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best time to start MTB

6K views 21 replies 7 participants last post by  docnas 
#1 ·
hi guys ,

just finished cardio IM from Kaplan lecture notes and just got my MTB2 today,,,,,i am confused whether i should start it now or do it with uworld,,,,

any wise advice plzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
#6 ·
take my advise when u read a chapter in kaplan lec notes read that chapter in MTB so that u can have a review 2nd time read MTB bf exam or with uw
u will feel better if read it with lec notes believe me
iwish i buy this book with my 1st reading
MTB is amazing a focus review iwish ihave time to repeat it
thanks ,,,don't u think it will take more time to give first reading if i do kaplan and MTB together,,,,,but u r rite that the more times we do MTB the better it will be ,,,,,,,,,,,,IM in MTB is huge ,,,,,:eek:confused ,,,,
 
#19 ·
MY obervations on MTB-2 in regards to Internal Medicine

I m just about finished with Internal medicine from watching the videos and notating and reading MTB with additions at the same time also after every unit im doing the uworld (online) question pertaining to that specific unit. I woulod go thru the kaplan notes afterwords just browsing not really studying it to see if there was any thing really missing, So far what ive found is that its an amazing book practically covering everything in he lecture notes some things are actually much better explained in a step wise fashion in MTB.

I do Have one complain though and that with watching fisher and trying to anotate MTB while listining to his lecture its almost impossible to do cuz he sprouts information from all over the place so even though i play the lectures at a higher speed ( around 1.8 for fisher and 2.3 for the others as they are too slow) i still end up taking alot of time for each video as i have to pause it continuously to go seach for the specific topic and add in those bits of info.

Its a long process adding those bits of info to each and everytopic specially with Uworld as u get tired after the first 20 but i feel that its an amazing review tool then as it will have al the info condensed and able to do a really rapid review without missing anything important.

MY book does look like crap though with all the notes in the margins between the text and all the underlining ( i tend to underline almost the whole text i know thats not how to do it but thats how i am) and the bits of paper added for those tables or important slides in the videos that have really good condensed info that isnt in MTB

A few key points though

Oncology is deficient in MTB as a whole, and i dont just mean the unit on oncology i mean the its noting most of the cancers, i feel kaplan notes as well as the lectures are also weak in that regard. Most of the information from cancers im getting from doing Uworld questions.

GI is preety good but has some major weaknesses
GI cancers are not touched on except screening for colon cancer( which is very well done thought) but it doenst describe the cancers though, it doesnt say anything about pancreatic cancer nor liver cancer
The Gallbladder wasnt even mentioned AT ALL not gallstones not cancer not problems , none of the bilirubinemeas were mentioned Also it doenst mention any of the cysts in the liver.

Heme as a whole wasnt bad no real major missing topics

Rheumatology again missing all of he cancers ie ewing osteosarcoma pages disease etc it also missed a few of the vasculitisis. but where it reaqlly was deficinet was the sports medicine portion i guess mainly it didn mention anything about the various bursitisis as well as the other inflamatory conditions ( again i added all this from Uworld questions)

Pulmonoogy i did the PFT and all the other diagnostic tests from kaplan notes as its not really there in MTB as well as the topic of effusions LUNG CANCER WASNT TOUCH UPON AT ALL!!!!!!! i mean at ALL , i was just amazed by tht considering how important it is.

Endocrine DM needs furthur studying it just wasnt enough ( i added alot from uworld) Thyroid diseases as a whoile were deficient in the description of the dieases as well as cancers

Cardio- How is HTN not included in cardio? they put it with renal but i dunno personally think it should be in cardio. Also the drugs used i feel werent sufficiently elaborated on , Mummurs/sounds i also wasnt happy with , Also endocarditis was with infectios diseases so needs to be reviewed there. It did miss the whole Acute rheumatic fever though.

allergy/immunolgy the immunodificiency werent enough for me i had to add in alot of info from my first aid from step 1

Infectios dieseases well its ok for whats there.. HIV needed some addative material from the notes as well as endocarditis

Renal - its missing anything about transplants, Nephrotic syndrome needed a little extra info ,the syndromes also werent touched upon ( bartter gittlemans fanconis)

OncologyBreast and prostate cancer were good the rest was a complete joke
 
#20 · (Edited)
I m just about finished with Internal medicine from watching the videos and notating and reading MTB with additions at the same time also after every unit im doing the uworld (online) question pertaining to that specific unit. I woulod go thru the kaplan notes afterwords just browsing not really studying it to see if there was any thing really missing, So far what ive found is that its an amazing book practically covering everything in he lecture notes some things are actually much better explained in a step wise fashion in MTB.

