(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best medical books

Disclaimer: Some of this advice I consider 'no duh' but I figured I'd say it just in case.

On shelf exams:

1. Yes, all of the case files/blue prints/UW/OME are good resources.
   
   
2. Emma Holiday's clerkship review videos are all excellent.
   
   
3. If you're a DO peep and have to take COMAT shelf exams, go ahead and shell out for the COMBANK exam specific question banks. Some of those questions will show up verbatim on exam day.
   
   
4. If you haven't already, download the mobile app for UWorld, Kaplan, and/or Combank. Some of my preceptors actively encouraged me to do questions while they were charting and would jump in to work through some with me when we had downtime in the clinic.
   
   On electronic devices and apps:
   
   
5. I got an iPad mini at the start of the year and loved having it but it is not at all necessary.
   
   
6. Some people recommended starting off each rotation by saying to your attending/upper level "I have electronic textbooks/apps, is it okay if I use them while I'm with you?" (so that you're not accused of texting or being on facebook 24/7) but that was honestly never an issue for me.
   
   
7. Good apps to have: MDCalc (free), ASCVD Risk Estimator (free), Nodule (free), UpToDate (some hospitals will give you an institutional log-in if your school doesn't), GoodRx (free), Epocrates (free-ish), and palmEM ($10 but a decent investment if you're an EM gunner).
   
   On boards:
   
   
8. The best time to sign up for your Step 2 CS/Level 2 PE is the second you get authorization from your school. Those spots go quick.
   
   
9. DO peeps: the NBOME has affiliate deals with hotels for reduced rates. You can find the links and info here. Yes, this whole thing is stupid expensive but you might as well take advantage of what little silver lining there is.
   
   
10. If you need disability accommodations (extra time, electronic stethoscope), start those applications NOW. There's a lot of little parts to them (I have no idea why they needed a letter from my dean but whateva) and the committee to approve those things only meets once a month (so if your application arrives after they've met for the month, you're basically going to be waiting two months to hear back from them.) Anyone who needs help with this or has questions can feel free to message me.
    
    
11. I have no idea when the best time to take the written tests are. It will depend on your individual schedule and goals.
    
    On wards:
    
    
12. You'll probably get a lot of (pocket) book recommendations. You do not need to buy every book recommended to you. The two I found useful this year were The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine and Clinician's Guide to Laboratory Medicine.
    
    
13. Pre-round on your patients. Some people like the scutsheets from medfools but I found them a little constrictive once I knew what I was doing. If you are supposed to write an H&P, SOAP note, discharge summary, etc and your school didn't teach you, google it. There are a ton of decent guides out there.
    
    
14. You are there until your attending/resident explicitly tells you to go home. Your ability to ask to leave will depend on the culture +/- your gumption.
    
    
15. NEVER LIE. If you did not see the patient, you didn't see the patient.
    
    
16. Some people will tell you to always say "I don't know but I'll look that up and get back to you!" Honestly, my residents would roll their eyes and tell us to guess.
    
    
17. If you don't know where something minor is (cups, ice machine, extra pillows, extra blankets) ask to be shown so that the next time you can get it yourself. Yes, you will absolutely be asked to fetch people coffee, return that empty bed to the floor, help someone to the bathroom, grab an extra blanket, etc. Most people tend to think more highly of those that do this without groaning.
    
    
18. If you feel like you had a good time with a preceptor and they would be a useful addition to your application, consider asking them for a letter of rec at/near the end of your rotation. You don't have to apply every letter you upload for programs to see so there's really no harm in collecting more than three (but do not ask every single persona for a letter of rec - doctors talk about students, especially the ones they find sketchy or annoying).
    
    On evaluations:
    
    
19. I know the majority of this subreddit moans about how subjective and unfair evaluations are but my one point of pride this year is that every single preceptor gave me an honors level eval.
    
    
20. Yes, I am a woman. No, I am not attractive. I'm slightly below average to fair with a moderate amount of chunkiness.
    
    
21. Do anything you can to make your resident's life easier.
    
    
22. Be polite to every nurse, tech, nurse practitioner, receptionist, and office manager. Make small talk. Yes, I know you've heard this a million times. Yes, I did bake things and bring in boxes of donuts. Yes, you can call me a suck-up. I was still blown away when one office manager said to me "We really liked having you. None of the other students talk to us."
    
    
23. Be enthusiastic. Ask questions. Even if you're not interested in that specialty, you can still ask what applying to residency was like (for young doctors) or how things have changed since they started (for old doctors).
    
    
24. This is not the year to have debates. Some of my classmates got into arguments on guns, the president, or religion; sometimes the attending respected their chutzpah and sometimes they didn't. I preferred to play it safe.
    
    
25. Keep in mind every annoying social media professionalism lecture you've ever gotten. Techs, nurses, nurse practitioners, and more all wanted to add me as a friend on Facebook. Yes, you can choose not to add them (smartest move tbh) but I gave in after getting point-blank asked "why didn't you add me?!" Facebook is for that "magical feeling of wonder and joy" when you catch a baby for the first time or the "humbling awe" you felt when you first retracted the colon. Nothing else.
    
    
26. If you are sharing a rotation with NP student or PA student, treat them like another medical student and be cordial. Don't try to pimp them. Don't get into pissing contests. Doctors are expected to be leaders; now is your chance to actually demonstrate that.
    
    
    
    In general: Third year can be frustrating because it varies so wildly. Some of you will have cush rotations where you're done at 10:30 am. Some of you will enter the hospital before the sun rises and leave when it is setting. Some of you will feel like you're shadowing again. Some of you will be treated like interns (and abused because you don't have work-hour restrictions). Some will find out the thing they thought they wanted they hate and others will find out the thing they want is beyond their reach (because of family obligations, board scores, or another thing all together). Some of you will deliver 80 babies a month and some of you won't even do a Pap smear. Every hospital has a different culture; just be polite, professional, and let yourself be immersed. You'll pick it up soon enough.
    
    TL; DR: Life is short. Be excellent to each other.
    
    EDIT: Added some stuff, found out there's a size limit on comments, made a second part.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful for you, but I really liked this book when I was completely lost. I have a feeling you may be past this point in trying to pick a specialty, but this may be a good place to get a better understanding of the field. If you don't have access to this book and want it, PM me and I'll send you a copy. Also check out this post with comprehensive spreadsheet that another student put together.. it is pretty amazing

 

One things I often tell underclassmen is that it is better to shoot for the "harder" specialty because you can switch over to the easier one if you change your mind. However, going the other way around is often impossible. So a lot of people start residency in general surgery and change their minds about it and switch to anesthesiology. This is very common and anesthesiology is a very welcoming field to people who've changed their minds after starting residency. I would say if you're really torn and on the fence about general surgery vs anesthesiology know that you could always go for anesthesia later. You probably will not be able to choose where you go location wise, but you won't be locked of out the specialty if you decide to go with gen surg first.

 

I actually matched into anesthesiology (current MS4). Obviously take everything I have to say with a grain of salt... but I think anesthesiology is a great specialty. I'm surprised that you've heard people complaining that their job could be done by midlevels. At my program (and on my interviews) I've honestly never met an anesthesiologist who didn't love their job. Perhaps the rotation site you're at just doesn't have the complexity of cases that are seen at other places. I think the biggest thing about anesthesiology is that you have to be ok with many cases being a standard routine. Everyone agrees that you can teach a monkey to intubate and turn on some gas, but being a physician really matters in those cases where things aren't routine. Being prepared for those critical/scary situations is what the training is really about. Also, the anesthesiologists I work with are always trying to perfect what they are doing in their usual routine. Often they are trying to tweak things so patients are as comfortable as possible when they wake up. Anyways, I will admit that anesthesiology isn't for everyone, but I wouldn't rule out the specialty because a few people you've met are unhappy. Anecdotally, I find that the field has really high job satisfaction compared to other specialties (among residents and attendings).

 

Also not sure if this is going to be a big deciding factor for you, but I know many well regarded MD anesthesiology residency programs are DO friendly. One program I interviewed at that I remember most clearly being very DO friendly is case western. In terms of competitiveness, I would say anesthesiology is relatively easy. You do not need to be top of your class to match into this field. Refer to the spreadsheet above for numbers on competitiveness. My personal experience is that I got interviews from many of the top programs without being very competitive (bottom half of my class for sure and nothing especially impressive on my application to compensate for it).
 


Best of luck to you!

> I was thinking on drawing 50 arms, 50 legs and so on,

This will accomplish absolutely nothing if you aren't sure what you're doing in the first place. So, let's go over a few things to help you with this instead.

Let me tell you a few things that I picked up as soon as I saw your drawings:

• You aren't actually paying much attention to the subject you're drawing; especially if you have a reference, you're going to have to measure up and make sure what you have looks right. There appears to be lots and lots of guessing here, which is a habit you'll have to break if you aren't sure what to guess.
  
• You don't have a good grasp on perspective yet; this can be seen in examples 1 and 4 where you have the figures in such unnatural looking positions.
  
• You have lines in example 1 which seem to be you measuring her height using the head as a reference, which is interesting to me, as you appear to have grown impatient and drawn what you though would make her look better. I think some of the frustration here lies in the fact that her head is too tall, which made the rest of her body not line up the way you wanted it to.
  
• Your muscles look masculine, even with your women, and they also aren't what natural muscles look like.
  
• Your clothing textures are actually decent (some more practice and I think you'll have these down, definitely!), and aren't really much of a weak point for you.
  
  Let's take this apart step by step and see where some progress can be made. First, the face:
  
  
• You know what a face looks like, though you're having some difficultly constructing one. To learn how to actually make a face, one way to do it is by drawing a face head on so you get an idea of how the proportions work. It's also much easier to get a straight on look at a face and make less mistakes along the way, as you'll have the proportions directly in front of you. When it comes to drawing faces at an angle, however, this'll be more difficult, as you won't have the same guidelines to help you. Once you draw lots of faces head on, with practice on value/shading, etc. then it should be easier to construct one in your head and have an idea on what to work on for various other angles you're trying to accomplish. So here's a nice video that can go about showing you how to draw a face from different angles and here's another one that provides commentary along the way, and is a bit more straightforward as well.
  
