How can I start preparing for USMLE from the first year of medical school?

Dr.Khyati Patel, an IMG interested in helping other IMG’s especially the freshman year, shares with us ‘How can I start preparing for USMLE from the first year of medical school?’ so that you can start your preparations well beforehand with just the right resources and making a stronger conceptual base.

I am a post intern from SMIMER, Surat, Gujarat currently preparing for my USMLE STEPS. I thought of writing this post in order to acknowledge and sensitise the upcoming medical students who are about to enter their first year since I have been through that stage where everyone is seeking for guidance.

My main aim is to point out things where I made mistakes during my medical years and could have prevented myself from doing those mistakes if I would have been informed prior to it. So I will be talking about how you can start preparing for USMLE STEPS since the first year of medical school and efficiently managing time during your first year.

First year subjects: 

1. Anatomy inc. histology & embryology
2. Physiology
3. Biochemistry 

I will talk about each subject briefly explaining how you can use your assigned books along with some other resources to simultaneously prepare for STEP 1 too.

ANATOMY

B.D. Chaurasia is by far the best book for anatomy, almost the Bible of Anatomy so I would recommend using it. It is a very informative and factual subject so you can only make it interesting by getting as creative as you can. Additional resources that will help you with USMLE preps are : 

• Dr. Nabil’s Anatomy videos (they are the best and most concise videos, highly recommended)
• OSMOSIS videos ( you can find anatomy sections systemwise)

Histology

I did not pay any attention to this subject during my freshman year but I would suggest that in order to be better in your 2nd-year sub – pathology which involves a lot of histology you should be knowing at least the basic histology of all the systems. I used my histology journal provided by our college which was descriptive enough. The recommended book for histology is Atlas of Histology with functional correlations. 

Embryology

A very important subject which you would want to learn it all. Recommended book- Inderbir Singh’s book of Embryology

Additional resources or USMLE – OSMOSIS videos.

IT IS A VERY IMP SUBJECT!!! You cannot miss out on any details.

I know first year will be a little difficult for you to manage with in the beginning but you will surely figure it out and do not miss out on these minor subjects ( histo & embryo) which I did and would not want you guys to make that same mistake.

PHYSIOLOGY

Recommended books : 

– Guyton (best for understanding)

–A.K.Jain (best for descriptive questions in exams)

Additional resource for USMLE :

• BRS physiology
• OSMOSIS videos(again system wise physiology available)

Okay so there is a lot of confusion between which book to be used out of these three. I will recommend what I did was that I used Guyton to understand the topics which I found difficult but I mostly read A.K.Jain as it was good to write up the descriptive questions( which my seniors told me).

I found about BRS physiology recently when I started preparing for USMLE it is almost a shorter version of A.K.Jain and I would recommend if any of you would want to go for it instead of A.K.Jain.

Also, I would like to mention that DO NOT GO FOR SEMBULINGUM!!! It’s an easy-going book that you can use to pass a test the next day but I am sure you would want to work more on clearing the concepts so a humble request to not use that book.

BIOCHEMISTRY

This subject would really get on your nerves. Not to scare you but it’s a little boring as well as a detailed subject.

Recommended books:

• Lippincott (I didn’t use it but our professors recommended)
• Satyanarayan ( Used it found it to be very good)

Additional resource for USMLE: Dr.Turco videos of Biochemistry Kaplan 2014 ( the best videos that can even surpass Lippincott)

Good for biochemistry as well as Genetics which would be included in USMLE and just some part of genetics in your 1st year.

I would highly recommend if you could watch these videos and do Satyanarayan you  will be good to go.

Once you are done with your first year of course you can take a break but what I would suggest is to take a month or two from your second year beginning and read FIRST AID USMLE biochemistry section, anatomy and physiology sections (systemwise) You can practice the Mcqs from –  Kaplan question banks

• Usmle Rx 
• UWORLD (offline)

Lastly I just want to mention that these subjects will form your base and you should be clear will them and on point as it will be helpful in future to understand the concepts of subjects in your successive years. I would make another post for 2nd, 3rd and final year subjects with simultaneous integration of USMLE preps. Do mention in the comments if you need me to post anything specific.

All the best for your preparations.

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About the Author

Dr.Khyati Patel, an IMG interested in helping other IMG’s especially the freshman year, shares with us ‘How can I start preparing for USMLE from the first year of medical school?’ so that you can start your preparations well beforehand with just the right resources and making a stronger conceptual base.

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