Hello reader,
Below I have included some advice I once gave my own JMP pod in preparing for the MD2 examinations. This is the first time you will experience the anatomy and pathology exams. I try to give you an idea about what to expect and how to prepare yourself for these new examinations. However, keep in mind that these are just my opinions. Everyone has different learning styles and strengths, so please keep in mind that this is just one person's advice. Be sure to talk to your upperclassmen for further opinions and guidance.
I hope you find it useful!
1. Pathology Exam: Dr. Kaya will show each picture for about 1 minute each. Each picture will have about 2 accompanying questions. The first question regards the picture he is showing, but the second may just be a random question based on info from his handout. He will also have about 10 "matching" questions at the end. Entire exam is multiple choice.
Use mental case (or another flashcard app) to memorize the pictures (he won't pull random pics from the internet for the most part). This will be necessary no matter what. Make sure you shuffle all the decks to study as well. If you just study each lecture's pictures individually this will not give you an accurate picture of how well you know things. Combine all the lectures into one file, shuffle it, then study off of that (that way everything is random and it will truly test your knowledge).
The pictures he uses are PURELY from his lecture. Dont study other pictures.
Fill in your notes for the pictures from http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/ORGAN.html. I know how fast he goes in lecture.
MEMORIZE his handout. Fill in any blanks either from lecture or from FA or Goljan's. You need some of the background clinical knowledge from his handout and lecture to answer some of his MC questions. FA Organ systems and Goljans helps to fill in some clinical info that he talked about in lecture that you may not have had time to write down.
2. Anatomy Exam: 2/3rds is IDing tags in the anatomy lab on various bodies and prosections and cross sections. The other 1/3 is written--> all multiple choice.
Schedule reviews with Dr. Lozanoff (which hopefully youve been doing). Not just once. At least 2 or 3 along the way. Try to do it as a group of 5-6 so you can see but still not waste his time with a 2 person review lol. He always says that 10-15% of the ID-able structures are not listed on the fair game list. Id say that close to 90% of those non-listed structures are covered in his reviews (and the rest probably just mentioned in his lectures)
Memorize the fair games list structures. Study guides are often helpful for this too when studying at home. Great sources for home reference (or to make study guides) are Rohen's Color Atlas or Netter's Anatomy.
Study the Lippincott's and BRS questions on the thorax/back. His written questions (1/3 of your anatomy grade) are quite similar to those questions
Dont bother too much with reading Clinically Oriented Anatomy (perhaps peruse the blue boxes to learn cool clinical stuff) even though he assigns readings. I never opened it and still got by. If anything, BRS is a good thing to read or breeze through. Like I said however, most of his written exam questions are similar to Lippincotts (and some BRS). Make Lippincotts your priority and try get thru the relevant portions two times (or however long it takes you to remember the main points).DONT STRESS THE EMBRYO QUESTIONS in Lippincotts, as they will probably not show up on an anatomy exam (unless he himself went over the topic in lecture).
Make sure to study the cross sections, prosections, and relevant x-rays in lab. These are fairgame as tag-able. Also remember to study the skeleton/bone box stuff.
Lastly remember to GO INTO LAB! You must be able to ID the structures very very well on MULTIPLE bodies, not just your own.
3. PBL/Lecture Based Exams:
I personally like making study guides based on the fair game topics. I feel these are good to to condense the info you need to know. Whether you use your class's LIs (I personally just copy and paste sections of certain ppls into my own study guide) or your own research is up to you but I would really encourage you to condense the info into one central location. It gets hard to study fairgames from so many different sources and also remember to look up the stuff not in robbins (the pop/behavior stuff).
Stay focused on fairgames for now. They wont veer from that too much. That being said, it is good to BOARD REVIEW while you go thru each unit as well (reading the cardio sections of FA or Secrets).
Know what to study. They don't tend to ask you about stuff like how many ppl have a certain disease. They will ask you mechanisms especially for drugs, pathophys/pathogen (RAAS PATHWAY!!!). MD2 questions tend to be very mechanistic (at least they were for us). Also remember your rule of 3 or 4 (4 complications, 4 risk factors, 4 things you can advise patients, etc).
DONT SPEND TOO LONG ON ONE SUBJECT. While memorizing huge maps is good (I like to do this myself), you will never be able to write all that out for exams. Dont spend too long on any one map or concept in general. Even for EKG's, there will not be pages upon pages of EKG's. It will be a few questions. Dr. Sakai's lecture and Dr. Turban's lecture are often sufficient for test (Tho for full understanding Dubins is best if you took a chance to read it by now).
Books: Lilly's and Dubins and all the others are great, but if you havent been keeping up, dont stress about it and dont go crazy trying to read all of Lily's. Study what you need to know for now and use the books for reference and the FG's as a guide. Tho admittedly, Dubins is a really great book to read all the way thru.