• Your faces, similar to your muscles, all look very masculine, which tells me you don't know what women look like. I'm more so just pointing this out as something you should work on, so here's an article that goes over differences in drawing faces between men/women it'll take some getting used to at first, but it's something to study and fix before you try getting too involved with faces (otherwise you'll get good at making mistakes, which you don't want)
  
  Next, the body:
  
  
• Okay, you and I both understand that proportions/anatomy aren't a strong point for you. Not to worry, you can fix this! Proko is a great source on YouTube you'll see mentioned a lot here if you're having trouble with anatomy, since he goes over things in an easy to understand fashion. There's also Draw with Jazza whose channel I love, since he goes over material quite well. What may also help here is enrolling in a class in a university or community center that'll allow you to a draw a live model, where you can get feedback from a teacher and other students as well. There's also some books on anatomy, such as Atlas of Human Anatomy (keep in mind this one is not really a tutorial, just something to help give notes on anatomy), and this book, which is a bit more beginner friendly and has more instruction in it.
  
• Instead of trying to simply draw 50 arms and 50 legs, it helps to have some guidance on what exactly you're drawing and how to draw it. This is a clear tutorial that can help with that , and in case you also need a bit of reminding of what limbs are supposed to look like, this here can help you with body proportions so you can make sure your limbs match up, and gives extra tips on how they can do that. One thing I will note as well, is that it's not just your limbs that need work, so don't feel like you should only be focused on them when you work on the body, as you need to make sure the entire human form is comprehensible and works together. What's the point of having nicely drawn limbs if you have a shitty torso, for example. I'll also remind you that drawing limbs is a pain in the fucking ass and that it's not something that you'll pick up quickly (this is especially true of digits, hands/feet were and still are a pain for me to draw!). Speaking of hands, you seem timid when it comes to these subjects, and you're going to want to get over that, since if you don't know much about hands/feet, then many of your gestures won't look as appealing (plus, it's only going to hurt you since you'll get frustrated time and time again trying to get them right). Luckily, Draw with Jazza has a tutorial on those, and you can also purchase a hand mannequin if you'd like some extra help. Another great resource is looking at your own hands/feet, since they're always available and can get the job done in some natural lighting.
  
  Lastly, your (lack of) shading:
  
  
• Since there's no shading to speak of in these pieces, you're doing yourself a huge disservice as you aren't actually drawing the human form, but rather an outline of it (which in itself, isn't giving any details to speak of, which is adding to your lack of success with drawing people). This tells me you either a. aren't too familiar with how to create form, or b. simply don't understand yet understand the importance of shading when learning how to draw. This is all fine and dandy, as this link here will tell you all about form and how to shade properly. Some exercises you can practice for this are drawing objects in real life in shading them, and getting used to not erasing while you do so (when you don't erase, it prompts you to make less and less mistakes further along the road).
  
  And here's a last:
  
  
• Go slow. Drawing is a not a race, you don't have to finish everything within a set time limit. If it's taking you a long time to learn something, don't sweat it. There's no such thing as someone who is good at drawing everything when they first start out. Everyone sucks in the beginning, so it's better to take your time and focus on what mistakes you make so you can take note of how to improve later. And since you want to work with people, which is difficult because a. not only is the human form in itself hard to draw, but you have to make a human body be recognizable since unlike drawing animals, which don't have any particular likenesses that are completely relevant (for example, you can draw a golden retriever, and I can look at it, and see it's a golden retriever because animals don't have that look to them that really separates them), meanwhile humans have facial and body features that are distinguishable to us since we recognize our own species, and b. there can be a lot going on in a human drawing, such as us holding something, wearing certain things, having certain hairstyles, etc. which by themselves can be difficult to master. So taking your time and realizing that it won't be perfect right away will only help you in the long run.

> I know you said you have a book or something - PM me about that, I'm interested!

I've sent you a PM about the book. Glad to hear you're interested!

> What about this theory that floats around on the internet and that celebrities like Joe Rogan talk about that the pineal gland produces DMT, especially during sleep.

There is some evidence of DMT production in the pineal gland, but it's very scant at this stage. One study, last year (2013), showed trace amounts of DMT in the pineal glands of rats. This could mean that DMT is produced there, or somewhere else in the body and then stored/used there; however the amounts were far too limited to have any kind of psychedelic effect.

It's not extremely surprising, as DMT is chemically quite similar to the likes of serotonin and melatonin, so for it to form naturally in the brain isn't a huge jump biochemically speaking... it's also however not terribly interesting or useful until we know more about how much, when, why, and so on.

It could also however simply have been a freak occurrence. I'd like to see more studies being done to confirm it - especially with multiple species and animals of different ages (which may make a very large difference as well given the possible relationship between the pineal gland and the parietal eye that I mentioned).

> How did you learn as much as you know specifically about LSD?

It helps being old ;)

More seriously - I've simply read a lot and studied a lot with a critical mind. I'm a software developer professionally, but I've spent around 15 years of my free time learning and researching psychedelics and associated fields. I have no formal training, but I read university level textbooks on neuroscience, biochemistry, pharmacology and so on for fun.

Mostly, I'm just the kind of person that's both passionately curious about the world as well as being the kind of person that likes to critically analyse things. This helps to steer away from the mystical side of things (all very interesting, but lacking in anything even remotely similar to evidence) and keep me searching in more productive lines of enquiry.

> Any other books or references you'd be willing to share?

Hmmm... quite a lot.

"LSD" by Otto Snow is a good general purpose LSD book, with pretty detailed synthesis information that helps you understand the chemistry even if you're not actually planning on synthesising it yourself.

I'm not sure of your current level of skill, but if you need an intro, or refresher in to the basics of the right kind of chemistry, then Organic Chemistry I for Dummies is a great book according to my wife (who went from "no knowledge" to "able to at least understand what I'm talking about" just from this book).

For a "step-up" from there and getting to looking at the brain specifically, I'd start with (and continually go back to) Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience.

Aside from that, every research paper you can find dealing with related material. There's some good review papers as well for "summing up" a lot of others. One I really liked was "The Pharmacology of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: A Review" by Passie et al.

I also found some online courses to be really good. I recently did "Drugs and the Brain" on Coursera; it was definitely a good refresher for me, and would be excellent for anyone with a basic grounding but wanting to learn more in general. There's another on Coursera called "Medical Neuroscience", which I unfortunately missed, but will catch the next time around; and one coming up really soon titled "Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life" which I'll be doing but expect to be a somewhat simpler course than the others (I'll take it anyway - re-covering basics is always good because you do find things you've managed to miss no matter how long you've been learning).

Edit: One additional thing I should have mentioned... here on reddit, check out /r/drugnerds and maybe also /r/rationalpsychonaut

Pharm is tough. The first test of nursing school in ANY subject is going to be tough.

My success in pharm has depended on studying in MANY different ways. My professor provides us with a "key list" of drugs for each test module, and then bases her lectures off that list. I take that list, save it to my desktop, and almost retype all of her PPT notes underneath each drug/drug class. I print this off as a sort of condensed "manual" and carry that with me just about everywhere. It makes it easy for me to study (I don't have to get out my laptop, can read it at a red light...oops?). Also, I use mosby's flashcards (link below) and found them to be extremely helpful. The pictures may or may not be too silly to remember, but the information on the back is extremely condensed and helpful. Now, these flashcards do NOT always have everything my professor tests on, HOWEVER, they do give me a good starting point.

Basically, I start small and start to build on a drug class. I "get to know" my drug by looking at the Mosby flashcard. I'm familiar. I then re read my notes from my teacher. More familiar. I tend to repeat this step a LOT. If it feels like it's not sinking in, just keep going. Pharm is a lot of rote memorization, and you have to keep chugging.

I also found it very helpful to read case studies on a drug, find a youtube video ABOUT someone who takes the drug, read something about someone who took it, etc. It was a LOT easier for me to remember a drug when I was able to put a story to it. I have classmates who even make up their OWN stories about a drug. Whatever you have to do.

I don't study for pharm in any one way. The key is to find a way that keeps you ENGAGED. I personally did not enjoy making flashcards (the ones I bought served a purpose) and got more use out of re-typing notes and having everything on a few pages.

Also, do you have a study group? I find that sitting down with my condensed drug list and talking about the drug with classmates helps a lot. Quiz each other. Just talk about it. It's also helpful to find out a classmate has been/is on a certain drug and shares their story about the drug. Again, have something to connect to.

One important thing to realize (I struggled with this) is that you CANNOT memorize EVERYTHING about a drug. When I say "spend time" with each drug, pretend you are sitting there taking it out to dinner. Find out it's life story. Why does it do what it does? Once you start understanding the drug, you can start to understand/guess some of the side and adverse effects (some side/adverse effects are just oddballs, and you have to memorize those, but fortunately the "weird" ones are the easy ones that stand out!). The big drug list we got used to overwhelm me, but just take it one. bite. at. a. time. Also, I study pharm a little bit every day. I could NOT be successful in this class if I was like a lot of my other classmates and crammed. Often times, it's literally the day before a test where the information just "clicks", and I finally feel confident. I can't imagine trying to cram all the info in in a few days. It's not a good subject for that.

Also, now you know HOW your teacher tests, and the kinds of questions they deem to be important. When you meet with your teacher, be sure to straight up ask them what they recommend. Many teachers are more than willing to help. My pharm professor is amazing, and is the reason pharm is one of my favorite classes.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0323289541/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I used several books but the best one was Mosby's Review for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Examination, 3rd edition. https://www.amazon.com/Mosbys-Pharmacy-Technician-Certification-Examination/dp/0323113370

This book will be great by itself if you already have experience as a tech but if you don't, you will probably also need a textbook with a dedicated math section. The amazon reviews mention that many of the questions have incorrect answers in the answer key but it's not a big deal since the corrections are posted online and the answer key has each answer written out. The most valuable part of this book is the practice exams in the back. They were incredibly similar to actual exam compared to any other book I used. Definitely get this book and spend the most time with it.




