What should I do between the summer between my first and second year?

[Dr. David Delnegro MST USMLE TutorMod Reputation: 26]

As a Step 1 tutor, I am often asked what to do between the summer of first and second year.

Reviewing old systems and material is fine. Don’t try and do new systems over the summer. The amount and depth of material is pretty staggering for M2 year.

I usually suggest to students who absolutely have to get ahead and that haven’t done a lot of microbiology, antibiotics, and immunology yet to really focus on those areas. They’re both pretty abstract, memorization heavy, and require multiple passes through before the material makes sense.

Sketchy Micro and Brosencephalon’s micro and immuno deck make a solid way to incorporate concepts and then drill details. Once you get through all those, Kaplan questions will help you apply and understand the material at a deeper and clinical level.

If you have any follow up questions I can help you with on this front, please comment below.

[Dan S., MST USMLE TutorMod Reputation: 30]

The one thing I would add is that Sketchy pharm has a ton of videos, and the Zanki pharm deck based off of it is huge, so this is one area that can be helpful to get started on early. Understanding pharm well can also help in integrating lots of physiology and pathology. The sketchy videos and flash cards on the parasympathetic and sympathetic drugs got me lots of points on UWorld and the real exam, even on questions not directly related to pharm.

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