Step II Books?

NMS Review for USMLE Step II would give you a good week of a** whuppin'

seriously, it's tough but a good review

I just took step II this past Monday and here's my two bits. I likewise didn't want to spend a lot of time or money on books, questions, etc. I agree that First Aid for step II is subpar. I used Boards and Wards throughout M3 and found myself using that for my review. I also bought and used Crush the Boards. I opted not to use NMS because I wasn't looking for an a**whuppin'...mostly just wanted to do decently. Crush the Boards was good, but not as good as I had been led to believe by friends. It's a pretty easy read, and has some good pearls and high points in it. Boards and Wards was very complete and had more detail and meat to it than Crush. The actual test was about as advertised...not overly difficult, but not easy. Seems like every patient had Diabetes type I. I thought that was weird. I did the 3 tests that you can download from the USMLE web page and they were roughly like the real thing, if anything a little easier. If you want/need to ace it, I would probably do NMS and Q bank in addition to the review book of your choice. Good luck, I'm just glad to get it out of the way.

OF

also check out "usmle step 2 secrets." i'm using it now (taking step two in december), its easy to read and get through, and it comes highly recommended from classmates that did very well.

later

did anyone do Kaplan for Step 2? or at least just use the Kaplan books?

fwiw

i took step ii today. read crush twice, did 75% of qbank and thought that step ii was slightly harder than q bank (ymmv).

what i felt was that the items of step ii (and qbank for that matter) that i didn't know, no amount of studying would help (there were some mult. choice options for diseases that i had never heard of).

my buddy had a question about vaginal TB for cryin out loud (oh those skanky cambodians) -- before anyone jumps down my throat, that's where she was from. i don't even want to know how one even goes about getting tb in the taco.

ten days is all you will need. the test ain't that bad. just know how to treat everything, because you will get asked about it (ie vaginal tb)

Was the answer "use INH/rifampin vaginal cream"?

HJ

maybe she had a candida infection and the reference to TB was so that you could pick up the fact that u get azole resistance.. annd the questions was lookin for a treatment for candida (something other than an azole).. typically would pick diflucan (fluconazole) but with history of tb.. ud have to choose somethign else..

question was probably getting at the increasing antifungal resistance thats being reported..

Oh my god, just reading the last few messages on this thread is making me realize how quickly the knowledge is leaking out of my noggin. I honored OB/GYN too...my only honor...imagine that...how is bone related to the vagina? I still have to take step 2 too.

lol sorry i just had to laugh..
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Dingleberry, surely you are familiar with the main bone's relationship to the vagina.

HJ

Orthochikk,

In all seriousness where in the hell did you pull azole resistance out of that question. I can't even begin to follow your line of reasoning...but maybe that's why I'll never go into OB/GYN. Vaginal TB would seem to fall into the miliary TB category and be treated with the usual 4 drug regimen of INH, rifampin, etc. I have to agree that there are some off the wall, zebra questions on step II and it's nearly impossible to prepare for them all. Glad it's over.

OF

Yes the MAIN bone's relationship to the vagina is good. But, I'm going into ortho because I don't want to deal with that other bone. "The only problem with urology is that there's too much dick."

i took it at the end of dec
wasn't so bad

i did 3 weeks of studying

did most of kaplan q bank (very helpful); read crush once; first aid once;
and reviews "secrets" two day sbefore. I also cramed in NMS questions -
doing lots of questions is key. i don't think u need more than 3 weeks.