I also used books that were given to me by CVS which were pretty helpful. If you're currently working for a retail chain, there's a good chance they will give you books for free. The math one was great. I completed basically the entire thing and got all the math questions correct on the exam.

"The Pharmacy Technician, 5e" by APhA, Perspective Press and the accompanying workbook (pretty sure you can find the PDF online)

textbook: https://www.amazon.com/Pharmacy-Technician-Pharmacists-Association-Pharmacology/dp/1617314870

workbook: https://www.amazon.com/Technician-Certification-Pharmacists-Association-Pharmacology/dp/1617310727

"Complete Math Review for the Pharmacy Technician, 4e" by APhA

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Review-Pharmacy-Technician-Training/dp/1582121974

I would avoid test-prep books then-- those tend to skim the surface of things like pathophys and always seem to be more focused on important facts and associations, etc., and not on the science.

Sadly there is no quick answer for getting better at pathophys (it takes 2 years to cover the basics in med school). Working in an ED you don't have massive amounts of time to read either. As a resident I find myself wanting to review stuff all the time but am pretty busy too, so with that in mind, my recommendations would be:

-UpToDate/Dynamed/Medscape/etc. usually have nice sections in their articles on the pathophysiology of various conditions. The temptation is to skip to the "diagnosis" or "management" sections but there is usually some good stuff in those articles that you can read on the fly

-For critical illness and general physiology, The ICU Book is great and not too dry a read. If you want much more in depth stuff on medical conditions, Harrison's Internal Medicine is a great resource but reads like a phonebook sometimes. If you care about the microscopic level, Robbins & Cotran is basically all the pathology for the non-pathologist you will ever need- can also be a bit dry at times too.

-Look up the mechanism of action of meds you don't know about (Micromedex smart phone app is great for that)

-When you consult someone because you are unsure about something, ask them about what is going on (subspecialists are usually not shy about dropping knowledge if you ask for it); it may also help prevent future un-needed consults which they appreciate

Hope this helps.

I haven't read this book but it's a nice hardcover with beautiful historical illustrations and is not very expensive. I doubt it's comprehensive / definitive but you'll love flipping through it and it'll look great on your bookshelf:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Interventions-Illustrated-Principles-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0500518106?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Another area I've become interested in (in my own field of expertise, not surgery) is actually buying historical texts. Find a specialty used book store in your city and browse through their medical/scientific books. Even a standard (med school-level) text from 70 years ago is fascinating when understood in the context of what has come since. And the <100 year-old books are not expensive (<$100).

abebooks.com is full of cheap old used (and expensive old used) textbooks from many countries and areas of medicine.

When I am thinking about a disease that I encounter in my practice frequently (ex. Hodgkin disease), sometimes it's fun to dip into one of my old textbooks and read something like "Hodgkin's disease is a disease of the hematopoietic organs [...] It is invariably fatal. Whether it is neoplastic or inflammatory in nature remains a matter of dispute." (Boyd, 1947).

These old textbooks are very readable. That edition of Boyd's pathology belonged to my grandfather. Every single page of it is fascinating.

Here is where I shared my experience (LINK BELOW), and I had to write the second time and used the same resources as you, a comprehensive review book and Uworld. I had also access to Hurst, but did not use it other than one of their resource documents, that had info about cranes and crutches.

Two another resources that may also help you: Lacharity book (for prioritization and delegation) and the CPR (Candidate Performance Report) that your BON might have provided you with your results.

To be honest Uworld really helped me with strategies when I read each rationale thoroughly, and the comprehensive book (Saunders) was for brushing up my knowledge base.

Most of the questions on NCLEX were similar to the topics that I came across on Uworld.

I am sure you will do great this time, my friend. I know it's easier said than done, but please pick yourself up and it's okay to feel bad about it, but don't let it keep you behind :)

Please let me know if I could help you someway or another

Here is the link, where I shared my experience and some tips: https://www.reddit.com/r/StudentNurse/comments/50kmr5/passed_on_the_2nd_attempthere_is_how_i_went_from/?ref=share&ref_source=link

Here is the Lacharity book: https://www.amazon.ca/Prioritization-Delegation-Assignment-Exercises-Examination/dp/0323113435

I'm not a chemist; I'm currently studying ChemE at university. I'm also the "science mod" over on /r/trees, so I think I can help out a bit with this one.

The science behind cannabis and how it works is extremely interesting, but it won't help you with 99% of Biochemistry.

Everything we know about cannabis can be learned pretty quickly, provided you have the backgrounds in chemistry, biology, and preferably a bit of pharmacology.

What you can is do is study drugs and their functions as a whole to supplement and enhance your studies in biochemistry; I know that it's granted me a new appreciation for the human body and the processes that regulate it. These fields are vast and expanding at an astonishing rate.

The field of pharmacology is huge, but in a nutshell you can break it into pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. They focus on effects and the relations between dosage and response (dose response curves, etc.) as well as the mechanisms through which the drug is processed and how the drug passes through the body, respectively.

In short, pharmacokinetics studies what the body does to a drug, while pharmacodynamics studies what the drug does to your body.

As a Biochemistry major, these topics will likely be right up your alley. You'll still have to do the mundane, but perhaps some background along these lines will provide you with a new perspective on the processes you are studying in class.

If this sounds like your thing, I'd recommend the following text, provided you already have a good grip on molecular biology and a little electrochemistry: Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience

If you like this text or you just want something to supplement it, Caltech, easily one of the top research universities for this field, offers a course taught by Dr. Henry Lester via Coursera, here.

It's a highly informative course that pairs very well with the text I linked above. You'll touch on everything from drug addiction to recreational drugs to the different receptors and how they are activated.

It's not active right now and I'm not sure when the next session will be, but you can go onto Coursera and watch Professor Lester's lectures which are, by far, the most integral part of the course. I went through it last session (January - February) and I was very satisfied with both the material and the way it was presented.

Tl;dr: You can supplement your classroom material with all sorts of interesting studies related to drugs, but if you're not interested in the material you're studying in class at all, it may be time to rethink your field. You can't tie everything to drugs, but you can use the study of drugs to enhance your appreciation for the "macro" systems you're studying.

Hey, sorry for replying so late. So which state are you in? I'm pretty sure you need a PTCB certification and a state registration to apply for a hospital job.

You need to study a book for the PTCB examination. Some people recommend going to school, but I only studied a book to pass the PTCB test. It's quite easy.

I recommend this book:

http://smile.amazon.com/Mosbys-Pharmacy-Technician-Certification-Examination/dp/0323113370/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413195737&sr=8-1&keywords=mosby%27s+guide+pharmacy+technician

Pretty straightforward and easy to understand. Afterwards, just take the test. Make sure you are ready because it costs 150+ per exam and you can only have three tries per 6 months (or something like that).

When you get your PTCB certification, apply for the state registration. There's no requirements but your record must be clean.

Once you get both, apply for a hospital job. Always aim high, you never know where it'll get you. And never go for a retail pharmacy job.

Hope it helps.

I'm finishing up my Pharmacology class for the semester now. I would say there's a few things that have been really useful while studying.

The first is to get some kind of supplement to your textbook. I use the Mosby flashcards with full illustrations on one side, and a full list of the medicine's action, uses, adverse effects, etc. on the other. They give a really good summary of the things you need to know, and have nice mnemonics and ways to remember basic info.

The second is to make study guides. I lucked out and have a teacher who gives us a list of specific things to look for on the exams, but they can also be done by simply going through the class of drug (antibiotics, for example), then narrowing it down to specific drugs, their effect on the body, what they're used to treat, therapeutic dose, and adverse reactions.

A lot of my test questions will focus on why you'd use Drug A over Drug B, even though they're both the same kind of medicine. Pay attention to these, because they can be really useful in understanding why there's various versions of specific drugs. Why would warfarin be a good choice over heparin for abdominal surgery, even though they're typically used together? Things like that.

Finally, something that personally works for me is the night before the test, I will simply handwrite out the most important information from our PowerPoint lectures, my study guide, etc. It's time consuming, and rewriting doesn't work for everyone, but I find it helpful since I type most of my notes/study guides in class.

Here's the link for the flash cards if you're interested.
https://www.amazon.com/Mosbys-Pharmacology-Memory-NoteCards-Mnemonic/dp/0323289541

I would also suggest looking over any Pathophysiology notes you may have, or A&P if you haven't taken Patho. Understanding disease processes and what system your drug is effecting specifically can help with comprehension.

Good luck!

This book is not too bad. Has a profile for each specialty, as well as specific advice. I picked up the old version cheap a while ago.

The AAMC Careers in Medicine page is actually pretty good too. You have to sign up and log in to see the material, but they go through lots of stats. A new version of Charting Outcomes from the Match will likely be published by the NRMP/AAMC this year or next, and will have valuable data regarding each specialty's competitiveness.

But as far as "playing the game" goes, it's a much simpler game than the med school admissions process was. You don't have to have extensive lists of extracurriculars, and a lot of it boils down to a few big things you need to do.

• Do well on Step 1, obviously
  
• Get lots of good grades in the clinical years
  
• Get involved in research
  
• Get good letters of rec, which usually results from doing well on rotations
  
• Getting inducted into AOA can be very helpful
  
  Those are really the biggest things, and it applies to virtually every specialty. The more competitive a specialty is, the more you will need to excel in each of those areas.

This is a great list so far, and I'd love to see it added to the sidebar.

