education and training

I got this book a couple years back for my STEP 3, did a chapter a night with the Q&A companion, got thru it two or three times, and jammed on my exam. My friends chose it for their self-study group 'curriculum', and attributed their success to it too. Last year, I was surprised to see that it was actually required reading for our in-house prep course for the Internal Medicine Boards at our residency. It was our first year we had a 100% pass rate. Of course, our director loves it the most.

My friend and I studied together last year, using Nail the Boards as our primary study aid, and we both did really well. There was a ton of stuff on the exam right from the book, and a well-organized, completely-outlined format saved us a lot of time. The mnemonics were great we got a lot of points on the exam from those alone. Tables and algorithms were equally well-chosen. The index is well-designed too and made it easy for us to look up specific topics where we were weak. She and I would recommend this review book for sure. The 2002 edition is actually even better. I'm recommending it now to my second and third year residents who are preparing for THEIR exam and am very happy I learned about the book before my exam.

I TRULY want to 'thank my lucky stars'. I went thru all the starred items in the book, which are all the most commonly-asked material on the boards, then went thru everything in detail, and finally reviewed the starred items only 2 days before the exam and scored 98%ile on my USMLE 3. I got TONS of questions just from those starred items. So, truly, I'm thanking my lucky stars. The 2nd & 3rd year residents are using it for ther medicine boards curriculum as part of our in-house board review. I guess I'll be ahead of the game. Anyway, I'm giving it a HUGE RECOMMEND.