Customer Reviews

First Aid for the USMLE Step 3, Second Edition (First Aid USMLE)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lots of people suggest using Crush Step 3, but I looked at it, felt it was a) too thick and b) the questions and topics were not that relevant to the actual exam (especially in retrospect).

First Aid step 3 continues the long tradition of First Aid books for the USMLE's. But let's face it, you need the books less and less, and they put less and less into them for each one. The best one is/was for Step 1. Step 2 book was useful. Step 3 book is somewhat useful. (Having said that, it was the only book I studied from, to the extent that I studied, and I got over 240...).

The book has an above average number of typos and appears to have been rushed out.

The highlight is the 100 mini cases that have differentials and lab tests that are useful for the CCS cases.

But overall, I think it is the best review book for step 3. Not too much extraneous information, no fake questions that are either too easy or too hard. Just a lot of good info. Some of it is, however, utterly and completely irrelevant to the exam. And they could have spent more time reviewing outpatient material such as derm, emergency room, and less about inpatient medicine, almost everybody who takes step 3 does not need a review of inpatient anything after internship :)

Just finished taking step 3...I highly recommend First Aid, it is concise and, most importantly, the information in the text is relevant to the actual exam. It is easy to get through and I actually learned quite a bit reading it. Lastly, the description and tips it provides for the new interactive section of step 3 was invaluable, trust me.

I'm finally finished with these stupid exams! Like probably all of you, I didn't have much time in between work to study for this exam. Now more than ever it was important to find something that provided the most information in the least amount of time.

First Aid was really helpful here. The High Yield facts was helpful and packed full of what you needed to know for the MCQ's on the exam. But the book really stands out with the 100 CCS cases. I read this section a couple of days before the exam, along with doing the USMLE CD. It was very helpful in providing the language necessary to complete the cases quickly. To my knowledge, no other written source provides this review.

Even though First Aid was not the only source I used to study for the exam, I think it's absolutely necessary for a quick read to pass the last of these painful exams!

Basically, it is very skeletal review with too little detail and too many missing topics. It does overall good job to address some (yes, only some of the vast amount of step 3 facts) of the high yields topics though.

The cardiology section is unacceptably brief and missing out too many facts such as the management of the major valvular disease, which is critical on step 3!

So if you go over the online Q banks, especially usmleworld qs (very picky and detailed oriented questions) you would keep searching for the better explanations, which are completely missing out on this book.

Of course, I am referring to a review book, not a major text book. But even a review book, it must be reasonably detailed with sufficient coverage of the related topics.

This book would have been much better if the authors would add more details and add more diseases such as Rocky mountain spotted fever, Hyper/hypothyroidism in pregnancy, Geriatrics, opthalmology, trauma medicine, and Pediatrics/Adolescents medicine of better coverage.

It is simply too "lazy" book that hampers the hard earned good reputations for the FA step 1 and 2 in which I did use them extensively for the step 1 and 2.

I'm about to take my step 3 exam and I based my study on this book. It is divided in 2 sections, high yield facts and clinical cases simulator. The clinical case part is quite ok, gives you a rapid tool to do your cases. The high yield facts part, on the other hand, has several errors and facts that I really don't know where they came from and cost me some questions during questions practice... Since I started to doubt of the accuracy of this so called high yield facts, I had to invest more time in confirming some of them. There has to be a better book.

This book does an overall decent job with reviewing material for USMLE Step 3. The MCQ review is comparable to Crush Step 3, but I probably favor Crush a little more. The CCS review is nice in that it is short and quick and comprehensive to just about any case likely to show up on the exam. It still lacks some of the detail required for the exam, but overall is a good choice for review. Since it has review for both MCQ and CCS, you won't need to buy Crush or Usmleworld CCS which saves you money. You will still need to practice questions and CCS cases so its a good idea to get Kaplan qbank or qbook along with usmlesteps123 CCS cases.

I used the First Aid for the USMLE Step 3 along with Kaplan Q-bank and did very well on the exam. This book was great to have handy and review when time permitted. I studied all of the CCS cases in the back of the book and found that to be the best resource. Every CCS case I had on the exam could be found in this book. I don't recommend this as your only study source, but it is EXCELLENT for the CCS case review.

70 pages were added to this new (3rd) edition, so it covers more diseases now - for example, it includes information about cardiomyopathies and about pheochromocytoma, sorely missing in the previous edition.
also, this edition contains many more pictures (they are in full color now), as well as integrated mini-cases.
I have compared this edition of 'FA for step 3' to the 7th edition of 'FA for step 2 ck' and found that, for example, there is almost nothing about the prevention of endocarditis in the second one, and almost 1 page about it - in the first one.
on the other hand, 'FA for step 2 ck' has detailed information about cervical cancer which is absent in 'FA for step 3'.
there are some overlaps - some tables (about fractures, immunodeficiencies, and so on) in 'FA for step 3' are borrowed from 'FA for step 2CK'.
I guess even this edition of 'FA for step 3' should have at least twice more pages to cover everything you need for step 3.

To pass this exam you will probably only need to go over all U-World qbank. First-aid may help if you feel insecure. I read it front to back, but in hindsight I don't think it was worth it or that it contributed in any significant score to final performance ... 99/235.

I had high hopes for First Aid for Step 3, after using the series in the other step exams. I was highly disappointed as this book leaves out so much important information, and actually some of the information it does include is blatantly wrong (caused me to give wrong answers on the QBanks). I don't trust it!