Customer Reviews

First Aid for the USMLE Step 2 CK, Seventh Edition (First Aid USMLE)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While there are not very many resources out there for Step 2, this book is mediocre. The organization of the book is scattered and index is particularly bad. Most of the material is in the book, but it's hard to find it since the index is terrible. I would not use this as a stand alone study guide. In a lot of instances, it tells you signs and symptoms and the diagnosis, but doesn't mention the treatment (which is extremely important in Step 2). It falls short of expectations since First Aid for Step 1 was much much better.

I was expecting much after having used the 1st aid step1 book for the first exam, and was in fact quite disappointed. I wrote once or twice to the editor to let them know some missing chapters like... Chronic kidney disease or rhabdomyolysis (super high yield), and a few other (less important) chapters that are not treated in the book! This can drive you crazy a few days before the exam you can imagine:) I however recommend the book to everyone who has not more expectations than using it as a rough basis on which one will need to add a lot of additional details, ...and syndromes. For now, do we have any better concise book?

This is a real disappointment compared to the kind of material that I have seen the First Aid team put out. Most people told me as much, but I didn't believe them. I had stocked a lot of faith in FA for step 1 material and was certain that step 2 stuff would be just as strong. I was wrong. The one good thing about this book is that it uses images that you may be familiar with from the step 1 FA. The chapters are incredibly vague on definitive treatment and diagnosis. Each condition had a list of tests that one "might" use to treat/diagnose a condition. Step 2 questions really wanted to have a more definitive answer than what might be used. Next, there were areas that were grossly neglected and couldn't be found in the book at all. I constantly had to write large areas of notes on disease that are very common, but are not found in the book. One example is otitis media, not as much as a word on the subject. Finally, the book is lengthy compared to other review books, in a really bad way. The text is constantly being ridiculous. For example, if someone has pharyngitis, you don't need to spell it out that you should look in the mouth. I would think that's a given, but this book consistently proves otherwise using line upon line to write out ridiculous material. It can make reading the text very annoying and time consuming. Finally, the editing is horrendous. In comparing an edition from 2009 to 2010, the authors actually added in mistakes to existing text! How can you do that? It really adds to the fact that this is a fly by night book that is feeding off the First Aid name that people have come to adore for step 1 material. In the end, this book wasn't good enough for anything more than a quick read through. As an alternative, I would suggest step up to step 2, which is shorter in length and gets to the point.

This 7th edition has a lot of add-in. It covers almost subject I faced in the exam. But you still need UW or Kaplan Bank

i was somewhat puzzled by some of the mixed reviews first aid for CK was getting. to me, "crush" and "secrets" were just too superficial. i think that this is a decent comprehensive review. it's not designed for last minute cramming but i think if you know this book pretty well you should do great as long as you combine it with a solid question bank like world.

i bought this book not knowing if i would use it. while doing USMLEworld questions, i would go over the questions i got wrong and at least 75% of the time, the info to answer that question was contained in this book. i guess that kind of sold me on first aid. after reviewing my questions i would take notes in my First Aid and i think that really put me over the top.

i hope this works as well for you as it did for me. good luck

I bought First Aid for Step 2 CK mostly as a reflex since I used First Aid so extensively for Step 1. I used this book mostly as a resource for looking up information throughout third year of med school, and when I started doing UWorld questions, I annotated into the book. However, as I started studying for CK more extensively, I realized that this book doesn't do a good job at succinctly giving you information that is tested on CK. For example, for many diseases, the book gives you a very broad differential of what it could be, describes the pathophysiology, then gives you a relatively broad list of treatments/medications. Sure, this is helpful for clerkships, but it just made me increasingly anxious since it often did not directly state the next step in management or the first-line medication (there are exceptions to this, of course). I was often left thinking, "so, I could do A or B or C or D, but what would be first?" With Step 2 drawing closer, I mostly abandoned First Aid and focused on other resources (UWorld explanations, Secrets), but continued to use First Aid for its charts and diagrams (which I found to be useful). I don't regret purchasing this book, as it was helpful during rotations, but I just wouldn't recommend it as a primary resource for CK studying.

Far cry from the Step 1 FA. There are fewer mneumonics, and the organization is a little haphazard. The index is very weak; there are so few items listed that it's hard to find anything. (SIADH, for example, is not even listed, which is--in my opinion--a noteworthy topic.) Further, the drugs are interspersed throughout the chapters rather than at the end of the chapter, making it difficult to find, and many drugs are missing. The World and Qbank questions seem to focus a lot of drug side effects, and FA seems to avoid them like the plague. There are still some good diagrams and tables, so you may want the book for that, but it's not the kind of solid foundation book the Step 1 FA was, in my opinion.

This book is not very good in general. For the bulk of Step II CK Studying, use the much better Step Up to Medicine. I bought it for a quick review of OB, GYN, Neuro and Psych. Those sections were rather incomplete and disappointing as well.

This book is not organized well, and the groupings and formatting of the chapters is difficult to follow. The headings and sub-headings are all very similar font size, and difficult to discern where one main section starts and the other ends.

The color figures are great, and have nice captions. The in-text black and white figures often have very simple captions, and do not point out important features. Weird.

The treatment section is often lacking- for example, for cellulitis it says "treat with 7-10 days of antibiotics for mild..." and doesn't say which drugs to use! Similarly, often special patient population (HIV, pregnant, peds) Rx for infections is absent. Additionally, the order you use for treatment (e.g. "first, do X. then do Y) is not made clear. Probably 25% of USMLE questions are "what do you do next" type, and this book won't help with that.

Often, several diagnoses are lumped together and no note is made of which is the most common. This is a critical omission- often a USMLE question will give you characteristics (buzzwords) of several similar diseases, and the "right" answer is whichever is the most common.

I was sad to discover that unlike First Aid for step 1 or First Aid for the CS, First Aid for the CK was sorely lacking. Its a skeletal outline of topics and is missing critical information and conditions frequently tested on the USMLE. I stopped using this book when I realized I was just writing paragraphs in the margins to fill in the blanks rather than helpful mnemonics.

A must for Step 2. Helps weed out less high yield information. 2 complaints: First Aid for Step 1 is much more organized for high efficiency study time. First aid for Step 2 CK takes more time to dig through. Secondly, there is no addequate review focused on surgery topics. Again, you have to dig through it to find it.