Jefferson Medical College Alpha Omega Alpha Guide to the Second Year
Foundations of Pathology
BOOKS
Reading in Rubin's Pathology is "required." The syllabus is all-inclusive however, so you might just want to read if you like textbooks to clarify some points. Some students used the Rubin's "Essentials of Pathology," which is about a third of the size as the Rubin's Pathology book and most felt that this was sufficient. Others decided not to read and still did well. You have to decide what you feel comfortable with in regards to how fast you can read large amounts of material and retain the information. You should definitely make sure you have access to the "required" Rubin's Pathology because most exam pictures come from that book. You will need to review these pictures before the Pathology exam to get some easy points.
Many students also use BRS Pathology at this stage. It has quite a few introductory chapters that are very beneficial. You will use it often later in the year so it is a good investment now to help you out. Lippincott's Illustrated Q&A Review of Rubin's Pathology (coauthored by Jefferson's own Dr. Fenderson and Dr. Strayer) is a great, quick source for question and case-based learning.
SYLLABUS
Relatively inclusive, though definitely designed to be used while going to class. Some lectures are just PowerPoint slides printed out and they may be in outline form (similar to the structure of Anatomy lecture notes). Glance through the lectures the day before just to see if it looks like you'll need to go to class or supplement your reading (if you don't go to class).
EXAM
Prepare yourself for a new testing style. Questions are typically clinical vignettes and not as "straight forward" as your first year exams. These still provide multiple choice format questions without "negative terms" (ie/ which of these is NOT seen in…). Throughout second year, you will begin to have "choose the BEST single answer" questions (different from first year's "only one answer choice is right" approach). In these types of questions, multiple answers choices may be plausible, but there is a notably "more right" answer. Knowing the syllabus well seems to be the best way to differentiate the answer choice that the many of these questions will be looking for.
Last updated: 7/12