I'd suggest adding "Neuroethics" by Martha J Farah under "Other". It gives an interesting perspective on the influence of neuroscience on law and society.

http://www.amazon.com/Neuroethics-Introduction-Readings-Basic-Bioethics/dp/0262514605

"The Human Brain in Photographs and Diagrams" is good for anyone interested in neuroanatomy. I've only used the 3rd edition- there is an updated edition, but I can't speak to how useful it is.

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Brain-Photographs-Diagrams-CD-ROM/dp/0323045731/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411223019&sr=1-2&keywords=the+human+brain+in+photographs+and+diagrams

"Structure of the Human Brain" is a very comprehensive section-by-section atlas of the brain.

http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Human-Brain-Photographic-Atlas/dp/019504357X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411223434&sr=8-1&keywords=structure+of+the+human+brain+a+photographic+atlas

"Molecular Neuropharmacology" is a good advanced text for anyone interested in drug development.

http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Neuropharmacology-Foundation-Clinical-Neuroscience/dp/0071481273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411223180&sr=8-1&keywords=molecular+neuropharmacology

I've mentioned these because they seem to fill gaps that are currently in the library. If anybody knows of better anatomical texts, though, I'd be interested to know about them!

If you're looking for a good book, I recommend Marino's The ICU Book 4th Edition. It's geared towards medical students and residents, but I think it would be useful for anyone who is somewhat new to critical care. And the price seems high at first glance, but compared to other recently published texts containing the same info, it's pretty reasonable.

It reads quite smoothly and was published this past October. You certainly won't retain everything you read in the book, but from the start you'll recall where in the book you read something and can refer back.

Also, if you're looking for something cheaper that involves less reading. The Society of Critical Care Medicine offers a self-paced online introductory course called Resident ICU. It is a collection of lectures/ power points which discuss the fundamental principles of critical care. Again, it is designed for physicians/ new residents, but having a solid understanding of your patient's condition is important for critical care nurses and this will only help. Oh, and the course only costs $25.

I know more than just these two, but I can't think of anything else at the moment. Hope this helps!

Photolabrat is correct. I just finished a pharm tech course here in California and can tell you they are %100 right. To break it down in simpler terms tho, here you go.

Here in the US you can either get a pharm tech license by state OR just pass the PTCB/PTCE exam which would then allow you to be licensed in ANY state in the US. That's because the PTCB is the preferred test here for technicians. Most employers will hire you with just a state license but they might require you to take it later on. Also, some employers pay you more for being PTCB certified.

As of right now in 2019, you can sign up to take the PTCB without having taken any prior courses. It's a great thing really if you're good at self-teaching. BUT, this will change starting next year and you WILL be required to take an accredited pharm tech course just to take the test. (The PTCB test itself will be undergoing an update next year as well.)

If I were you, I would just say screw it and do everything I can to take it this year. You already do tech work so it shouldn't be too hard to pass. I say this because you never know how long transferring any necessary paperwork might take you know? Also, transferring any type of license here in the US usually requires you to take the exam for said license anyway so might as well get ahead of the game.

https://www.amazon.com/Pharmacy-Technician-Certification-Examination-Reviews/dp/0323113370/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mosby%27s+pharmacy+exam&qid=1570166947&sr=8-1

This is one of the more popular books ppl here use to study for the exam. I mean srsly, I have this one friend who is a total, total dum dum and all he did was work at a pharmacy and study this book, and he passed. It is the same book I'm using myself to study for the exam and keep the things I learned in class fresh. If you DM me I actually have a PDF copy of this same book that I don't mind sharing. I just can't post the link here for obvious reasons.

Useful links:

https://dopl.utah.gov/pharm/index.html This is the Utah board of pharmacy website which has a contact section where you can probably call them and ask them all sorts of questions. (Every state has its own board here, hope this link helps.)

https://ptcb.org/

https://home.pearsonvue.com/ptcb

Note: You'll have to register at the PTCB website and pay for the exam there ($129). Afterwards, after your payment is approved, you'll get a link in your email to the Pearson Vue website to schedule your exam.

Fantastic score! As far as getting into an elite IM program, I would definitely start by identifying a mentor at your home IM program; they'll be better able to guide you. And with a 260 Step, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to help you achieve your career goals.

Also, be on the lookout for research projects that you can help out with, be it case reports or systemic reviews.

Otherwise, the usual advice applies: do well on your rotations, study hard for each shelf, and do well with CK.

Also, buy a copy of The Successful Match. It has useful advice for obtaining letters of rec, what to write in your personal statement, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/Successful-Match-2017-Success-Residency/dp/1937978079

Hi, I graduated last May and passed the NCLEX first try. Here's what I did:

Michael Linares videos from Simple Nursing: This guy helped with some of the tougher concepts.

Khan Academy is wonderful for disease processes and anatomy/physiology problems.

Go to the library and check out some NCLEX books, or find some used on Amazon. I recommend the Saunder's and Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment out of all the ones that I bought. I used these for everything.

Have you heard of www.quizlet.com ? You can look up tons of flashcards or make your own. There's an app so you can take them with you wherever you go, and it grades you each time you go through them so you can find your weak spots. Spelling counts on the points, and it did on my exams, which helped with some of those tricky words. You can also add pictures to your cards if you want.

I went through the Hurst review after graduation, which was a nice review. It's crazy expensive, and if I did it all over again I probably would have skipped it.

Get comfortable with the math! Go to a tutor if that's something your struggle with, as those are EASY POINTS. There's only one correct answer in math, unlike every other nursing school question.

Remember ABCIS for priority: Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Infection and Safety! Every question you see, imagine if you can only do one thing for your patient. Read the questions carefully and look for key words. I went through and underlined those words. Break it down piece by piece.

I used powerpoints for my notes, as added diagrams and videos help me. You can also search easily for information when you are reviewing.

Good luck, and don't forget to breathe!

Janeway's a great reference for a uni course but can be very verbose/dry if you're just starting or doing it for pleasure. I recommend Sompayrac she does a great job of explaining the core concepts in an easy to grasp manner which you will need before you go deeper.

"What are the parts of the brain and what do they do?" is a much better formed question, but now you're getting into unsolved questions and areas of active research. There are hundreds of "identifiable parts" of the brain, and short of writing an entire textbook, there's not much I can do to answer such a broad question!

My recommendation for you would be to keep reading wikipedia (maybe start here ) and if you run into any specific questions come back to reddit and ask them, or try to get your hands on a basic neuroscience text book (the Purves book is good).

I hope I don't sound too discouraging! If you have specific questions I'm happy to answer them and I'm sure other panelists are too, but for me personally, I don't want to spend more than an hour answering any single question, and as it stands, your question would take me hours to answer well.

I have 2 care plan books and I have used them all the way through clinicals (I'm just finishing up my last semester and getting ready to start my preceptorship).

I would HIGHLY recommend a care plan book, they have help me immensely. Our instructors have us do a major care plan at least once per semester. When it's all typed up it ends up being about 20 pages or so. We are required to have numerous interventions and rationales for those interventions. It would be 10 times harder to do that without a good care plan book.

The ones I have and like a lot:
http://www.amazon.com/Nursing-Care-Plans-Guidelines-Individualizing/dp/0803622104

http://www.amazon.com/Nursing-Diagnosis-Handbook-Guide-Planning/dp/0323036643

Hopefully this helps you out a bit.

I had good luck with a book called Success! For the EMT Basic. It has practice tests in it, and the answer key gives rationale for why the answer is the correct one as well. Very helpful and not terribly expensive.

Linky: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0132253968?pc_redir=1413174377&robot_redir=1

Good luck!

Not a book recommendation, but I really, really recommend watching the documentary Alive Inside. I believe it's still on Netflix? What I learned about music therapy from it has helped me connect very deeply with multiple dementia and Parkinson's patients over the years.

The late, great Oliver Sacks also stars as an expert on it, and he wrote Musicophilia, of which there are a couple of chapters that deal with music & memory. I really enjoyed reading that.

Edit: Found my booklist. Here's a really simple handbook that helps guide you in having difficult conversations with seriously ill patients and their families about the patient's condition. It's aimed primarily at doctors (it was made for oncologists originally), but many of its tenets and suggestions can be applied to any level of caregiver.

• Mastering Communication with Seriously Ill Patients: Balancing Honesty with Empathy and Hope by Back, Arnold, and Tusky
  
  Because you're working on a dementia unit, I'd also start familiarizing yourself with death & dying - not just the physiological process, but the ethical and philosophical levels as well (both societal and personal). If you're not familiar with it, working with dying people can be very scary and uncomfortable, and you'll find yourself feeling moral distress because you're mentally still trying to apply curing principles of care to someone who cannot be cured. Once you become more familiar with this stage of life, you're probably going to recognize a lot of aggressive, futile care happening, and THAT's going to become emotionally very difficult for you.
  
  Recs on that:
  
  
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
  
  
• How We Die by Sherwin B Nuland
  
  
• Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
  
  
• The End-of-Life Handbook: A Compassionate Guide to Connecting with and Caring for a Dying Loved One by David Feldman

If you want the standard sequence of Neuroscience textbooks, there is a rough ordering of 3 common books. Each are very comprehensive and more than you would likely be able to read cover to cover, but they get more sophisticated and comprehensive as you go. The last one specifically is essentially the bible of neuroscience and you will be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive coverage of any of the topics outside a specialised textbooks or research papers.

These books will cover the general overview of neuroanatomy, physiology, pharmacology and pathology but if you want to go further in depth, there are more advanced books for each of those and dozens of other subfields.

1. Purves - Neuroscience
   
2. Bear - Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain
   
3. Kandel - Principles of Neural Science
   
   I would specifically recommend Nolte - The human brain: an introduction to its functional anatomy as an exceptional example of a specialised text. Unfortunately, I do not recall the neurpharmacology text that I used, but it was very good too. I shall look it up and get back to you! For a more general introduction to pharmacology, the standard text is Rand and Dale - Pharmacology.

