Anatomy: the obvious reference is Netter (which isn't a bad idea, really), but the book I found most useful in this regard in uni was Heinz Feneis'. At least the exams I had made a lot of references to inervation, function, insertions, and anatomical relations. Feneis gives you all that and is really compact. Netter has lots of pretty pictures, and I guess it can be useful in a dissection setting, but is not enough in itself. Moore is too full of useless trivia. Really, if I had to pick just one, I'd go for Feneis. It has decent drawings too, so it's not like you'll be learning just through arid text. You'll know the relevant tidbits, and know how the organ looks, too.
Biochemistry: Lehninger (and other two simmilar books whose names I've forgotten) were recommended to us, but I did not really give them much use. Still, it's good having one of those as a reference in case something that you don't know pops up. There was one Physico-chemical chemistry handbook which was quite complete, and addressed good chunks of the inorganic and organic chemistry which was bundled up in the course.
Physiology: Guyton-Hall for base physiology (links a lot with biochemistry, so make sure you're fresh in that regard). Very dense, lots of stuff, and unlike in the former examples it's more often than not important
. Despopoulus physiology atlas schematizes many important processes, so you might want to give that a checkout for a start.
Histology: Genesser is the one to swear by in this, but there are histo atlases out there which can come in very handy to give fast checkouts, in a pinch (eg: to prepare an exam in a short time). Cant give a pathological anatomy recommendation because tour dear PA teacher followed his own book, and thus I got that one.
General Pathology: we went with Sissinius'. It's a quite good book, really, can be an useful reference further on too.
The "subjects" (cardio, pneuml, et al): just buy an internal medicine textbook (Harrison's for example, although it isn't my favorite) and go by that, referring to the GP or physio books when needed. You might want to buy an ekg manual, although, tbh, while it's important, it takes an unrealistic ammount of time to make a headway in proper ekg interpretation, so it's easier to just learn a few rules of thumb and go by thwt (they'll likely cover most of the stuff that can fall in an exam.
Pharma: goodmall&gillman is the reference, but you'd do better by getting whatever smaller book they recommend, or failing that, former years' notes. It's not realistic to study pharma via GG.
Thats all I can think of right now. Some generl notes
- as it has been said above: overconfidence is a bane. Don't assume it's easy. Even if it seems easy. Difficulty can creep upon you simply by the sheer volume of stuff you have to study, even if for the most part individual bits aren't too hard.
- related to the above: faking out exams is far less of an option than it was in high school. You can't really hope to just go to a couple of classes and skim through the importnt parts of a subject the day before the exam, because chances most of the material will show up one way or the other. (It can still be done, mind you, but it's harder to pull off, the results are not spectacular, and it's risky). So when in doubt, study as much as you can.
- if you can find USMLE resumes or the like you might find them easier than going by the textbooks, and will cover the most important things anyway
- give special importance to other year's exams. Go through them over and over
- regard your classmates as potential piranhas, and take what they say with a pinch of salt. of
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Topic: I want to learn how to medicine and (micro)biology! (Read 803 times)