Summer's end draws nigh...

First let me say I had a wonderful summer. I went on a cell phone- free, email -free vacation for a week, and it was pure heaven. I also did research with a neurosurgeon, and fingers crossed I may get a publication out of it (if not, I still had a great experience and made some wonderful contacts). So all in all, I had a productive summer. This week was my last week as a full time researcher, so it was quite hectic as I scrambled to wrap up everything. I still have stuff to do, so I'll be putting in a few hours per week over the next few weeks to finish up.
This summer I also tried to figure out the best way to approach studying for the boards. I came across all sorts of stuff (most on SDN); one was the infamous Taus method ( http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=756311 ) that I never heard of until this summer. It seems pretty sound and something I'll likely use, although I'll modify it to suit  my study style. The other is Gunner training https://www.gunnertraining.com/free_trial_offer  I mention it because they are offering a free trial so it's definitely worth it to check it out to see if it fits your study style. (Thanks for the heads up Jessica!). I haven't gone through it fully as yet, so I can't comment on it. WikiTestPrep http://www.wikitestprep.org/ also looks like a site I'll visit frequently; they have a bunch of questions that can be organized by systems. On a lighter note, I also discovered this super funny blog, I swear this post is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while, and so true!  http://doccartoon.blogspot.com/p/anatomy-lab-groups.html
So my other goal for the summer was to pre-read for Renal. I started off reading the text for the class (Renal Pathophysiology); about a third of the way in I realized I wasn't retaining anything and needed to do something else. I am happy to say I read the renal chapter in Costanzo Physiology, annotated most of the chapter in FA, and am now reading the renal chapter in Robbins. I must say, Path is so much more fun to read than Physiology; that one chapter of Costanzo took me so long to get through. Of course, I am also a slow reader and get easily distracted, so that may have been part of the problem. Costanzo Physiology is a great book, well written and very straightforward. By the time I got to the end of the chapter I realize some things were repeated multiple times, so they actually stuck. I also have Costanzo BRS Phys which everyone swears by for the boards. However, I don't do well with bullet points, I need to have stuff explained. So for classes I'll use the text, then when I get ready for serious boards I'll use BRS. I'll also do the end of chapter questions in BRS within the next few days also.
I haven't had a chance to review any of the material from first year, but I will try and do even a little bit before classes start. In particular, I would like to annotate the Cardio, Respiratory, and Biochem chapter in FA. I'm not sure how manageable that is is the amount of time I have, but I'll try.
Anyway, off to troll on SDN and read Robbins...
xoxo,
HOGO