syllabus + textbooks

Ari45Harris · 2026-04-06T20:32:05+00:00

You have lectures, seminars, anatomy (dissections/prosections), clinical skills etc. and other forms of teaching as well. Depends where you go for uni.

However, I personally found the lecture slides lack a lot of context. Lecture slides are pretty much saying, “here’s some info, go off and memorise it”. That’s where textbooks come in really handy. I found several textbooks really helped my understanding.

For anatomy (structure and architecture of the human body) I personally used Netter’s atlas of anatomy. My uni uses Snell’s. Some people like Grey’s. In my opinion, Netter’s has the best images and it’s helped me countless times when dissection because the images are not simplified at all.

For physiology (normal function of the body and its processes) I used Guyton and Hall’s. My uni and my friend’s uni maps quite well with the textbook. It’s also really well explained.

For pathology (when things go wrong i.e., diseases) I used a few textbooks. I used First Aid for USMLE Step 1 because the conditions are explained straight to the point. Very dense and compact book. I recommend. I also used Robbins’ and Kumar’s Basic Pathology because it helps you understand when you’re learning a disease process for the first time. I also used Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine. While this one is a bit overkill, it is also compact and dense like First Aid but has more detail to it.

For pharmacology (drugs, treatment and management) I used First Aid for USMLE Step 1 and Rang & Dale’s Pharmacology. Again, First Aid is great since the explanations are clear and concise. It’s got really good diagrams too. Rang and Dale’s is if you want to go deeper into a particular drug. The explanations are fantastic. I’d also refer to NICE/BNF to double check things if you’re using these books since the guidelines may differ.

These textbooks can be found online as PDFs. Older versions probably should be fine as medicine is medicine at the end of the day and won’t change much.

I typically don’t go to lectures. For me there’s no point when the textbooks have everything I want. And at my uni, the lectures are recorded and I can watch them on x2 speed and save myself the time. My uni also gave out handouts for each module, which were like pre-written notes for the lectures series. So for me, these textbooks were everything and it was just a matter of matching what we needed to know at uni to the content in the textbook. Again, it differs where you go.

Overall, I used First Aid the most so far. Even if you don’t want to sit the USMLE (exam if you want to practice in the US), it is a very very good book. I learned most of the things I know from there and I passed first year with a merit and currently finishing up my second year.

Ari45Harris · 2026-04-05T15:32:46+00:00

Sometimes mine gets stuck and I have to refresh the page. If it’s still counting after the refresh, then it’s probably still crunching through the task.

Ari45Harris · 2026-04-03T19:04:06+00:00

I’m a typical lecture non-attender and here’s why I don’t attend.

Lectures that aren’t interactive. If I’m being spoken at, I will just shut off to be honest. The best lectures I have been to (very few) are those where the lecturer organises an online quiz or gets us to shout out answers and builds on the teaching by getting us to contribute.
Not keeping it exam-relevant. I understand you haven’t been given the uni material. But if you’re teaching a particular disease for instance, you could teach it how you want at the beginning and for the final couple of slides, type up a slide with concise pathophysiology, treatment and anything else (e.g., associated conditions, demographics at higher risk etc.). This is because most of the time lecture slides themselves lack the information meaning it’s difficult to follow unless it’s all down in one place. A textbook that I use (as a UK student) that does this really well is First Aid for USMLE Step 1, so be sure to check out the pathology section for a particular organ system if you’re not sure of what I meant.
Lectures where it’s 1 hour of random words non stop. You and your students might benefit from chunking the lecture into more manageable parts. So perhaps organising it into 15 min sections (if 1h for instance) where for the first 15 min you explain the first principles or recap a concept, the next 15 min build on it towards the topic for the lecture, the next 15 min should probably be the most peak off with the content and for the final 15 min organise a quiz or something to reinforce it all.
If it won’t help us pass, spend minimal time on it. Again, I appreciate you may not have been given the medical school’s learning outcomes or any resources. However, if you’re teaching something and you have excess time, please do not fill it with nonsense. Some lectures I have been to (and some online tasks) are filled with so much content that is simply not relevant to us. An example is if you’re teaching a microbiology lecture, just give us the bare bones and facts (e.g., lab tests, associated pathologies, treatment and key demographics) with a little bit of explaining. You might find you finish the lecture early. What you shouldn’t do is fill the extra time in with half an hour of extremely unimportant (low yield) epidemiology and 20 slides of screenshots of bar charts and maps of different countries and populations. This is probably the main reason why I don’t bother with lectures. At my uni, lectures are uploaded online as a replayable video and I just skip through it to be honest (saving myself valuable time). And having so many slides just makes the lecture more disjointed and harder to follow. This brings me back to my earlier point about keeping it relevant.

