First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 Errata (2019 Edition): Errata Revised Index Revised Index with Markups Archives: 2016, 2017, 2018 Submit a correction/suggestion: Please fill out our form Cases for the USMLE Step 1 Errata (3rd Edition): 3rd Edition Submit a correction/suggestion: Please fill out our form First Aid for the Basic.
We all know a review book is a must for the USMLE. Our review book of choice here at Med School Tutors is First Aid for the USMLE Step 1, commonly referred to as “First Aid.” This is no surprise, as it is the most commonly used review book for the USMLE—not just nationally but worldwide. Every student utilizes First Aid, but the spread of scores they receive run the gamut of failing to curve-setting. The difference comes down to how they are utilizing First Aid. When to start? What to write inside? How many times to read it? While there are many ways to get through the experience with your goal score on your score report, from the thousands of hours we’ve spent helping students achieve their goals, we’ve found these to be five biggest mistakes students make with First Aid while studying for Step 1.
1. Starting First Aid too early (or too late)
I often cast stones from my ivory tower at the first-year medical students who are walking around on Day one of medical school with First Aid under their arm. There is no need to even possess First Aid any time before the beginning of M2 year. At the same time, you don’t want to be looking at it for the first time just 6 weeks before your test. A good happy medium is halfway through second year, or when you have 5 or 6 months before the exam. Don’t start internalizing the book at that point. Simply familiarize yourself with the format and layout, and get a general sense of the depth of the material covered therein. There will be plenty of time to dive in deep during your dedicated study period; the heavy lifting can wait until then. As always, the most important thing to do, regardless of what you do with First Aid, is to give your full attention to classwork so that you can truly learn during your basic science years.
2. Annotating too much (or nothing at all)
Remember when we called First Aid concise? The 2019 version is a mere 816 pages. Yes, that’s a half-ton of pages. But on the other hand, it’s nearly everything you need to know for Step 1, a summary of 2 years of basic science lecturing and a handful of books on histology, pathophysiology, anatomy, etc., all rolled into one.
There are enough words in First Aid as it stands. Very little raw information needs to be added to the book by you. If there’s a brilliant mnemonic or a small reminder that you will be better served by having in there, by all means, take your pen to the paper. But don’t double the amount of text and data contained between the covers. It has been curated and winnowed down already, and there’s no need to undo the editor’s work.
3. Relying on reading too much
All I have to do is memorize First Aid, and I’m golden, right? 270, here I come!
If only it were that simple. Yes, knowledge of the material contained in this book is essential, but sadly, it’s not enough. The students who score highest on the USMLE are those who do the most questions. I must repeat that because I’ve seen too many students eschew doing questions because “they aren’t ready” or because they want to get more reading in. Questions are king. As good as First Aid is, if given the choice, I’d rather do multiple question banks through and through without reading First Aid at all, than to prepare for the test with only First Aid and not going through any Q-banks.
First Aid is merely one piece of the studying puzzle. Question banks are even more important, but above all, the fund of knowledge you have built up over your basic science courses takes the cake.
4. Failing to do a cover-to-cover First Aid read-through
This one often falls through the cracks, but so many students thank me when they follow this advice. As you are about to ramp into your study period, you should do a light reading of First Aid from start to finish. It’s a bit of a slap upside the head, but serves as a good way to light the fire underneath you. You will be reacquainted with some familiar material, and see some topics which you feel completely in the dark on. You don’t have to start committing material to memory, but you should give it more than a skim. This first run through will also help to cement a framework of knowledge in your head, so that as you pick up the tons of facts along the way, you’ve got places to mentally store them.
5. Winging it
“Yeah, I’ll just read First Aid to review, do a bunch of questions, and see how far I get by the time the test rolls around.” You’d be surprised how many students’ study plans are not much more developed than that. We’ve talked at length about the importance of putting together an bulletproof Step 1 study schedule.
![Reddit Reddit](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125634239/561175270.jpg)
You should know exactly what chapter you are going to be committing to memory each day. You should be able to look at the study calendar that you’ve built before your dedicated study period, and have the explicit assurance to say “On the morning of May 1st, I’m going to read the first 15 pages of First Aid Cardiovascular. That night, I’ll finish the Cardiovascular section.” It sounds like way too much work and detail, but it will pay serious dividends in the long run.
![Reddit Reddit](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125634239/470965541.png)
Don’t make these mistakes! Do what it takes to get your timing right, ace you class exams, build a solid study schedule, understand the structure of First Aid, utilize question banks, and take mindful, succinct notes in First Aid
Posted byM-31 year ago
Archived
(5/14/2018) Hello and welcome to medicalschoolanki! Here is an OPTIONAL add-on to the original Zanki phys and path / pharm decks.
