book and MTB 2 and 3. But I am still bad compared to my peers (who just study the too much stuff ) .
My philosophy is that a few memorable basics that I can use in my future is better than study too much , go to exam and pass and then forget.
I had an oral exam yesterday. I did very very bad. It was an obstetrics and gynecology exam. The doctor asked my about types of fibroid, degeneration of fibroid and staging of the endometrial cancer (What depressed me is that the doctor was totally shocked and disappointed. He didn't want me to fail, so he asked me 'the most easy questions' ).

I have some questions:

• We study obs-gyn in 11 weeks. what about US medical schools (do they spend around three months in that topic)?
• Are there oral exams in US medical schools ?
• I want to compare the curreculum at my school to US medical schools curreculum, so where can I find detailed curreculum of a US medical school ,e.g. Haravard as I want to know what they study exactly , the books they use and their exams ?

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[AlteredScale]

US medical schools do not have a formal Ob Gyn block during preclinical years (2 years pre clinical, 2 years clinical but this has rapidly evolved). When students rotate through the Ob Gyn department for a few weeks they will be expected to take a standardized shelf exam specific to Ob Gyn.

There are no oral exams. We something called step 2 CS which is a full day exam in which you work up many standardized patients and are scored through a variety of factors including humanism, compassion, etc etc.

https://hms.harvard.edu/departments/medical-education/md-programs/pathways

You will not be able to find exactly what books or tests they have as that is information that is kept within the syllabus which is only provided to current medical students.



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[DrDarce]

I think checking out USMLE First Aid Book would be a good start for what you're looking for.

 

[samac]

I don't know of any schools that release a detailed curriculum with books. I have to agree first aid would give you the best snapshot. I also have some classes that are ridiculous in their detail we know. It's a class by class basis.

I wish you the best in your studies!

 

[hallowmann]

Study the material you're expected to study in your school. Those books you describe are review books. They are intended for people who have already studied the bulk of the material, and its narrowed down to the bare minimum high yield content for the exams. When you take those exams, then use the review books as you will already know the core content and will just need something to review. You can use those texts to guide your learning, but it should not be the only thing you're studying.

In terms of curriculum, schools use many different books, but some are staples used by most schools. Gray's Anatomy for Students, Robbins and Cotran for Pathology (the big reference book), Guyton & Hall for Physiology, a Pharmacology text, a Biochemistry text, a Microbiology text, a Genetics text, an Immunology text all geared towards medical students, and all of those are essentially covered in the first 2 yrs. In addition, you'd cover material from lectures, but that will vary and essentially summarize the content in those texts. For the last 2 yrs, you'll study core rotation content and take shelf exams on each subject (FM, IM, Peds, OB-Gyn, Psych, Surgery and Neurology). Those usually go along with Case Files, Blueprints, PreTest, etc. for those subjects. You may also need to use a reference like Harrison's or Cecil's for medicine for IM or uptodate access.

I'll repeat again so it's clear, you need to learn the material first to get the most out of the review books. They are not intended to be all you need to know for med school, they are simply the high yield content for exams. Most students use those reference books and annotate into the review books pertinent content they learn (like the books I mentioned for FA Step 1, and uptodate and guideline websites for MTB ).

 

[Mad Jack]

Hi everyone!
This is my first thread here and I don't know if it's in the a appropriate place on not.

I study in a medical school in a developing country. We study too much stuff. I tried to stick to board review books like First Aid book and MTB 2 and 3. But I am still bad compared to my peers (who just study the too much stuff ) .
My philosophy is that a few memorable basics that I can use in my future is better than study too much , go to exam and pass and then forget.
I had an oral exam yesterday. I did very very bad. It was an obstetrics and gynecology exam. The doctor asked my about types of fibroid, degeneration of fibroid and staging of the endometrial cancer (What depressed me is that the doctor was totally shocked and disappointed. He didn't want me to fail, so he asked me 'the most easy questions' ).

I have some questions:

• We study obs-gyn in 11 weeks. what about US medical schools (do they spend around three months in that topic)?
• Are there oral exams in US medical schools ?
• I want to compare the curreculum at my school to US medical schools curreculum, so where can I find detailed curreculum of a US medical school ,e.g. Haravard as I want to know what they study exactly , the books they use and their exams ?

At my school, our Ob/Gyn block is three weeks. Everything in three weeks. Then during the clinical years, we have six weeks of clinical Ob/Gyn training. As to your other questions, FA does not contain the knowledge one needs to be a physician. That comes from integrating facts with a sound foundation in the basic sciences, physiology, and pathology. You can't just memorize FA and perform well, there's much more to it than that.