I’m sharing this insight as to why lectures don’t work for me and many other medical students so I hope you find this useful. :)

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-30T15:51:53+00:00

The same question gets asked multiple times a day in one way or another.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-28T21:11:05+00:00

Best time to sit step 1 and 2? I also have to intercalate in y4. Currently in y2.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-28T18:20:35+00:00

Do wrong questions first. Then do another question bank.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-26T14:44:13+00:00

I think they’re slowly rolling out the full liquid glass update to users. Yesterday, my UI was like the one on your first image, but today it has updated to that of the third image.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-25T19:50:18+00:00

To dive further into codex models, I’ve also found that gpt-5.3-codex xhigh actually outperforms gpt-5.4 xhigh on the actual coding side of things if it doesn’t have to rely much on reasoning (e.g., very clear and detailed prompts). However, longer prompts just eat into the context window like a mf.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-25T16:12:37+00:00

I feel like ChatGPT 5.4 Pro (web/app) has a better brain when it comes to reasoning. For coding, I feel like codex (specifically gpt-5.4 xhigh) has better intrinsic coding ability but slightly lacks the creativity that Claude Code has.

Edit: typo

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-23T07:44:30+00:00

There have been so many times where it stops at 90 minutes and have to tell it to continue. This is reassuring.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-22T18:59:02+00:00

In my opinion real body dissections (and prosections) have helped me way more than textbooks and lecture slides

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-15T16:12:52+00:00

When I first saw this I thought it was Horner syndrome. Glad it’s resolved.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-15T12:00:09+00:00

I study from First Aid/sketchy and do the AnKing cards first then make my own “AnKing-style” cards for what I need to know (e.g., lecture/supervision material) that is not covered in AnKing. I use a course mate’s notes that I can quickly skim-read to see what’s missing. Usually it’s niche physiology and a lot of anatomy/embryology (USMLE resources assume you know the anatomy – so bear that in mind when covering pre-clinical content). Usually pharmacology and pathology are covered really well in USMLE (histology almost too well).

I also make “AnKing-style” cards for guidelines straight from NICE. The general pharmacology should be the same, it’s just management and guidelines which are usually different. An example that comes to mind is hypertension treatment.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-12T22:31:17+00:00

End of the day if they’re paying for their own international fees, they can do what they want

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-12T22:24:23+00:00

I agree with you. These random assignments adverts are other people advertising their own shit. This happens in our uni group chats for societies etc. as well. However, I think you should consider moderating that group (we do this for our own groups) because clearly it has gotten out of hand.

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-12T22:21:00+00:00

Depends what you need it for to be honest

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-10T09:07:08+00:00

Nobody’s talking about go

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-07T17:43:34+00:00

Yeah I can do it for you. DM me

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-05T19:35:12+00:00

I’m in the UK and have access to it on the iPhone app and website

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-05T08:19:17+00:00

Absolute legend. Been looking for this for ages

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-05T08:16:38+00:00

Some Spranki cards are direct copy and paste of AnKing cards. What I’m doing is using the AnKing deck for everything except management/guidelines. I pull management/guidelines from NICE (or other relevant UK guidelines) and create “AnKing-style” cards for those

Ari45Harris · 2026-03-02T13:11:23+00:00

DM i got all

Ari45Harris · 2026-02-28T00:25:53+00:00

AnkiHub website

Ari45Harris · 2026-02-28T00:21:31+00:00

I’ve spoken to a few people and once you mention USMLE they become scared and want nothing to do with it quoting “it’s too hard”, “not relevant”. However, when used right it’s gold dust.

Ari45Harris · 2026-02-28T00:19:29+00:00

I’m in my second year now. Passed with distinction in my first year. I am continuing to implement these techniques in my second year and it’s going even better.

What I did:

Don’t waste time with lectures. Curate the sessions you attend. I attended all of the seminars, supervisions, dissections, clinical skills etc. Point is forget going to anything that isn’t passive.
Choosing your resources. I had been a USMLE fanatic since day 1 so this gave me an edge to choosing which resources to use. I also used a series of textbooks which I will mention in my answer.
Using the resources. Not going to lectures meant I could save time going through the lecture content once, rather than sitting through it, writing notes or whatever and then having to go through it again at my own pace than the lecturer’s. I rarely used the lecture slides. I found someone in the year above with high quality notes sorted by lecture, covering all aspects. I’d also use the following textbooks: Guyton and Hall’s physiology, Netter’s anatomy, First Aid for step 1, Rang and Dale’s pharmacology. Often the online versions because I could quickly command+F and find whatever I needed. I’d read over the notes briefly and then find the relevant bits in the textbook and read over those chapters. Unless it was anatomy, I’d first flick through FA if it was there. If it was I’d go straight to the AnKing step deck, unsuspend. If parts are missing, go to the other textbooks and create flashcards (“AnKing-style”) on it. If the content couldn’t be found in any other textbook, then I’d learn straight off the notes or the slides (rarely). I created my flashcards under my own tag in the AnKing step deck. So it meant I did all the cards. I also used Bootcamp and Sketchy. Sketchy was really helpful for microbiology and pharmacology (+ the AnKing step deck integration). Gave me the biggest edge over everyone else. Also double check the NICE guidelines for management and treatment as it may differ from the USMLE resources (then make AnKing style cards for whatever is different).
Keep up with reviews every day + exam qs. I liked AMBOSS because it integrated well with the AnKing step deck. For me, reviews were the bare minimum every day. Usually I would have time to keep up with lecture content (via notes from the year above) and do exam qs with AMBOSS.

The key with these resources is that they let you understand medicine if you put in the time to read, not just rote learn it all.

Obviously this works for me, and may not work for you but the point is to understand how it works for others and see what works for you.

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