Phase 1 revision tips
By Bara Kubanova
Firstly, congratulations for being here! Sheffield Medical School is a great place to be indeed :)
You can be a "taking-notes-of-literally-everything" person or a "can't-be-bothered-to-write-down-everything" type or even a "what-notes?!" guy and you will still be fine - you surely know yourself and what is best for YOU. As long as you work consistently and keep up with your lectures you will be fine. Remember (Dr Burton's favourite): Medicine is not a rocket science! Having said that, you WILL have to work hard, you WILL wish you were never born during the exam revision time this spring (oops - got a bit too dramatic here) but don't despair! You WILL have a time of your life and you'll learn more than you can imagine.
ANATOMY
Anatomy is important. You may hear some of your peers saying it is not, unless you want to be a surgeon. That is a lie. Try to prepare for every dissection session in advance. Also do not forget to answer all the questions in the anatomy handbook (you never know - some of them might appear on the exam, wink wink). The more you prepare for each session the more you will get from actual dissection. If you're clueless about what you're doing it will be very hard for you to dissect.
Use mnemonics! There are mnemonics virtually for everything. Check them out, you will have some good laughs, I promise. The more you work throughout the year the easier it will be for you during revision time.
Gray's - Any time there is a discrepancy between different resources use Gray's as the gold standard. I would personally recommend Gray's. It may contain more detail than we need but the illustrations are fabulous!
Snell's - Another recommended anatomy textbook. The illustrations are less photograph-like, compared to Gray's. This less realistic and more simplified style may be useful if you are the type who draws their own diagrams. Unlike Gray's, trying to copy Snell's won't be an artistic suicide.
Jacob's - Unlike the other two, Jacob uses photographs of actual real prosections. For me, I needed to study Gray's before I understood what the heavens was going on in those pictures, especially since everything is so bleached and homogeneous once impregnated with formaldehyde. What I loved about Jacob's were the explanations with all the study tips and clinically relevant facts. Jacob's is an amazing little textbook for revision. You will also discover that half of the questions asked in your anatomy booklet came from Jacob's. What else can I say.. read it! ;)
HISTOLOGY
Pink blobs here, pink blobs there, pink blobs everywhere...
That is how I felt at the beginning of the year. But you will be fine. Trust me, if you finish all the histology practicals and stare at the slides long enough you will develop an eye and you will distinguish different tissues with an ease. Make sure to download 'ANKI' flash-card program from your app store or PC.
Stevens and Lowe's - the histology practicals all make reference to this textbook, there are plenty of copies in the library
Ross and Pawlina's - although not a recommended textbook, I found it very useful. It offers more explanation than Stevens & Lowe's in case you struggle to understand something
PHYSIOLOGY
Vander's is an amazing textbook. But be careful. When I came some told me that if you knew Vander's you knew it all. Sadly it is not true. Some systems are better represented that the others. There is not much on the liver and hepatobiliary system (which will be a whole module for you). This is when the Peer Teaching kicks in, so keep yourself updated with our events ;)
Pearson: Essentials of human Anatomy and Physiology - This textbook was not recommended by the med school but I found it in the library and fell for it right away! It can't replace Vander's but offers a different perspective. It combines both anatomy and physiology with these amazing SPOT ON sections that always focus on different areas (bone repair, breathing mechanism etc). Not many people knew about it so I thought I might spread the word.
NEURO
Neuroanatomy: an illustrated colour text - this textbook will be extremely useful and extremely over-requested during your neuro-module. It might be worth actually buying this one. The prices on amazon are pretty reasonable. I got a brand new one for £14.
Exam structure
SAQ - Short Answer Questions
In our year, this seemed to be the paper people struggled most with. The name speaks for itself - you are asked to provide short answers. It can get as long as half a page, no longer. Our paper was quite public health heavy so do not neglect it! There will be people leaving lectures the moment public health starts. I admit it's not the most exciting subject (not even close to be fair) but it will come on the exams. It always has.
There will be no pictures shown but that doesn't mean they can't ask you histology questions.
Lastly, do not get stuck on a question you do not know. The timing is quite tight and generally, people struggled to finish the paper in time. Also make sure you wrote your registration number onto every single sheet. I left it for the end and then it took me good ten minutes (and a brain aneurysm) to fill it all in and I almost did not make it in time (a nightmare situation really!)
MSE - aka the spotter
The feared spotter! It sounds scary but it is doable. It is mostly the unfamiliar format of the exam that freaks everyone out.
You can look forward to 90 stations that will be set for you in the dissection room. You will rotate between these stations - changing your station every four minutes. There will be some rest stations with no questions attached but most of them will have three questions, usually related to either a histology slide, a body prosection, a plastic model, X-ray or even a diagram from Gray's.
MedSoc will organize a mock-spotter exam for you near the exam time. Make sure you sign up and try it! It is very helpful to know what to expect when you go for the actual thing.
SBA - Single Best Answers
SBA is essentially a multiple-choice examination. What it means is that all of the answers might be correct in a way but only one of them is the best answer. Sounds scary? But hey, at least we do not get marked down for incorrect answers so you will always be able to make an educated guess.
This should be all for now. I know this must have been quite exhaustive yet I hope at least some of you found it helpful.
