Resources for Medical Students
For medical students, there are a plenty of resources for the purpose of studies, speaking generally. A medical student must not confuse himself/herself regarding which source to follow for the purpose of studies, self improvement, diet and stress management etc. Being in a medical school, one has a large variety of offline resources like college classes, quiz competitions and group discussions etc AND there are even more confusing numbers of online resources like blogging websites, youtube lectures and various other websites providing some free and other paid lectures on various Subjects of Medicine right from Anatomy to complex subjects like Internal Medicine and Surgery. It is very obvious that students wander from here to there looking for some valuable text and videos BUT end up wasting entire Day, then Week and ultimately the entire Year ends with very less value in hand.
Here is a list of resources which are available and I shall be discussing the Year wise approach to the resources so that maximum benefit is taken out of your time and effort.
Resources for First year Students
1. Kenhub:
Great for teaching you anatomy without making you feel totally overwhelmed. You get a full colour anatomy and histology atlas with each structure highlighted in green so you can see exactly how it differs and where it is in relation to surrounding structures. Most other atlases don’t do this, but it’s really helpful. There is also medical imaging material available, covering CT and MRI.
For whichever structure you’re looking to learn about, there’s four different media types you can use to learn a topic holistically: an HD color atlas as I mentioned above, an engaging video (usually 30 mins or less), 5 different types of quizzes -structure identification quizzes, muscle fact quizzes, clinical question bank quizzes, revision quizzes and customizable quizzes and detailed articles. You can even get free flashcard eBooks on the Premium subscription. The 24-hour support is another really great touch helping to put you at ease.
2. Dr. Najeeb’s Lectures:
I believe everyone in medical school by the end of 2nd year starts loving Dr. Najeeb because of a unique way of teaching and interaction with students which makes the lecture even more fun. The value provided by Dr. Najeeb’s lectures is inimitable. The indepth understanding of the concepts makes the videos most satisfying for a medical student.
There are many free lectures available on youtube and the student can also buy his complete set of lectures at drnajeeblectures.com
Cons: Only con is that the lectures are very lengthy and are not suitable when one’s exams are near.
Anyways one can make notes right from the first year of school and revise them over and again whenever needed without watching to the videos again.
Dr. Najeeb’s lectures are suitable to every medical student irrespective of the year in which he/she is studying.
3. College Lectures:
College lectures should never be underestimated in this world of digital e-learning no matter what. The reason being very simple that, in a class, lecture is delivered by a teacher who is physically present in front of you, who looks in your eyes and asks you the question about what he taught you yesterday. Moreover, everyone comes in the classroom solely for the purpose of learning which creates a vibe in the classroom which can be found nowhere else in this world. These are two big reasons why maximum learning occurs in a classroom. I would say that classrooms are the real TEMPLES OF LEARNING . So college lectures should always be taken maximum benefit of, regardless of which year in medical school you are learning.
Resources for 2nd Year Students
4. Armando Hasudungan YouTube lectures:
In my opinion these are by FAR the most useful, well made and easy to follow physiology and pathology lectures on YouTube. He has a diagrammatical teaching approach, which, like Dr. Najeeb, allows you to follow a concept step by step and really understand the layers of information and how they relate to one another. I’d say that Armando’s videos are best for physiology and pathology, but he also offers anatomy tutorials.
5. Pathoma:
Many of my friends have used pathoma for studying pathology in brief and it is considered by many medical students to be the best paid resource for all things pathology especially those who are preparing for USMLE exam. It can also be very well used for 2nd year professional exams.
6. Pharmacology:
One must use standard text book for studying pharmacology as it is one of the basic and most important subjects of entire number of subjects. It is very volatile and difficult to master. I suggest one must make notes after watching videos lectures or studying from book itself whichever one likes the more, and revise them over and over again. Some standard books for pharmacology are:-
- Lippincott’s Pharmacology
- Katzung and Trevor’s Pharmacology Examination and Board Review
- Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics
USMLE step 1 first aid can also be used to learn the concepts of pharmacology.
I suggest that you should be strictly sticked to one source only. All the three books are equally good and can be supplemented with Dr. Najeeb OR Armando’s lectures but never both as it will create confusion.
Resources for 3rd year Students
7. Eyewiki
Eyewiki can be used in addition to our ophthalmology books like parson’s ophthalmology and/or USMLE first aid to study in depth the concepts of ophthalmology. Ophthalmology is a very volatile subject, so it should be studied with question paper from previous years of various examinations so that there is stimulus based learning which imparts a long living memory and concept.
8. ENT:
ENT is a very cute little subject which can be studied from USMLE First Aid book and supplemented with Dr. Najeeb’s Lectures without any second doubt on it.
Resources for Final Year Students
9. Medscape:
Medscape has everything regarding Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine doctors. So, for reference Final year students can use Medscape.com at anytime from their mobile phone. You can also download emedicine app on your phone for easy navigation. Besides using standard reference textbooks medscape can be used when you are in such a situation where you don’t have enough time to act upon like in emergency medicine department.
One must abide by the learnings of HARRISONS PRINCIPLES OF INTERNAL MEDICINE.
Other textbooks for Internal Medicine are
- Davidson’s principles and practice of medicine
- Hutchison’s clinical methods
- Mcleod’s clinical methods
Again, one must stick to only one book source and one video source for every subject and never more than that.
10. Surgery:
Standard textbook for surgery is Baily and Love’s short practice of surgery. After attending a lecture OR after reading a chapter from the book, one can refer to the Youtube videos for the actual taste of surgery and for understanding the difficulty of a procedure and better imbibition of concepts.
One must learn efficiently in the classroom and attend the Operation Theaters whenever the opportunity is there.
Clinical postings help a lot in actual understanding, clinical presentation of a patient an scope of treatment of surgical cases.