I do Have one complain though and that with watching fisher and trying to anotate MTB while listining to his lecture its almost impossible to do cuz he sprouts information from all over the place so even though i play the lectures at a higher speed ( around 1.8 for fisher and 2.3 for the others as they are too slow) i still end up taking alot of time for each video as i have to pause it continuously to go seach for the specific topic and add in those bits of info.

Its a long process adding those bits of info to each and everytopic specially with Uworld as u get tired after the first 20 but i feel that its an amazing review tool then as it will have al the info condensed and able to do a really rapid review without missing anything important.

MY book does look like crap though with all the notes in the margins between the text and all the underlining ( i tend to underline almost the whole text i know thats not how to do it but thats how i am) and the bits of paper added for those tables or important slides in the videos that have really good condensed info that isnt in MTB

A few key points though

Oncology is deficient in MTB as a whole, and i dont just mean the unit on oncology i mean the its noting most of the cancers, i feel kaplan notes as well as the lectures are also weak in that regard. Most of the information from cancers im getting from doing Uworld questions.

GI is preety good but has some major weaknesses
GI cancers are not touched on except screening for colon cancer( which is very well done thought) but it doenst describe the cancers though, it doesnt say anything about pancreatic cancer nor liver cancer
The Gallbladder wasnt even mentioned AT ALL not gallstones not cancer not problems , none of the bilirubinemeas were mentioned Also it doenst mention any of the cysts in the liver.

Heme as a whole wasnt bad no real major missing topics

Rheumatology again missing all of he cancers ie ewing osteosarcoma pages disease etc it also missed a few of the vasculitisis. but where it reaqlly was deficinet was the sports medicine portion i guess mainly it didn mention anything about the various bursitisis as well as the other inflamatory conditions ( again i added all this from Uworld questions)

Pulmonoogy i did the PFT and all the other diagnostic tests from kaplan notes as its not really there in MTB as well as the topic of effusions LUNG CANCER WASNT TOUCH UPON AT ALL!!!!!!! i mean at ALL , i was just amazed by tht considering how important it is.

Endocrine DM needs furthur studying it just wasnt enough ( i added alot from uworld) Thyroid diseases as a whoile were deficient in the description of the dieases as well as cancers

Cardio- How is HTN not included in cardio? they put it with renal but i dunno personally think it should be in cardio. Also the drugs used i feel werent sufficiently elaborated on , Mummurs/sounds i also wasnt happy with , Also endocarditis was with infectios diseases so needs to be reviewed there. It did miss the whole Acute rheumatic fever though.

allergy/immunolgy the immunodificiency werent enough for me i had to add in alot of info from my first aid from step 1

Infectios dieseases well its ok for whats there.. HIV needed some addative material from the notes as well as endocarditis

Renal - its missing anything about transplants, Nephrotic syndrome needed a little extra info ,the syndromes also werent touched upon ( bartter gittlemans fanconis)

OncologyBreast and prostate cancer were good the rest was a complete joke
agree with u totally ihave to back to 1st aid and uw notes

there is some topic not covered

what about other chapters pedis and obs/gyne
where will u read them as review ?
 
#21 ·
continued

Emergency Med u have to look up drug intoxifications from psychiatry but still the need a little more , . For most of the toxicology section it gave good managment info but not much on presentation info. Rabies just has 2 lines missing lots of key points.the HYperthermias really really need additional information( i added from Uworld
Cardia arrrhythmias are confusing so i cant blame MTB it had most of the info but ECGs need to be practiced to properly understand them its one thing to know what a delta wave is but its another thing to be able to "see" it on an EKG.

Psychiatry + Ethics wel i remembered alot from step 1 so im not sure if i MTB was enough or not but i didnt find myself adding much to it after doing questions.

Dermatology well its one of my weak points so i cant blame my low uworld score wholly on mtb but it does need alot more explanations on the presentations , hemangiomas werent touched upon and the tx plan for acne isnt that well explained the flow chart u get from one of the questions in uworld does it much better.

So thats my take on MTB so far, it was a long 2 posts but i hope if someones planning on using MTB or just started it takes these deficiency's into account and fix the weak spots so when they do uworld and wont be scoring low and more importantly get them setup for the real exam
 
#22 ·
I havent finished nuero yet so i cant comment on that ,

@Ms Patho -For peads im going to go for the kaplan notes the peads in MTB just isnt enough theres no way it covers whats needed and if i have to start adding to it i might as well staple an extra 50-60 pages.

My thoughts are to use it as a secondary source to fix up my kaplan book :p since i wont be watching the kaplan peads videos i have to read the full book

As for gyne well everyone says to rely on the videos so il probably do that ie watch the videos and annotate MTB as i progress as wel as adding uworld notes to it
 
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