First Aid for the USMLE Step 2 CK, Tenth Edition

UGH. So I read the reviews and I went into it - I bought the book and committed, because I thought I would be O.K. Someone else said that there needs to be more room in the margins for note taking. I SO AGREE. I was thinking, that's fine, I'll just add my own pages, which is what I did for First Aid step 1 2021 guide, and it was fine. That is to say, I write notes on my iPad on Notability, then trim 1 inch from the vertical and horizontal edges, then paste it in with cement glue. Then, I have more pages to write notes.

HOWEVER, with this book...OMG it's too much. My brain is frazzled. I'm not 100% sure exactly WHAT I need to know. I'm following OME and mainly Lecturio - which may be information overload, not sure, but all I know is, I hate it when the topic that is being discussed is NO WHERE in the book, but it's in First Aid Step 1...until you get to diagnosis criteria, management, treatment. I am more likely to find more room in THAT book. Come on! At least add a one liner so I can write notes about it myself. I uploaded a picture of the one blank page for notes at the end of pediatrics and the next page I glued in where I wrote stuff that isn't in the book anywhere - maybe I'm wrong and I should already have this is in my noggin and I should not need to jot it down...

What I have started doing is actually using my old First Aid step 1 book when the topic is present and just supplementing notes THERE with a different colored pen (since I wrote in only black or blue, now my step 2 notes are in red) and writing cross-reference pages to the other books. So I have my step 1 book, I have my step 2 book....and I don't know. Maybe I'll switch to another subject book later that has more information already typed.

At least the information is O.K. in the step 2 CK book. I don't understand why they couldn't just make a comprehensive book like the step 2 CK, except that students probably don't contribute as much to it compared to the first book. The other alternative is to just not take notes...and listen passively - in one ear and out the other.

So if you thought you could just add your own pages to the book like me and think you'd be fine...Yes...you COULD, but there may be a better solution out there. There probably is. Good luck!

****KINDLE REVIEW*****
The book is ok but I can't write notes on it so it's half useless. Thanks Kindle.

This book is not organized in the same manner as the Step 1 book, but its still a good reference.

Like many others have pointed out in their reviews, this book is just ok. Most of us will have come from using FA for Step 1, and that book was great. Super comprehensive and well organized, but unfortunately this book is not quite the same. I often found myself having to flip through pages and chapters to find a concept I was looking for, and sometimes even when I found where it was mentioned the discussion was superficial and not really helpful. With that said, it is in my opinion the best Step 2 book out there. I tried Master the Boards and literally threw that away. I looked at Step Up 2 Medicine and didn't think the organization was that great either. This may not be 100% the book that FA for Step 1 was, but it's 75% of the way there. I would recommend it, but I also hope it gets better in future editions.