I'm not sure about single-cell recordings but with EEG experiments (and most other electrophysiological measures i.e. EOG, EMG) the voltage (also known as electrical potential difference) recorded at a place on the scalp is measure of the potential for current to move from one place to another. So you need 2 electrodes to measure this: the one (or more) on the scalp, and the ground electrode which provides a common reference point for all the other electrodes.
As far as I recall the site for this can vary, I know the EEG system we use (Biosemi) has two electrodes that work as grounds that are placed on the scalp (they are slightly more complex than just ground electrodes though but don't ask me to explain how!).

In addition (and slightly confusingly) you have reference electrodes, which can be placed in a variety of places (earlobes, nose, mastoids, etc for EEG). The key property of a site for a reference electrode is that it must be unaffected by the source you are recording. It picks up all the internal and external noise and is then subtracted from the active electrodes to give a cleaner signal. Just like the normal electrodes the reference is measuring the potential difference between itself and the ground electrode.


Luck (2005) puts it like this: Signal = AG voltage - RG voltage

[A = Scalp electrode, R = Reference, & G = Ground electrode]


Hopefully that makes sense and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

Source: I'm Cognitive Neuroscience PhD student, & Luck (2005) explains this pretty well.

The textbook that originally got me interested in my PhD work in 3D heart tissue models was Lilly's Pathophysiology of Heart Disease. It was very interesting to learn about one of the most important organs in your body and how one minor problem leads to a cascading effect of more problems systemically. But, after 6 years of studying this I've moved on to other things. But this textbook really has a special place in my...heart. Its only $40 for a physical copy which for a textbook is pretty good. But, many schools make this available, making it very accessible.

Lilly's 'pathophysiology of heart disease' is one of the best overviews available - it covers many aspects of heart disease from A&P to ECGs and is part of the core readings for many med students and paramedics. Plus you can find lots of used copies around for cheap.




Pathophysiology of Heart Disease: A Collaborative Project of Medical Students and Faculty https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1451192754/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_uB7XBb1AQ6VZY

I hear you and my heart goes out to you, to all of us.

Read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande before offering to move anyone in. It's not just having another housemate. As people age, especially beyond 80, they regress in ways that aren't obvious until difficult decisions need to be made. So, Nana is cooperative and kind from a distance, but move her in and your life with your SO and family will suffer.

I love my mom, and she's easy going, but if she lived with us it would be very difficult for my husband to unwind at the end of his day and talk openly. Conversation would be rather superficial when not in the privacy of our bedroom.

Again, read that book, your public library probably has it, and good luck. I would like to hear how it goes if you have time (I know it's in the future).

No formal education but I have some friends in the field and I've been studying some of their textbooks and talking to them about it a lot lately. Molecular Neuropharmacology is a great book, not an easy read, but full of information. NMDA antagonists like magnesium are also supposed to help prevent neurotoxicity from Ca influx, many people take them for tolerance prevention:

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/501875-NMDA-antagonists-for-tolerance-a-collection-of-the-evidence-and-anecdotal-reports?highlight=amphetamine+tolerance+nmda

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/97021-Speed-Meth-tolerance-prevention-reduction-long

This book is unequivocally the greatest book I have ever read.

I get a hard on just thinking about it. Probably better than pathoma honestly, it's just a super limited scope of information so it's only good for cardio

https://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-Students/dp/1605477230

Everyone basically just goes through the lecture slides +/- random Googling and UpToDate. (Maybe looking at the odd textbook if something is suggested, but usually they're more "reference" books and not great "teaching" books.)

I really wish I had come across this sub sooner (like M1) because having recommendations like Costanzo (physiology), How the Immune System Works, as well as the usual Pathoma, B&B, etc. would have been amazing to supplement lectures that weren't so great.

In terms of what we're really missing out on though, I think the single most useful thing is probably QBanks. It's hard to walk into exams without ever having had practice questions to do before so depending on your goals (like if you want to write Step or not) UWorld / Rx / Kaplan might be something to consider.

I used Anki on and off, but it was honestly really difficult to pick out what details we'd actually be tested on based on our lecture material so it wasn't always a great use of time.

I cannot more strongly recommend Steven W. Smith's The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing.

Every chapter is freely available as a PDF on the website.

Everyone who is interested in EEG/ECoG/LFP/single-unit research should absolutely read this book.

Steve Luck's Introduction to the Event Related Potential Technique is great, and will really help you to set up a top-quality ERP lab, but the DSP book really teaches you what happens to the signals you're recording.

If you want to get deeper into the underlying physiology of EEG, I'd recommend Electric Fields of the Brain by Nunez & Srinivasan.

You'd also be happy reading Buzsaki's Rhythms of the Brain.

I passed my national on the third try. All three times I went up to 120 questions. First and second try were a week apart. the third test I studied for two months to make sure I passed. I got this book on amazon, studied every question, and any question I got wrong I wrote it on a google doc with the correct answer. By the end of the book I had about 12 pages of material I didn't understand. After that I just studied those 12 pages until I was ready. Like I said, the third time I went to 120 q's, but I was very confident in all my answers. Hope that helps.

I just passed the NCLEX, and I would recommend:

• the National Council's questions if you have internet access.
  
  
• LaCharity's Prioritization, Delegation, & Assignment - it was awesome not only for the prioritization questions, but for learning general strategy.
  
  I thought both of these resources were harder than Saunders and closer to the level of difficulty of the NCLEX. You get content and rationales with the National Council's questions, too.
  
  I've also heard good things about the Pharm book recommended by /u/myname150, although I haven't used it personally.
  
  Good luck!

> I want to live again. I want to go out and enjoy every single minute God gives me here on Earth. I don't want to schedule my day around taking pills, or my week around when I am going to have to go in for an infusion. I am at peace with my choice and I just wish someone understood.

You should share this article with your parents: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/06/413691959/knowing-how-doctors-die-can-change-end-of-life-discussions

Here's an excerpt:

> In 2011, Murray, a retired family practice physician, shared his observations in an online article that quickly went viral. The essay, "How Doctors Die," told the world that doctors are more likely to die at home with less aggressive care than most people get at the end of their lives. That's Murray's plan, too.

And, if they still aren't convinced, have them read this: http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

In short, I think you made the right choice. Also, read both of those things yourself.

And if anyone tries to guilt you into resuming treatment, tell them they're grasping at false hopes, emotionally manipulating you, and that treatment is miserable, and you don't want to spend what little time you have left being miserable.

If there isn't a cure, there isn't a cure. Everyone's life ends anyways at some point. You have the blessing of knowing that you only have so long left. Make every second count, and tell anyone who thinks otherwise to kindly fuck off.

<3 best of luck OP.

"Neurology" is a medical discipline, i.e. a department you would find in a hospital, so that would not be appropriate for your case. "Neuroscience", on the other hand, is the name of the scientific study, which is what you should look into, but overall that is too broad of a field.

For what you're trying to learn, I'd just start directly diving into neuropharmacology. Any good resource should give you enough of an overview before things get more complicated; perhaps having a review of high school science might be good, but not necessary.

Here's a recommendation for a good reference textbook: https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Neuropharmacology-Foundation-Clinical-Neuroscience/dp/0071481273

Marino’s ICU Book is great. The latest edition from Amazon comes with an Inkling copy which is convenient on the go. The Washington Manual of Medical Therapeutics and Critical Care are both good quick references, though they have less explanation than Marino’s.

For Anesthesia, Miller’s Anesthesia is the standard Harrison’s-style specialty text. At the medical student level a lot of places recommend “Baby Miller” aka Basics of Anesthesia. I personally preferred Morgan & Mikhail’s Clinical Anesthesiology, but both are good introductory texts. FWIW, my school had both available online so it was easy to pick and choose.

Y'all do realize that there are countless numbers of care plan textbooks on Amazon you can get used for less than $10, right? They saved my ass in nursing school. Let me find the two I like. Hold on.

EDIT: Here's one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0803622104/ref=sr_1_14_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1543618007&sr=8-14&keywords=nursing+care+plans

EDIT: Here's the other. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0323071503/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

EDIT: And no, I don't advocate copy/pasting. But sometimes you just need a nudge in the right direction, and these books do a great job at that. Like everyone here says, you'll never, ever, EVER use care plans after you leave school.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but the most valuable thing for me when I was studying/taking the exam itself was to stop thinking. My instructor for the course made us realize that the registry questions aren't designed to have you sitting there, furiously mapping out exactly what would happen in the scenario; they're asked in a way that you can think on a basic level, so that if it was real life you'd immediately know what to do. I noticed that if I found myself second guessing an answer, I just needed to move on. Most likely, the initial instinct was correct.


A few other things:

• If scene safety/BSI is an option, that's most likely the correct answer.
  
  
• If ABCs are an option, that's most likely the correct answer.
  
  
• Study OB. It ends up popping up a LOT, and it's something that takes a lot of people by surprise.
  
  
• Look into getting this book if you haven't already. It's basically pages and pages of practice questions, and there's a CD with more practice exams on it. I went through it by sections of 10 questions; every 10 I would stop and check my answers and look up anything I wasn't familiar with.
  
  
• I also found the app EMT Trainer to be helpful as well, with information presented in cheat sheet format.
  
  
  Practice questions, practice questions, practice questions! The exam is probably more nerve-wracking than any EMS situation I've ever been in. But if you just drill yourself with questions, take a deep breath, and do your best to not overthink it, you'll do great.
  
  
  edit: formatting

The ICU Book by Paul Marino is also a great resource. I’ve learned a lot and it’s made me question a lot of practices at my facility.

The previously mentioned icufaqs.org is definitely a good place to start and is free.

Netter's Atlas if you just want a big book with lots of great drawings of everything.

The text book has all the background information and clinical correlations, but often not as many, or smaller images. Netter's Clinical Anatomy is good if you want something a bit slimmer and simpler that still has all the basic anatomy. If you want something more beefy I highly recommend Moore's Clinical Oriented Anatomy. It's a big book, but it has everything in it you could want.

