I personally liked the casefiles books since they are easy to read and you don't have to focus for a long time. Blueprints is good for ob/gyn and peds Ithought, I heard kaplan is also good for most of the courses (definitely surgery). For Medicine, most everyone read Step Up to Medicine and did MKSAP
questions. Also, Dr. Gallagher likes Cecil's for Medicine but others like Harrison's so its up to you. They are good reference books but definitely too much to read. For all the courses though I recommend getting one or two booksand reading them a few times instead of reading multiple books once. You can
do well if you know at least one good book pretty well. As for pocket handbooks, I used the first aid for the wards and made notecards so didn'treally use a handbook, but I know many people that used the wards and boardsbook or other similar handbooks. They are helpful, but not reallynecessary if
you don't have one. The only exception is surgery in which surgical recall isdefinitely very handy to have for pimping, which they will do so be prepared.Other than that, many of the attendings and residents are relaxed and even if
they do ask questions it won't be scary. Just learn it in case they ask youagain. Overall, just have a good attitude and be willing to do anything. Eventhen, it's hard to predict what your grade will be since it's so subjective.The only thing you can actually control is how much you study for the shelf.
Also, here is some advice that I got from a previous 4th yr:
Surgery - Kaplan notes, Case Files is excellent and Surgical Recall isessential for OR pimping sessions, but don't study it for the shelf.
Medicine - you're assigned cases (like 1st and 2nd years!!) and theanswers, when they give them, are a good review of high yield stuff.Dr. Gallagher recommends Cecil's essentials of medicine, which is like amillion pages long - use it as a reference and to read about interesting
patients (copy in library, don't buy). No good concise review book,learn as much as you can, do lots of questions (more on that later), and you'll do fine.
Psych - I thought Andreasen & Black was good if you have it from 2nd year, I read some chapters from that and did questions, shelf isn't too hard.
FM - no concise text, study mostly medicine (I just did some questions). There is also OB and peds on the shelf, but if you take these before FM, don't do any additional studying.
OB - Blueprints is dry and boring but if you read the whole thing, the shelf is not bad.
Peds - I used First Aid because a friend lent it to me, I hear
blueprints is also good.
Also, for every clerkship, get pretest or some other question book (pretest Q's tend to be the hardest so best prepare you for the shelf), and do all the questions during the 2 weeks before the exam. There are lots of "review texts" for each clerkship (first aid, blueprints, kaplan notes) - a good idea is to try to get through one review text before the exam, and have another source to read about patients, look stuff up,etc. (I just used up to date most of the time). Just like everything else, you have to figure out how to study all over again, but try to
start studying early in the clerkship - otherwise you could go the whole time not having a clue what people are talking about.
Just keep your eyes and ears open and you'll figure out what works best for you. Third year is a lot of fun, so don't stress too much!
Best Cafeterias: BGH, Roswell, (Children's)