Also, at my school we have one oral exam per semester during second year. It's only worth 10% of our grade, so it's no big deal. As to the books- no one does the reading lol, so a book list will do you zero good.

 

[Ahmed ma]

Study the material you're expected to study in your school. Those books you describe are review books. They are intended for people who have already studied the bulk of the material, and its narrowed down to the bare minimum high yield content for the exams. When you take those exams, then use the review books as you will already know the core content and will just need something to review. You can use those texts to guide your learning, but it should not be the only thing you're studying.

In terms of curriculum, schools use many different books, but some are staples used by most schools. Gray's Anatomy for Students, Robbins and Cotran for Pathology (the big reference book), Guyton & Hall for Physiology, a Pharmacology text, a Biochemistry text, a Microbiology text, a Genetics text, an Immunology text all geared towards medical students, and all of those are essentially covered in the first 2 yrs. In addition, you'd cover material from lectures, but that will vary and essentially summarize the content in those texts. For the last 2 yrs, you'll study core rotation content and take shelf exams on each subject (FM, IM, Peds, OB-Gyn, Psych, Surgery and Neurology). Those usually go along with Case Files, Blueprints, PreTest, etc. for those subjects. You may also need to use a reference like Harrison's or Cecil's for medicine for IM or uptodate access.

I'll repeat again so it's clear, you need to learn the material first to get the most out of the review books. They are not intended to be all you need to know for med school, they are simply the high yield content for exams. Most students use those reference books and annotate into the review books pertinent content they learn (like the books I mentioned for FA Step 1, and uptodate and guideline websites for MTB ).

I understand your point, but really What should be the 'limit' of 'what I should study'?
I don't have a problem with studying alot but I have other things I love to do in my life that I should prefer rather than reading a 'textbook' in physiology or pharmacology..etc
There are two problems : If you read 'textbooks', you definitely won't find time to practice either by solving questions or by practicing in real life.
I tried reading textbooks but you can't revise what you study and even if you were fully concentrating while reading, you can't extract what should I concentrate on and what point I should just pass over.
A third problem is you need some time for your self to train on research or prepare for USMLE.

I am not arguing or disagreeing with you, but I really suffered alot from what I should know-as a knowledge- and what I should study and memorize and revise. Do you think what should be the 'limit'?

 

[hallowmann]

I understand your point, but really What should be the 'limit' of 'what I should study'?
I don't have a problem with studying alot but I have other things I love to do in my life that I should prefer rather than reading a 'textbook' in physiology or pharmacology..etc
There are two problems : If you read 'textbooks', you definitely won't find time to practice either by solving questions or by practicing in real life.
I tried reading textbooks but you can't revise what you study and even if you were fully concentrating while reading, you can't extract what should I concentrate on and what point I should just pass over.
A third problem is you need some time for your self to train on research or prepare for USMLE.

I am not arguing or disagreeing with you, but I really suffered alot from what I should know-as a knowledge- and what I should study and memorize and revise. Do you think what should be the 'limit'?

People do what you describe everyday. My curriculum during the first 2 years for example was purely problem based and we essentially read through each of those textbooks at least once, and actually got through Robbins pathology twice in 2nd year alone. That is very different than many other med school curricula, but in the end the material covered, and ultimately retained, is the same.

As I said, you can use something like First aid as a guide, but it certainly isn't sufficient and should not be your primary resource if your goal is medical knowledge.

In terms of setting a limit, we are invariably limited by the amount of time in the day, by the amount of actual quality studying we can do before needing a break, etc. If you have outside responsibilities that take precedence over your studying, then that is yet another limitation to how much time you can spend studying.

My point is that your goal should be learning the material, and those are the sources we use for learning that material. We all have limits on what we are actual capable of studying, and we can always study more, but where that line is really depends on you. Obviously your current line isn't far enough, because you aren't happy with your performance in medical school, so I'd recommend augmenting with the texts I previously mentioned.

Of course you could utilize other review books and videos like Pathoma for Pathology, Kaplan 2013 videos for Pharm, Micro, Immunology, Costanza for Physiology, etc. You could even use the BRS series, but many of their texts are lacking in depth of you haven't already covered the material. Maybe you'd get the most out of Uworld and reading every single explanation, but honestly I recommend actually covering the material at least once.