Netter's Atlas

Netter's Clinical

Moore's Clinically Oriented Anatomy

I would probably pick one of the conditions, whichever one is the priority which will be the cardiac one.

Do you have a nursing diagnosis/care plan book? I use Davis's Nursing Care Plans:Guidelines for Individualizing Client Care Across the Life Span.

For HF, nursing diagnosis can be:

Decreased cardiac output related to altered myocardial contractility as evidenced by increased heart rate, dysrhythmias, ECG changes (or whatever changes they may be experiencing)

Activity intolerance related to imbalance between oxygen supply and demand as evidenced by weakness and fatigue

Usually nursing diagnosis are by priority, so obviously anything dealing with the airway or circulation would be the most important to make a diagnosis for. :)

I asked this question a while back. I'm about to finish up the cardio section of our cardiopulm unit. In my opinion, it depends on how much time you have. How much time are you actually going to have to read this resource outside of lecture and study time?

I bought both Physiology by Costanzo and the mentioned Lilly Pathophys of Heart Disease. In my opinion, I liked Costanzo's book better. Disclaimer: I didn't have time to read all of Lilly's book. Costanzo has a whole chapter (fairly long though) and it does an amazing job of going through the physio. I would say it doesn't cover the ECG well (just describing waves and comparing them to phases of depolarization of the ventricle). That said, I would still use Costanzo if I had to do it over again.

No problem, I'm glad it was helpful!

This is the book we used in school. I would say it is pretty advanced as far as EMS goes, but if you're think you're up for it, this could be an excellent read for a paramedic looking to really focus on cardiac pathophysiology. Make sure you've got the basics down first, then try it out.

1. wake up, dress up, show up -- be on time
   
   
2. always know what time to show up and where to be etc.
   
   
3. be nice and don't be a burden
   
   
4. being dumb and nice is better than being smart and annoying; being dumb and annoying is the worst
   
   
5. feign interest in every speciality and don't bash the specialties to their faces -- the answer to "do you have an interest in X?" is always "I've always found X interesting and am looking forward to learning more about it..." if you don't have an interest in it or something along those lines. Or maybe you're lucky and actually have a genuine interest in it.. then let them know.
   
   
6. surgery sucks and it will always suck
   
   
7. have things not rotation/medicine related to talk about that is fun for the team -- it doesn't always have to be about medicine
   
   
8. eat whenever you can
   
   
9. study whenever you can
   
   
10. leave whenever you can
    
    ____
    
    Don't know what to study for each rotation? Look at the wiki
    
    In regards to how to study: OnlineMedED is now your Pathoma. UWorld is still UWorld. There is no First Aid for Step 1 for Step 2 so it is made up of a couple of books for each rotation you used / general review books (Step UP, First Aid, master the boards etc.)
    
    The Match is really scary? Buy The Successful Match for a decent run down of the entire process etc. and tips of how to build an application
    
    ERAS is still really scary? Check out these example applications.. start at like pg 29 unless a Pritzker student then ^read ^^it ^^^all ^^^^?
    
    Worried about H+Ps? Get the Perfect H+P book(or download and print a bunch of decent looking templates)
    
    Need more templates etc?? Check out Medfools! for more!!

The Successful Match has some good stuff. Maybe see if you can borrow one from a friend or Amazon prime that shiz.

I agree completely, Kandel's book is definitely my favorite neuroscience text. For a more undergraduate level introduction Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain by Mark Bear et al. and Neuroscience by Dale Purves et al. are good starting places.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/Aeromedical-Certification-Examinations-Self-Assessment-Test/dp/061519124X/ref=sr_1_1


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
|Japan|www.amazon.co.jp||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||
|China|www.amazon.cn||




To help donate money to charity, please have a look at this thread.

This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

I recommend compiling a document with all interesting patient encounters, presentations you did on the rotation, notable things you accomplished on the rotation. Then when it comes time for your Letter writer to compose your LOR send them that information. Then they can have anecdotes to go off and write in your letter, this will be much more powerful than a generic LOR. This book goes into much more detail about this and I recommend reading the chapter on LORs https://www.amazon.com/Successful-Match-2017-Success-Residency/dp/1937978079/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522800836&sr=8-1&keywords=residency+match

When do you ship? I ship on Aug 13.

I bought this one bc its recently published and cheap with good ratings:
http://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Medical-Technician-Practice-Preparation/dp/0738610062/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368246529&sr=8-2&keywords=emt+basic


But other good ones are (buy it used to save :p):

http://www.amazon.com/McGraw-Hills-EMT-Basic-Second-Edition-DiPrima/dp/0071751270/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1368246529&sr=8-4&keywords=emt+basic

http://www.amazon.com/SUCCESS-EMT-Basic-Edition-Joseph-Mistovich/dp/0132253968/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1368246529&sr=8-5&keywords=emt+basic

Six year program? As in a 3 plus 3 program? Nice!

I too am in the same boat and have asked the same question. From many responses that I've gotten, I'm preparing by by Netter's Atlas, I've heard it's a great supplement to any class.

Netter's Atlas here

If you scroll down you can also see the items that it's frequently bought with...I also purchased the flash cards and the coloring book....when was the last time you could say as in an adult you have an excuse to color in a coloring book!?

I'll echo what's already been said, don't waste money on an expensive suture kit. [These] (http://www.ethicon.com/healthcare-professionals/education/student-knot-tying-kit) are always on backorder but keep checking and eventually they get more... they are free.

The only thing I can't imagine doing without during my clinical (and something your program won't require) was [Pocket Medicine] (https://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Medicine-Massachusetts-Hospital-Handbook/dp/1451193785/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478036929&sr=8-1&keywords=pocket+medicine). I am convinced this book alone can get you through 90% of your rotations... It was the only pocket reference I carried in my white coat for every rotation. It's the only pocket reference I STILL carry from school. I think a new version is coming sometime this month so you could wait for that!

Marino's ICU Book. It was recommended to me for an ICU rotation I'm doing soon (I'm interested in the field). It's really an excellent book, does a great job explaining concepts that I always had trouble with (like shunt vs. dead space, a-A gradient, etc), and they added little snippets like this to keep things interesting.

✨INTJ ✨interested in Cardiology or Palliative Care

I knew this sounded familiar. I came across The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Medical Specialty by Brian Freeman, MD a couple of years ago and found this chart relating personality types and specialties: 1 and 2. Just something fun to look through!

Not accepting older editions!

$5CAD each Upping my offer for Epidemiology to $10USD paypal

Looking for:

[PENDING] PATTEN: EPIDEMIOLOGY FOR CANADIAN STUDENTS 2ND ED - $10USD

A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving, 4th Edition - $4USD OBO.

BANASIK: PATHOPHYSIOLOGY 6TH ED

LILLY: PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF HEART DISEASE 6TH

ACE-SAT: https://www.amazon.com/Aeromedical-Certification-Examinations-Self-Assessment-Test/dp/061519124X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468868935&sr=8-1&keywords=ace-sat

ASTNA Patient Transport: PRinciples and Practice https://www.amazon.com/ASTNA-Patient-Transport-Principles-Practice/dp/0323057497/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468868951&sr=8-1&keywords=astna

Critical Care Transport: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Transport-American-Orthopaedic-Surgeons/dp/1449642586

Those three books were the majority of my study material going in to (successfully) taking the FP-C exam.

The two pieces of flight medicine you'll need are the flight physiology and the critical care medicine. The flight physiology is pretty straightforward. Gas laws, pressures, altitudes, FAA regulations, and so forth. The critical care medicine is a lot more—you'll need the knowledge of an ICU nurse: lots of drips, lab values, central line pressures, and more.

All stuff well worth knowing.

I'm a Pharm.D student and when I first started pharmacology I found these cards helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Mosbys-Pharmacology-Memory-NoteCards-Mnemonic/dp/0323078001/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1420735838&sr=8-5&keywords=pharmacology+flash+cards+for+nursing+students

I think this is the newer edition:

http://www.amazon.com/Mosbys-Pharmacology-Memory-NoteCards-Mnemonic/dp/0323289541/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1420735838&sr=8-3&keywords=pharmacology+flash+cards+for+nursing+students

Search pharmacology for nurses on Amazon and there's a lot of great resources!

Methodology-wise, Steve Luck has a really nice, clear introductory text to ERP techniques.

If you want an excellent read on both the cost and the morality of excessive, interventionist end-of-life care, I can't recommend Atul Gawande's Being Mortal enough. IMO, it's one of the most important books written in the last 5 years.

Thanks! I actually took my pharm final a few weeks ago and barely passed it... and it was open book.

So, I struggle a lot there. I am going to get this to help me out, but are there any other resources you can think of that would help? I know it's mostly memorization, but I get overwhelmed because of how much there is.

Like, I went through an entire pharm course and I know the only reason I passed was because we were allowed to use our notes for quizzes and our books for the final. I barely retained any of the information that was taught to me.

And now, it's a huge struggle because my program is so fast-paced that once you fall behind, you're pretty much done for because there are already 2 new subjects we're racing through and it's hard to find the time to study for everything I'm in currently, let alone things I need to work on additionally.


But it's important because pharmacology is obviously going to be a big part of the state board exam. :(

Wikipedia is a good place to start for inarguable content like basic physiology, pathology, etc. Provincial treatment standards are often in the form of various (often conflicting) medical society guidelines. For Internal Medicine specifically (which is of course most of medicine in the end), Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine (digital version available) is the "next level" and "bible" of internal medical education and for treatment principles. A concise, well-sourced reference like the Washington Manual or (IMHO better) The Sabatine Mass Gen handbook are great. Uptodate is great but expensive.

I'm an Internal Med hospitalist (U.S.) and also in the field of General Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

I'm not sure what "non-textbook" means, but I highly recommend Constanzo's Physiology. It provides a good mix of detail and big-picture.

