Customer Reviews

Step-Up to Medicine (Step-Up Series)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you are nervous about the internal medicine shelf, you are just like I was and rightfully so. It is a very difficult exam that covers an enormous amount of material. For a 3rd year medical student, this is a great source to start internal medicine. The text is all written in bullet points, but isn't nearly as rigged is its grammatical delivery as other books written in similar formats. It has "quick hit" items in the side that allow for understanding key points, and it leaves plenty of margin room to take notes. However, this book has some major down points that really keep it from being truly grand. For starters, it is lengthy! Although I did read the entire book, I found most of my friends stopping it and using it as a reference because they were just too busy to get through it. Even going through it once will take at least half of the clerkship. Some might consider it advantageous to have such a long book because it covers more for the test, but I myself would have been happier with a book that minimized the information that I already knew from 2nd year and maximized what I really needed to focus on (i.e. managing patients and working up conditions). Unfortunately that is where this book just misses the parade! All conditions are well described, but there is a complete lack of how to work up the condition. It gives clinical signs/symptoms, but totally lacks in its ability to approach a problem by crossing off conditions from differential diagnosis. Essentially, your ability to work up conditions will be impaired. The other kicker is that its formal lack of algorithmic approaches to treating conditions. Some conditions have good explanations, not great, on how to treat and others have pitting lack information. Often times the treatment section of a disease is list of drugs that might potentially be used in a condition. It gives no approach on how to use these drugs effectively or any kind of algorithm on how to treat the condition with the possible therapies. The mishaps in this book, unfortunately, paid there toll on my shelf examination, and I ended up just shy of what I really needed. Overall, it is an excellent source, but if you think that you can function as a intern with this book, think again! As a side note, to remedy the lack of treatment information in this book, I would recommend going through the pocket medicine book by Mass. General. It really picks up where this book lacks, but it may be to complicated for some. In retrospect, I wish that I would have read through the Washington Manuel, which really isn't any longer than this book, and I would have felt like I was a real intern and more prepared for the shelf.

I'm a current 3rd year med student in the U.S. and recently completed my Medicine rotation. I bought this book because it seemed like it was so essential. I found that it was more useful as a reference book to read up about your particular patients than to study for the shelf, but then I guess that sort of is studying. Step Up really has good info about managing your patient's care though. It might also be quite useful for an intro to clinical medicine type of course where you are learning clinical details in an organ system by organ system basis to compliment your basic science knowledge.

However, it is long, very dense and the bullet point format is not easy to read/retain (at least for me). I don't know how people say they actually read through this in a few days and retain anything for the shelf exam.

I recently graduated from a Physician Assistant program and took the national board exam (PANCE). I had studied all of the recommended PANCE review books over and over, and needed something new. This book is the absolute best review book I have ever used, and is even better than most text books I've read. Thanks in part to this book, I scored in the 99th percentile in the country on the PANCE. I would recommend this book to both PA students and med students alike for board review. BUY THIS BOOK! You will not regret it.

I'm a Physician Assistant student and I've purchased several different review books for study guides including AAPA's comprehensive Review, Lange's Q&A for the PA, First Aide USMLE, and this one. Overall, this book is the optimal study guide. If you are only gonna purchase one review book to study from in a PA program (to add to your collection of your PA library), atleast get this one. Its very detailed and has packed info. It does a great job of pointing out key facts, diagnostic studies w/ explanations, what tests to order and why, and it includes plenty of step-by-step approaches to conditions. The format of this book is awesome. I definitely recommend this book for any1 in a PA program. Its very helpful as a study guide.

Has 98% of the things you need to know for IM but is presented in an academic manner (organized by organ system and disease groupings), as opposed to clinically, which emphasizes different parts of the same knowledge base. In order to use this resource, I feel you should purchase another book that is organized clinically and use both of them in conjunction. I used the clinical book first to organize diseases based off of chief complaint then when I wanted more details about one of the diseases that were in the differential, I read the specific section in Step Up to Medicine. To do well in rotations and in medicine in general you need to have both - the clinical knowledge and academic knowledge. This book covers pretty much everything you need to know for the academic part.

a nice complete review book with no mistakes, professionally and friendly written i find it more than helpful for my prep for step 2 ck , with a bonus of the online subscription that comes with the book.

cons:
The hematology, Renal, Endocrine Chapters need to be re-reviewed
changing cardiology guidelines
the books in a bullet style, that's very good to clear things, but overdoing it might be a con in my view, after a while you get exhausted and the ability to retain information declines after few pages

I am very happy I purchased this book at the time that I did. It is all-inclusive, includes a step-by-step process of reviewing and remembering each disease. Offers tokens of knowledge in the page margin and overall is a very helpful source for the Step 2. I like that all of my information is coming from one book as opposed to several different books like you have for Step 1. Great product, highly recommended!

I'm a 2nd year physician assistant student getting ready for rotations, and this book has everything i needed. It breaks down each major system in a bullet-style format and has plenty of info packed in. It's organized quite well and has some nice sections in the back with quick guides to things like antibiotic therapy, xray reading, common complaints, and so on. DEFINITELY worth getting. Its great bc it tells you which tests/labs are first line instead of just spitting out a ton of things in random order like a lot of boards review books do.

This book was good when it was relevant. It still has a 3 year median survival for CML. It's infectious disease treatment protocols are completely off to what is now being practiced. Good luck with this.

I'm a 2nd year and I have no idea how this book scores with regards to preparation for Step 2 or the IM shelf exam.

However, I do know that it is a wonderful studying tool for 2nd year and might even work very well for Step 1. Yes, sure, most people use First Aid for Step 1, but for me, the systems content is too watered down and simplified in that book, so I know that it won't work for me when I try to review for Step 1. This book gives a great outline for most of the diseases that we are presented with in classes, and there's enough space to make notes on the side. For each disease, there's the 1. general characteristics; 2. clinical features; 3. diagnosis; 4 treatment. Often times, I feel that this book pulls together all the info that is scattered all over the place in a lecture. Yes, I very much love this book. The only other book that competes with it is Goljan but while it's wonderfully detailed on pathology (after all, it is a path book), it's not so strong on clinical presentation, differentials, and treatment. I guess the two books are complementary - Goljan is great for path while this book has very little content on gross path/histo and it's strong on the clinical aspects.

A couple cons: Well, there is a few mistakes that I've found already, but it's impossible to locate an Errata - there's an unofficial here: [...]. Also, as someone else already mentioned, the paper is a bit thin and sometimes when I write notes on one page the impression is left on the previous page (kind of like when you use a carbon paper, but obviously a lot fainter), but I'm avoiding this by putting a sheet of paper under the page that I'm writing on.

All in all, if you are looking for a book that contains all the diseases with a great balance of characteristics/presentation/treatment, and to which you'd like to add your notes from lectures so you have most everything in one place instead of having it scattered in many sources (lecture notes, syllabi, review books, textbook), then this is the book for you! Having looked through many (and purchased a few) prep books in search of the Perfect one, I believe that it will serve me well for Step 1 as a quick reference for diseases, and for Step 2/IM rotation I'll have a book that I am already very familiar with, with my own comments/notes.


P.S. I warned you about the errors - but then again, all books have plenty mistakes.