First Aid for the USMLE Step 1: 2008 (First Aid USMLE)

I can't add anything to the canon of reviews and tales of wonder this book offers. It's PART of what everyone should study for the step. It's not your bible, the whole enchilada, or even your last resort. With a strong foundation of actual, honest medical knowledge and a wide variety of sources, this will serve to drive home key concepts and jog your memory of tidbits long forgotten.Two things: first, cut the spine off and get it spiral bound at an office supply store. It's relatively cheap and infinitely more usable. Alternatively, you could cut the spine, three-hole punch it, and stick it in a binder. That offers the ability to insert your additional notes on pages in-between. Better graphs, flow charts, decision trees, etc... Secondly, do questions. Lots of them.For all you would be A-1 gunners out there, buy this first semester, fill it in and flesh it out as you go, chant repeatedly "this is a review text, not my primary source," and start doing board review questions as you study each semester's material. Pick a Q bank that isn't UWorld ( save that for actual test prep).

First things first: This book = PURE GOLDYou HAVE to study before turning to this book. But once you do that, this book really points out extremely high yield info. ANYTHING in this book is in it for a reason. Don't start reading something and say "oh well i know that isn't important" BECAUSE IT IS!Also - this book is great for shelf exams, especially if you take them right after you finish the course. You'll already have been studying throughout the year, and going through First Aid will definitely suffice.I never really believed people, started listening to the negative reviews of the book....until I ran out of time...turned to this book and WOW

I used this book in my step 1 studying and found it an extremely detailed and valuable resource.I recommend reading it over and over after you have gone over the reference books ie.Kaplan once.I initially did not want to get the book because of initial negative reviews, but once I started using it to study, It was something else...It pulls together high yield information in a concise and organized manner and I cant tell you how much I appreciated it after my exam especially as I had a great score three weeks later:) To get the best out of it you have to pay attention to little details....its not a summary book for nothing so if you gloss over it you probably will not get the best out of it.

I wanted to give this zero stars, but that is not an option. (This is a review for the Kindle version of the book.)I own the 2009 physical book, but bought this because of the text-to-speech function on the Kindle, since I wanted options when I study. Unfortunately what they neglect to tell you is that the actual main text is scanned in as an image, and so is not compatible with this. The device just skips over all the main text and reads out only the headings to you. If this isn't bad enough, the text is absolutely unreadable. It says it's optimized for the Kindle DX, but still usable on other devices - the text is so tiny that there's no way I could make any of it out. I had checked out the sample for the book before purchasing, and conveniently the beginning part of the book, which the sample covers, is all actual text (that you can make larger, and is compatible with the text-to-speech), while right after the sample ends, the text becomes the tiny scanned image which is compatible with nothing, including my vision. This was a huge waste of money - stick to the actual book.

I have enjoyed using this book so far. It condenses important points very well, and includes easy to remember mnemnonics and pictures. If you med-school has shelf exams it is a great resource to condense your studying so that you cover the most important topics.

Made a nice gift

I purchased this item for my wife because she made me. I guess I did not want to sleep on the couch or floor. I have no idea what's inside this item. She enjoyed using this item to study.

If you memorize First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 comprehensively, you WILL ace step 1. It does contain errors, but many are obvious and few are misleading. Furthermore, FA is diligent about publishing a list of errata on their website.