According to the new curriculum, there are 3 subjects in the 2nd yr, so let's begin the strategy for each, one by one.
PHARMACOLOGY —
- TEXTBOOKS : Follow KDT for building concepts. Along with that, you can refer to Satoskar (i studied only CNS from that), Dr. Garg's review book (pdf will do, you can solve MCQs too), Kaplan lecture notes (pdf). Before professionals, you can resort to Shanbhag😅.
Your approach to studying any class of drug should start with memorizing the classification and then follow as below for individual drug—
- Mechanism of action (preferably in the flowchart)
- Pharmacokinetics
- Therapeutic uses
- Adverse effects (1/2 specific + nausea/vomiting 🤪)
- Drug interaction (at least 1)
- Contraindications
(This is how you can make notes for any drug, and you can reproduce the same in exam). (In case of antimicrobials, don't forget to mention the spectrum of action of the drug).
Remember the doses of a drug only with special regimen like for H.pylori, Malaria, TB, etc. For management cases related questions like that of OP poisoning, MI, DKA its better to write the doses.
In viva, professors invariably ask for DOC in asthma, HTN emergency, etc, which you can easily get in last pages of Dr. Garg's review book.
- VIDEO LECTURES : Kaplan Videos (these are available on youtube) have been my saviour and I recommend watching atleast general and ANS portion from that, Sketchy Pharma.
PATHOLOGY —
- TEXTBOOKS : My fav among all 2nd yr books- Robbins Basic Pathology 🙏. You can go for the Robbins Basis (2 volumes wala) if you can manage to study that much chunk of material. Apart from that I used mini Harshmohan (very useful before exam) and Review book by Sparsh Gupta (pdf).
Firstly get very well versed with general patho like cell injury, inflammation, neoplasia. For systemic pathology, all you have to read is about particular disease where you can follow this 👇
- Introduction about the disease (1–2 lines)
- Epidemiology (age and sex prevalence)
- Etiology
- Pathogenesis
- Morphological features (gross and microscopic). Its better if you make diagrams for microscopic appearance
- Clinical features
- Prognostic factors (like in case of Ca breast)
- Investigations for diagnosis (LFT, RFT) and tumour markers in case of cancer
Always try to explain with diagrams and flowcharts. This also helps to understand and retain better.
- VIDEO LECTURES: I relied fully on Pathoma (it's available on Telegram, you can correlate with whatever you read in Robbins with pathoma), Dr. Najeeb.
MICROBIOLOGY —
- TEXTBOOKS: Apurba Sastry (hands down) alone is sufficient for general micro, immunology, bacteriology, virology, mycology,. For Parasitology you can go for Sastry or Paniker, both are equally good. Also for the Immunology part, I referred to Kaplan lecture notes (pdf).
Here also there's a format of how to make notes and present in exam
- Morphology of the bacteria
- Virulence factors (toxins)
- Clinical manifestations
- Lab diagnosis
- Sample collection
- Transport
- Direct microscopy
- Culture
- Gram staining and motility test
- Biochemical tests
- Serological tests
- Molecular methods
- Antibiotic susceptibility testing
(The above pattern is in the case of bacteriology). Lab diagnosis is the most important part. In Sastry for every organism, lab diagnosis has been described in a box which is extremely useful during revision before professional exams.
- VIDEO LECTURES: Sketchy Micro is the best one, and Osmosis (for hypersensitivity reactions and virology)
Note: Supplement all your textbooks with Prepladder/Marrow notes (prep notes have many mnemonics) for all 3 subjects. If you've subscribed, it is well and good, or else you can avail them from Telegram. Also, I would suggest going through Marrow videos
Now since the new curriculum batch will get only 11 months (instead of 1.5 yrs) to complete the syllabus of the 2nd yr, don't waste time thinking 'ab toh honeymoon period hai’. Give your best!
Hope that helps :)
0 Comments