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Review of Usmle CS courses
Hi guys,
Let us review some of the books and courses available for Usmle Step 2 CS for the benefit of all the test takers. Please post your comments and ideas here. Having tried different courses through friends, I think this what I found. UW- Has about 70 cases which are reasonably representative. There are a few cases that are not covered. Some concerns as to whether you have time do all the things. Overall, good quality cases. Price is a bit high.
They have about 70 cases for 69 bucks or so. UsmleSource - This is relatively new course that has 116 or so cases with some video case discussions. I personally used this and what I liked about it is the approach that is more practical using a few mnemonics. They use the Mnemonics LIQOR AAA and PAM HUGS FOSS all through the course which I personally used it when I took my exam. I think it helped me to gather all the pieces of info in history without thinking too much. I was a bit afraid of blanking out and writing the Mnemonic as they suggested on the sheet provided helped to briefly glance for the next item. The case discussions are OK, a bit detail oriented, and the price is lower than UW given the number of cases. The videos kind of go over the case in 10-15 minutes and are good. Can practice Patient note. I think it is the best bang for your bucks. Price wise, UsmleSource scores very favorably with over 115 cases and 30 videos for 30-50 bucks depending on the duration. FA - I have not used it. Virtual-usmle - I have not used it. Looks like they have about 70 cases for 50 bucks Among the books, I think OSCE is a reasonable source even though it is designed for a different purpose. The cases are nicely presented. You should not completely rely on it but use one of the online courses like UsmleSource or UsmleWorld to suppliment it. Also ValueMD, Prep4Usmle and residentscafe are good sources for case discussions. Other things that need to be reviewed include - CS courses with SP's like passcsa, C3NY, Kaplan CS course etc. Please post your experiences here! Overall, no matter what course you take, practice is the key.
Let us review some of the books and courses available for Usmle Step 2 CS for the benefit of all the test takers. Please post your comments and ideas here. Having tried different courses through friends, I think this what I found. UW- Has about 70 cases which are reasonably representative. There are a few cases that are not covered. Some concerns as to whether you have time do all the things. Overall, good quality cases. Price is a bit high.
They have about 70 cases for 69 bucks or so. UsmleSource - This is relatively new course that has 116 or so cases with some video case discussions. I personally used this and what I liked about it is the approach that is more practical using a few mnemonics. They use the Mnemonics LIQOR AAA and PAM HUGS FOSS all through the course which I personally used it when I took my exam. I think it helped me to gather all the pieces of info in history without thinking too much. I was a bit afraid of blanking out and writing the Mnemonic as they suggested on the sheet provided helped to briefly glance for the next item. The case discussions are OK, a bit detail oriented, and the price is lower than UW given the number of cases. The videos kind of go over the case in 10-15 minutes and are good. Can practice Patient note. I think it is the best bang for your bucks. Price wise, UsmleSource scores very favorably with over 115 cases and 30 videos for 30-50 bucks depending on the duration. FA - I have not used it. Virtual-usmle - I have not used it. Looks like they have about 70 cases for 50 bucks Among the books, I think OSCE is a reasonable source even though it is designed for a different purpose. The cases are nicely presented. You should not completely rely on it but use one of the online courses like UsmleSource or UsmleWorld to suppliment it. Also ValueMD, Prep4Usmle and residentscafe are good sources for case discussions. Other things that need to be reviewed include - CS courses with SP's like passcsa, C3NY, Kaplan CS course etc. Please post your experiences here! Overall, no matter what course you take, practice is the key.
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