That's really probably a lot to do/ask, especially before next week. Just as or more important, is to have the right resources to get them quickly. There are a few great medical calculator apps, but just about as fast is getting the "Purple Book" (formerly the green, then red, then blue book) for internal medicine and [Tarascon's Internal Medicine and Critical Care pocket books](Tarascon Internal Medicine & Critical Care Pocketbook). Between those two, I've only needed to look up extra calculators/equations for fairly obscure things.

The Purple book runs $40-60 usually, but I got my Tarascon for like $20-30 a couple years ago. For some reason it's more expensive than rent/a week of medical school/etc at about $485. No idea why.

*edit formatting

I really liked Costanzo's Physiology (https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-STUDENT-CONSULT-Online-Costanzo/dp/145570847X) book. It's well written and I believe detailed enough while being not too long. It is easy to read and understand.

"How the Immune System Works" is a concise book that provides a great overview of immunology. It was the only immunology resource that actually made things click for me!

https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works/dp/1118997778/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526224656&sr=8-1&keywords=how+immune+system+works

Much appreciated!

I actually plan to study medicine myself, and I've seen the flashcard flow chart. From your post, I take it you recommend beginning with zanki, and thus relying on Pathoma and Sketchy?

It'll be a few years until I'll start studying, but I've been thinking about—as a primer—doing Incremental Reading on these first.

• Anatomy. Atlas of Anatomy by Schuenke et al https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Anatomy-Anne-M-Gilroy/dp/1604067454
  
• Physiology. Physiology by 5th Edition by Costanzo https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-STUDENT-CONSULT-Online-Costanzo/dp/145570847X
  
• Immunology. How the Immune System Works by Sompayrac (looks like it's written in Classic Prose) https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works-Desktop/dp/0470657294
  
• Microbiology. Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple by Gladwin, Trattler and Mahan https://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Microbiology-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/dp/1935660152
  
  Dunno what you think about that?

I highly recommend the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, it's the best thing I've ever read on this subject.

Interestingly, I've yet to talk to anyone who left Lindwall alive. Everyone I discussed the game with thought that would be cruel, and I agree, but I'd be interested to see other perspectives.

If you are looking into going aviation, I would recommend, Back to Basics, EMS -Ventilator Management, and ACE SAT. Those three books were the only thing needed to pass both the FP-C and the CFRN. I took them both in the same week, and they were virtually identical tests.

That and I used Med Cram or EM Crit when I needed visual references or a different approach to a subject.

Aviation is fun.

I've heard really good things about this book: https://www.amazon.com/Prioritization-Delegation-Assignment-Exercises-Examination/dp/0323113435

But any good source of practice questions (saunders, ati, etc) should have prioritization questions.

There are premade med flashcards you can buy. Here's an example.

Her class will likely have powerpoints to study or she can take notes during lecture that will help highlight the important information. You don't have to literally memorize every medication, because that would be insane. It's a lot of learning the more common classes of drugs and their actions/side effects, and most of the drugs in their respective classes have similar names so they are easy to lump together. I find the people that made 100s of flash cards for every drug imaginable wasted their time.

For NCLEX all I did was buy the Kaplan Q bank and the Saunders review book and do ~50 practice questions a day for about 2 weeks and I passed first try.

For medical history, the Morbid Anatomy Anthology has several books that helped fill the void The Knick left. They have Kindle editions but they're useless because they scanned the pages of the hardcover books so the text is tiny and unreadable. Worth getting the hardcovers; the illustrations are gorgeous. I really liked:

Crucial Interventions
The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic

>So, when shooting a gun what muscles in your fingers, arm, shoulder are working?

https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Human-Anatomy-Interactive-Ancillaries/dp/1455704180

>How fast is your heart pumping?

https://www.amazon.com/Mayo-Clinic-Cardiology-Textbook-Scientific/dp/0199915717/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480547395&sr=1-10&keywords=cardiology

>How are your leg muscles prepared for the power of the shot?

https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Anatomy-Plus-Winking-Skull/dp/9380378998

I've always understood a stress test to be considered positive if chest discomfort is reproduced or EKG abnormalities consistent with ischemic heart disease develop. Reproducible stable angina is enough to consider the test positive even in the absence of EKG changes.

Tests are considered markedly positive if:

1. ischemic EKG changes develop within 3 minutes of initiation of exercise or persist 5 minutes after cessation.
   
2. Magnitude of ST segment depression > 2 mm.
   
3. Systolic BP drops during exercise.
   
4. High-grade ventricular arrhythmias occur.
   
5. Patient cannot exercise for at least 2 minutes because of cardiopulmonary limitations (I take that to mean extreme angina, SOB).
   
   Pharmacologic and nuclear testing are necessary in patients with absolute contraindications to exercise stress testing, such as severe arthritis, lower limb amputation etc.
   
   All this info is from: Pathophysiology of Heart Disease, 5th edition (Lilly).
   
   EDIT: Reading your statement again you are correct in that you cannot make a diagnosis, but you should consider the stress test positive when making your diagnosis.

These are EXCELLENT books. I bought both.

Cardiovascular: http://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-PATHOPHYSIOLOGY/dp/1605477230

Nephrology: http://www.amazon.com/Renal-Pathophysiology-Lippincott-Williams-Wilkins/dp/1451173385/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412406478&sr=1-1&keywords=renal+pathophysiology

I recommend this book
http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

It is a good read and addresses this issue.

EEG analysis is a bit of an art form and mastering it just comes with experience, trial and error, and really knowing your particular dataset and aims. I use Matlab with the EEGLAB toolbox for ERPs and FieldTrip for time frequency analysis.

There are so many different steps, it's definitely not just a matter of pushing a button and getting a nice p-value out at the other side. I'd recommend getting your hands on this book in the first instance.

Lilly: pathophysiology of heart disease.

https://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-Students/dp/1451192754/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Anymore, the focus is on industrializing the hospice business, making it an adjunct of existing nursing homes, and moving as many bodie$ through the system as possible.

Which is a damned shame. Atul Gawande has a wonderful new book out that discusses end-of-life care in great and compassionate depth. Highly recommended for anyone facing these painful decisions.

life saver

This is amazing! Totally aced my test thanks to this!

I know it's kind of expensive, but see if you can buy it used or rent it out from a library. It has a LOT of practice tests which helped prepare me a ton.

What I started with: Stethoscope, sphygmomanometer or a sphygmomanometer for the lazy, pulse oximeter, reflex hammer, tuning fork, a pen light, notebook, Maxwell, pocket medicine, clipboard, 48 pens (of which I somehow only have 2 left), and finally a pack of decoy pens to hand out to people that need to "borrow" a pen but never give back.


Seriously where do all of my pens go??? It turns out half them went into my gf's bag x(.

What I was given or picked up along the way: scalpel, needle drivers, tweezers, scissors, various types of vicryl, bandages, gauze, alcohol wipes, surgical lube (that I took from the hospital when no one was looking ;) ), and a pocket CPR mask. I took a bunch of normal saline and IV kits as well but they don't fit in the bag.

"The Successful Match" goes through all of this by specialty plus just general app info.

https://www.amazon.com/Successful-Match-2017-Success-Residency/dp/1937978079

All you need:

http://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-PATHOPHYSIOLOGY/dp/1605477230

This book is excellent.

The diagrams alone were enough to make me wince! I recently ordered Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles & Practice of Nineteenth-Century Surgery and am very much looking forward to reading all about how horrific medical procedures were through the 1800s.

Thanks for sharing another great article.

You may or may not have time for this but his help me out a lot

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132253968/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5Sfavb08Q5TFC
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132253968/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5Sfavb08Q5TFC

I’m a big fan of how this book describes the fundamentals so clearly. It’s fairly quick read and it doesn’t get into the weeds.

How the Immune System Works (The How it Works Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118997778/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_n0-lDbDK6RQM7

If anybody is interested in reading on the subject I highly recommend Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End"

https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

But if the conversation around the ACA proves anything, if that logic goes out the door when you get an easy signed by like "death panels" and can convince a large number of Americans that the government is actually going to set up a board to decide what kind of Americans live and die.

also http://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Fourth-Edition-Dale-Purves/dp/0878936971 is a link to the textbook used. I will not post a link to a pdf of that version (which i cannot actually find) but there is a third edition pdf readily accessible that looks like a different chapter order.

I think the modern classic on ERPs is considered to be Steve Luck's book. I can vouch that it's an excellent book.

I can't help you with non-event-related EEG, though.

+1 on the Purves text. I find it pretty accessible even though my background is not neuroscience (or any other type of biological science). Also, you can pick up a used copy of an older edition for less than $20

https://www.amazon.com/Marinos-ICU-Book-Updates-Marino/dp/1451121180/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483792693&sr=8-1&keywords=marino+icu

I found this book very easy to read. It helped me out the most.

This is actually a pretty good question because it brings attention to the fact that docs need to provide this information vs nursing judgement. Which obviously needs to be the docs providing the info because they are the ones with the liability insurance and we are not.

You want better nursing judgement? It doesn't get any better than understanding this book: http://www.amazon.com/Marinos-The-ICU-Book-Updates/dp/1451121180

The new Stephen King book, a book full of antique surgical illustations, a book about creepy asylum treatments back in the early 20th century, and some money toward a new laptop. :)

I used this in undergrad. It is written with good analogies to understand. really helped me get the basics understood before we hit the hard stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Immune-System-Works/dp/1118997778/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Z9VDHP039MNBTYW09AAR

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Choosing-Medical-Specialty-Edition/dp/0071790276

This book might be helpful

Yes, absolutely. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Event-Related-Potential-Technique-Neuroscience/dp/0262621967

OP this is what you want I promise you.

http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Neuropharmacology-Foundation-Clinical-Neuroscience/dp/0071481273?tag=coursera-course83-20

we use this book in my neurobiology class and i like it.. covers a lot on how neurons do their thing

Personally, I recommend this one: Mosby's Review for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Examination, 3e https://www.amazon.com/dp/0323113370/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_czfFwb250MMQ7

I'd start by reading "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0805095152/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480885429&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=being+mortal+book&dpPl=1&dpID=51C9yK9VzzL&ref=plSrch

Basically you need to prioritize what matters for you when you go into your treatment. With a child at home I would think that a high probability treatment method would take precedence over finances. But if you have an aggressive form of cancer with a lower probability of curing, it sounds like you will have substantially different priorities than most Americans (and that's a good thing IMO.)

