Haha, thank you so much for your kind words!  As it turns out, residency is not easy, but I will do my best to post articles semi-regularly.  I remember all too well what it was like to be a medical student, and if I can help anyone to avoid some of the mistakes I and countless others have made, it will have been worth it =)

Thanks a ton! You are too awesome. I hope you do post new articles cause i will read all of em.

Thanks for the message! These are fantastic questions.

1) I LOVE the immuno book, probably the best book I read in medical school. Because it worked so well to get a big-picture understanding of immunology first before taking the class, I tried for other books. There is another book in the series that is not quite as good, but still helpful at yousmle.wpstagecoach.com/viruses. I never was able to finish it, though, since things got too busy, but what I read was quite useful.

2) I didn’t really do anything special to prepare for 3rd year/clerkships. I will say, though, having gone through clerkships, that being able to follow clinical scenarios in question stems for Step 1 questions is surprisingly applicable to clerkships. I hope to publish some articles on more clinically-oriented stuff later, which I would hope would be done by the time you enter clerkships =)

3) I found it really hard to know WHAT the specific symptoms were for each disease, and what the key ones were. It is surprisingly difficult to find good pre-clinical resources for this, and lecturers are not always the most helpful, either (unfortunately). Probably the best resource I found was using Goljan Pathology, whose book I prefer to the Pathoma book ( yousmle.wpstagecoach.com/goljan-pathology).

Thanks for the comments, and the fantastic questions. I can’t wait to hear more about your journey through medical school!

Take care,
Alec