Studying Blues

Studying has proven to be something of a challenge. It's not that we're terribly busy at school. If I haven't already mentioned this in my Step 1 Blog, here goes: Despite teaching medicine for nearly 200 years, my school is slightly retarded. The school remains determined to give us as little clinical exposure as (in)humanly possible. Also, we don't really learn medicine. We don't really learn anything actually. We do, however, spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in poorly ventilated lectures re-learning everything from 3rd year all over again. By the time I get home from class, I'm pretty pooped. Then I get to make dinner, and do laundry. Suddenly it's 10pm and I'm just about falling asleep at my desk. Something has got to change. I'm thinking at this point, I'll just give up going to class and stay at home and study for Step 2.

Kaplan Books

I finally got my hands on the Step 2 Kaplan books. There are 5 in total, covering internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, epidemiology (puke) and obs&gyn. I've just flipped through them for now, and so far, they seem pretty reasonable. If you used any of Kaplan books for Step 1, it's the same sort of format. Nicely spaced out, not at all like BRS. I'll post some more details as I get a chance to actually read them.

Getting Smart

For whatever reason, my school does not teach us much of anything until our final year of medical school. We don't even do any general medicine/surgery rotations until next year! It's going to make studying for Step 2 even harder because I'm going to have to teach it all to myself. Although there are 2 parts to Step 2 (CK = clinical knowledge and CS = clinical skills), most people say CS is a cakewalk with over 90% of people passing on their first try. Ergo, the majority of my time will be devoted to Step 2 CK.

So, what does this mean for me? It means I'm going to have to start studying as soon as possible. Possibly next week (which, oddly, is exactly what I said last week). No, seriously...I'm in the process of assembling my master book list and once I have then, I can start right away. My American friends swear by Kaplan, while the Canadians seem to like the Toronto Notes. I think it might be a good starting point to get First Aid for the USMLE Step 2 CKand Kaplan USMLE Step 2 CK Qbook

First Post!

After receiving my Step 1 score, I've decided to start...the Step 2 blog! There are actually 2 parts to Step 2 (CK = clinical knowledge and CS = clinical skills) and I'm going to have to do both parts within the next year...sounds like fun :P