You'll want to maximize quality of life for as long as possible while allowing you to continue to support your family and spend time with your child. Your treatment plan should be based around this, rather than throwing everything you can at the cancer hoping for a miracle.

there's a 5th edition coming out in august: http://www.amazon.com/Physiology-STUDENT-CONSULT-Online-Costanzo/dp/145570847X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

but for physio i would just stick with BRS (same author) + tons of practice questions. physio is one of the subjects where critical thinking and problem solving is more important so you need to do lots of practice questions...compared to something like micro which is mostly just buzzwords and memorization

How the Immune System Works (The How it Works Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118997778/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_onAaCb87NG48E

I purchased this multiple times, it is very concise and readable. It's also up to date in a field that is constantly changing.

Sompayrac -- How the immune system works: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1118997778/

/u/BedsideRounds, I was just going to suggest the same thing, as I have the book and enjoy thumbing through it. I also have Crucial Interventions, which is along the same style.

Which podcast do you host? If you are uncomfortable telling us in public, can you PM me? Never mind I just read it in your starter comment.

The first holiday my wife was in school, I got her this book on choosing a medical specialty. The year she graduated, I got her a collection of papers that were specific to the specialty she matched into (her idea, not mine haha). When she started rotations, I got her an iPad--they weren't necessary for her rotations, but she got a lot out of it.

And you should check out the companion book, Crucial Interventions, as well: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Interventions-Illustrated-Principles-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0500518106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511836333&sr=8-1&keywords=Crucial+interventions

It's full of horrifyingly beautiful 19th century surgical illustrations.

> Robert S. Lilly

My bad, it was Leonard Lilly.

https://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-PATHOPHYSIOLOGY/dp/1605477230

Grapfruit and a handful of other things interact with heart drugs, these interactions aren't covered in too much detail in the textbook

I just bought mine in paperback from Amazon. I am not aware of a digital version.

Perhaps this:
http://www.amazon.com/Aeromedical-Certification-Examinations-Self-Assessment-Test/dp/061519124X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397337547&sr=8-1&keywords=will+wingfield
Also, where about in KSA?

Mosby's Review for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Examination (Mosby's Reviews) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0323113370/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_imKCDbSQ6C0ET

I thought this book was most reflective of actual questions on the test
http://www.amazon.com/Prioritization-Delegation-Assignment-Exercises-Examination/dp/0323113435

Easier: http://www.amazon.com/How-Body-Works-Peter-Abrahams/dp/1905704569/

Harder: http://www.amazon.com/Physiology-STUDENT-CONSULT-Online-Costanzo/dp/145570847X/


Usually the fire company will pay your EMT tuition including books, so don't buy it, but this is the book you will likely use: http://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Care-Daniel-Limmer-EMT-P/dp/013254380X/

Videos: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine/circulatory-system

Books: http://www.cvphysiology.com, https://www.amazon.com/Only-Book-Youll-Ever-Thaler/dp/1451193947/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=PVZK7GHPGGQXBP2ME4MB (if you Google it you can find a PDF...) and/or https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-STUDENT-CONSULT-Online-Costanzo/dp/145570847X

Marino’s ICU Book - get the real deal and don’t buy pocket reference books.

Marino's The ICU Book: Print + Ebook with Updates (ICU Book (Marino)) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451121180/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bWs0DbQ90QXY6

Read this - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805095152/ref=sxts_sxwds-tsp_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=3155180962&pd_rd_wg=5Vw5w&pf_rd_r=0Z9TFP0KJXXKPKJPVSZH&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-top-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_i=0805095152&pd_rd_w=vktq2&pf_rd_i=atul+gawande&pd_rd_r=NGRP8CJGMYTJS78EY751&ie=UTF8&qid=1502065845&sr=2

As in: http://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-Students/dp/1451192754/ref=sr_1_1 ?

Lily's

http://www.amazon.com/Pathophysiology-Heart-Disease-Collaborative-PATHOPHYSIOLOGY/dp/1605477230

Marino's ICU Book is the ICU bible

mosby's ptcb helped me a lot

Also this:
Stephen Luck's book

Grab this book. It has helped many of the new guys on our department pass it the first time. Most of the guys that don't get it and/or do not actually use it, end up taking the exam at least twice.

book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0323113370/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1396932271&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Is the one I used.

http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Medicine-Massachusetts-Hospital-Handbook/dp/1451193785?ie=UTF8&keywords=pocket%20medicine&qid=1463463929&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

Could not recommend it more. It has been invaluable so far on my inpatient medicine rotation.

NRSG.com has a pharm course that I'm taking over the summer. Get an early start on that crap, that's the one course that almost took me out last semester (did fine in the class but failed the ATI). I also really like these pharm flashcards, they don't cover all drugs but I was actually able to visualize a few of the cards during my ATI retake and it helped.

I am also in patho next fall so can't help you there....

You need some PDA

https://www.amazon.com/Prioritization-Delegation-Assignment-Exercises-Examination/dp/0323113435

This book will abuse you but make you understand the nclex style of questions

Check out this book. Amazing writer. Think you’ll find it interesting.

If you don’t die a fairly painless death from ALZ, you’ll die a painful death from cancer. That’s just what the data says. I’ll take the ALZ path myself.

Eventually the decision will have to made, shut down a children’s vaccination program and divert the $$$s to ALZ research, that’s the issue coming up. What would you do?

The Atlantic Article :

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/dying-better/384626/


The book:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0805095152?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title


“Beautifully written . . . In his newest and best book, Gawande . . . has provided us with a moving and clear-eyed look at aging and death in our society, and at the harms we do in turning it into a medical problem, rather than a human one.” ―The New York Review of Books

PS. I don’t usually say “Nazi”, you can say the German people. They were just everyday people. Could have been anyone. Just like anyone you or I know.

Thanks for the reply, always enjoy thinking about it all.

Not really.

Chemotherapy is horrible for some patients making them feel even worse than death.

If you can, you should read up Being Mortal. I cannot recommend it enough. It will change your perspective about death, and also about life. Review 1, 2.

More.

> our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; and that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, culture, and conversations to transform the possibilities for the last chapters of all of our lives.

That would be highly unusual and unlikely. I won't say it's literally impossible, but there's absolutely no reason to make such an untenable assumption when a clear and solid motivating factor, such as in this case, the separation from a close partner, exists.

"LSD, which is widely abused, does not appear to be addictive." -source

"In contrast to many other abused drugs, hallucinogens
do not engender drug dependence or addiction and are
not considered to be reinforcing substances (O’Brien,
2001)." -source

"There are no literature reports of successful attempts to
train animals to self-administer classical hallucinogens, an
animal model predictive of abuse liability, indicating that
these substances do not possess the necessary pharmacology to either initiate or maintain dependence. Hoffmeister
(1975) has reported that LSD actually had negative
reinforcing properties in rhesus monkeys trained in an
avoidance task." -source

"Several other classes of drugs are categorized as drugs of abuse but rarely produce compulsive use. These include psychedelic agents, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)" -source

There's a great book that I recommend left and right to people - Atul Gawande's Being Mortal. It covers a huge breadth of topics regarding aging, end of life, terminal illness, cancer, hospice/palliative care, nursing homes, death, and modern medicine.
One of the recurring issues that comes up is the struggle for many doctors to effectively communicate expectations and outcomes with patients and their families. They find it challenging to have those very necessary, but difficult, conversations that basically boil down to "you have a disease that is 99% going to kill you and there's nothing more we can realistically do to extend your life without causing more suffering."We have encouraged doctors to change healthcare from a service to a conversation -- to involve patients in their care -- and it is overall a very good thing, but this has has an unintended consequence; doctors are afraid to dispense bad news. So they beat around the bush; they say, "you have stage IV renal cell carcinoma, with mets here, here, and here. What questions do you have for me?" The patient asks, "how do we treat it?" -- the doctor says, "well, we can do chemo, radiation... there are some medications, and a few clinical trials we could see if you qualify for..." (note how, at no point, the doctor says "there is no cure; this is terminal.") Time prognoses are scary (not to mention a potential liability!), so we tell them to try to avoid them - so we don't tell the patient they are likely going to be dead less than 3 months from now. The family member interjects that they want "everything possible" done to save their loved one, accompanied by printouts of google searches and random crap they found online. The doctor entertains this, even though they know it won't do anything - again, they're afraid to tell the patient no, this random experimental treatment or drug you're requesting isn't going to save your life, and you're still going to die.
So when the patient with stage IV cancer declines and winds up in the hospital, and all signs begin to point towards impending imminent death, the family is shocked, horrified, but most of all surprised. "I didn't expect her to die so fast", posted one of my facebook acquaintances after her mother rapidly declined; they had been on the "pray the terminal cancer away" and "we're waiting to get her into an experimental treatment, if her numbers improve juuuust a little bit!" denial train.
There was a study not too long ago that found that most patients with end-stage cancer didn't evaluate themselves as terminal. We see facebook walls filled with people posting about their loved ones or even themselves - I have stage 3, stage 4 cancer, prayers, more prayers, send hope; she's a warrior, she can beat this, he's so strong and will fight! Either we are promoting a culture of delusion or doctors aren't being blunt enough with their patients and their families about the realities of these kind of illnesses.
Because you're right - ask any doctor or nurse and they'll tell you, stage 4 means say your good-byes, tie up your loose ends, go on that vacation you always wanted to but never got around to, and find a means to end your life while you still have the autonomy to do so with the least suffering.