Things that the ZANKI ADD-ON includes:
- First Aid 2018 updates to cards (edited old zanki cards, edited old expansion card) + adding new FA2018 cards (ex. childhood musculoskeletal conditions)
- First Aid 2018 errata updates to cards (edited old zanki cards, edited old expansion cards) + adding new FA2018 errata
- all prior expansions addons rewritten
- Pathoma Chapter 3 Neoplasia
- Micro Pharm, Neoplasia Pharm, Immuno Pharm, MSK Pharm
- Edits to all aforementioned based on UWORLD (updated to a complete pass of content UWORLD covered as of 5/14/2018) here and there
- Rephrased material based on optional UWORLD new information adds (have been specifically tagged so they can be deleted)
- Pathoma 2018 edits (seemed like there were only a few)
- Nutricionado FA MSK anatomy (was in the process of re-editing this, but did not end up getting through all of it)
- new subject material that the 2018 “NBME120” introduces that is not in UWORLD / B&B / First Aid (yet)
- Zanki ADD-ON standalone + Nutricionado Anatomy (Link current as of 5/14/2018)
- [Zanki Phys & Path + Pharm + Zanki ADD-ON + Nutricionado Anatomy + Heart Sounds] (https://mega.nz/#!fAwABbhK!rT62c1qticXXvY9_WRGsivhGkMHxXv12nDguLLWSS9g) (Link current as of 5/14/2018)
To install the update if you have already been using the original zanki decks, all you need to do is make sure that in the browser, the 'Zanki Step Decks' and 'Zanki Pharmacology' decks are not under any subdeck, and are at the top level. To see what I mean, look at this picture to see what the main anki screen should look like. If this is your first time using zanki, you could alternatively just use the second link and have everything already set up for you :)
Previously, the update formatting was super weird and was causing cards to not add in correct, but now it should plug and play perfectly! The problem was that the addon was changed from the original formatting, so all the addon material was changed back to original formatting and it seems to update without a hitch. Major thanks to u/omg940 for helping me figure everything out!
Once you have installed the update, immediately go to the browser and suspend all cards tagged 'BGnonessentials' and 'BGadd'. DO NOT suspend 'BGedit'. Once you finish a UWORLD section / as you are going through UWORLD, unsuspend these cards added cards based on UWORLD content. If you don't that's okay, but you will get more out of them if you unsuspend as you go.
To figure out what is added via the browser, I have assigned tags for everything. Everything that is part of the expansion has the tag 'EXPANSION'. Now everything that has been edited / added has been tagged 'BGedit' or 'BGadd' (corresponding to cards that were edited and those that were added by me).
Another set of tags of relevance is 'fa2018', 'fa2018errata', 'uworld' - these are exactly what they sound like. 'BGnonessentials' is a tag for things that are ONLY covered in UWORLD / medbullets, and so can be deleted straight off the bat if you don't want em.
Other tags include 'Pathoma2018' and 'Boards&Beyond'. By no means are these comprehensive, but when they overlapped with UWORLD material / FA material I included cards from my personal deck I had already edited using B&B material. Pathoma2018 cards were edited from a brief skim of Pathoma 2018.
Note, there are cards edited / added using information using the NBME120. I would reccomend suspending that tag until after you either cover the material or you take the 120. This also introduces new material that will most likely be in upcoming UWORLD questions or in new editions of first aid (ex. malpractice, specific ENT lymph nodes).
Also, the way I do my extra sections is I put notes into the extra sections of card. I generally do not look at the extra section when I am doing anki, unless I need to review. Thus I make my extra sections detailed, so I can quick refresh if need be!
Now to talk about card count. Remember card count does not equal note count, and thus the card count total does not provide information about how many cloze deletions are on each count (except that there are some notes that have more than one cloze deletion). Assuming that we are starting with an original zanki path phys deck and an original pharm deck:
In terms of the original zanki cards edited using the First Aid 2018 PDF / errata , there are 836. That may mean the card text was changed (a couple words or the entire text), the extra information was changed, an image was added / updated from FA2018 / FA2018 for the organ systems for clarification.
In terms of new cards added using the First Aid 2018 PDF / errata (+ all the expansions that weren't in original zanki ex. neoplasia pharm, some of the MSK pharm, micro pharm), this is 1263 cards. In terms of new cards for the step deck (phys and path + neoplasia redone) there are 617 new cards. In terms of new cards for for the pharm deck (including old expansions rewritten + micro pharm), there are 649 cards.
The rest of the of the cards are edits or new cards to the original deck using UWORLD (based on a complete pass as of 5/14/2018), medbullets, boards and beyond. All the added cards that are only from UWORLD / medbullets can be deleted by clicking the browser tag 'BGnonessentials' and then deleting them.
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