Have a great year and see you round! :)
You can be a "taking-notes-of-literally-everything" person or a "can't-be-bothered-to-write-down-everything" type or even a "what-notes?!" guy and you will still be fine - you surely know yourself and what is best for YOU. As long as you work consistently and keep up with your lectures you will be fine. Remember (Dr Burton's favourite): Medicine is not a rocket science! Having said that, you WILL have to work hard, you WILL wish you were never born during the exam revision time this spring (oops - got a bit too dramatic here) but don't despair! You WILL have a time of your life and you'll learn more than you can imagine.
ANATOMY
Anatomy is important. You may hear some of your peers saying it is not, unless you want to be a surgeon. That is a lie. Try to prepare for every dissection session in advance. Also do not forget to answer all the questions in the anatomy handbook (you never know - some of them might appear on the exam, wink wink). The more you prepare for each session the more you will get from actual dissection. If you're clueless about what you're doing it will be very hard for you to dissect.
Use mnemonics! There are mnemonics virtually for everything. Check them out, you will have some good laughs, I promise. The more you work throughout the year the easier it will be for you during revision time.
Gray's - Any time there is a discrepancy between different resources use Gray's as the gold standard. I would personally recommend Gray's. It may contain more detail than we need but the illustrations are fabulous!
Snell's - Another recommended anatomy textbook. The illustrations are less photograph-like, compared to Gray's. This less realistic and more simplified style may be useful if you are the type who draws their own diagrams. Unlike Gray's, trying to copy Snell's won't be an artistic suicide.
Jacob's - Unlike the other two, Jacob uses photographs of actual real prosections. For me, I needed to study Gray's before I understood what the heavens was going on in those pictures, especially since everything is so bleached and homogeneous once impregnated with formaldehyde. What I loved about Jacob's were the explanations with all the study tips and clinically relevant facts. Jacob's is an amazing little textbook for revision. You will also discover that half of the questions asked in your anatomy booklet came from Jacob's. What else can I say.. read it! ;)
HISTOLOGY
Pink blobs here, pink blobs there, pink blobs everywhere...
That is how I felt at the beginning of the year. But you will be fine. Trust me, if you finish all the histology practicals and stare at the slides long enough you will develop an eye and you will distinguish different tissues with an ease. Make sure to download 'ANKI' flash-card program from your app store or PC.
Stevens and Lowe's - the histology practicals all make reference to this textbook, there are plenty of copies in the library
Ross and Pawlina's - although not a recommended textbook, I found it very useful. It offers more explanation than Stevens & Lowe's in case you struggle to understand something
PHYSIOLOGY
Vander's is an amazing textbook. But be careful. When I came some told me that if you knew Vander's you knew it all. Sadly it is not true. Some systems are better represented that the others. There is not much on the liver and hepatobiliary system (which will be a whole module for you). This is when the Peer Teaching kicks in, so keep yourself updated with our events ;)
Pearson: Essentials of human Anatomy and Physiology - This textbook was not recommended by the med school but I found it in the library and fell for it right away! It can't replace Vander's but offers a different perspective. It combines both anatomy and physiology with these amazing SPOT ON sections that always focus on different areas (bone repair, breathing mechanism etc). Not many people knew about it so I thought I might spread the word.
NEURO
Neuroanatomy: an illustrated colour text - this textbook will be extremely useful and extremely over-requested during your neuro-module. It might be worth actually buying this one. The prices on amazon are pretty reasonable. I got a brand new one for £14.
Exam structure
SAQ - Short Answer Questions
In our year, this seemed to be the paper people struggled most with. The name speaks for itself - you are asked to provide short answers. It can get as long as half a page, no longer. Our paper was quite public health heavy so do not neglect it! There will be people leaving lectures the moment public health starts. I admit it's not the most exciting subject (not even close to be fair) but it will come on the exams. It always has.
There will be no pictures shown but that doesn't mean they can't ask you histology questions.
Lastly, do not get stuck on a question you do not know. The timing is quite tight and generally, people struggled to finish the paper in time. Also make sure you wrote your registration number onto every single sheet. I left it for the end and then it took me good ten minutes (and a brain aneurysm) to fill it all in and I almost did not make it in time (a nightmare situation really!)
MSE - aka the spotter
The feared spotter! It sounds scary but it is doable. It is mostly the unfamiliar format of the exam that freaks everyone out.
You can look forward to 90 stations that will be set for you in the dissection room. You will rotate between these stations - changing your station every four minutes. There will be some rest stations with no questions attached but most of them will have three questions, usually related to either a histology slide, a body prosection, a plastic model, X-ray or even a diagram from Gray's.
MedSoc will organize a mock-spotter exam for you near the exam time. Make sure you sign up and try it! It is very helpful to know what to expect when you go for the actual thing.
SBA - Single Best Answers
SBA is essentially a multiple-choice examination. What it means is that all of the answers might be correct in a way but only one of them is the best answer. Sounds scary? But hey, at least we do not get marked down for incorrect answers so you will always be able to make an educated guess.
This should be all for now. I know this must have been quite exhaustive yet I hope at least some of you found it helpful.
Have a great year and see you round! :)