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Basically I found Kaplan having 2 sets of study materials in the market: the kaplan lecture which is a set of 8 books and kaplan study programs.
do we need to study from both sets??? Are they similar??? What are the differences???
Anyone know is the lastest edition of kaplan lecture notes 2006 out???
Posts: 3,675,934
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I bought the Home Study books about 6 months ago. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but I wouldn't recommend them over the Kaplan Notes. Pharmacology and genetics are(almost) identical to the notes. Everything else is different, including the authors.
Pros:
1. Physiology sections are excellent
2. There's a separate section on cell biology- very useful
3. Comprehensive coverage of neuroanatomy
Cons
1. Definitely not worth 450$
2. Inexplicably, the clinical boxes and annotations have been reduced in number by at least 50% compared to the notes
3. Awful anatomy and microbiology sections
The first two books cover the General Principles:
book #1
Biochemistry- Theodore Hare is the author. Not bad, but not enough clinical correlations. Can't recommend it over Barbara Hansen's notes.
Molecular biology- Same as the biochemistry section. Good genetic engineering chapter.
Cell biology- 36 pages of high-yield stuff. Found it very useful.
Genetics- almost identical to the Jorde notes, but without the clinical boxes. Just a few annotations at the margins.
Microbiology- terrible.
Immunology- I liked the way it was organized, but ended using other resources (Levinson).
Behavioral science- biostatistics and epidemiology chapters aren't bad, I thought they were better than in the notes. The rest is nothing special. I used Fadem's BRS.
The second book covers general pathology, histology(epithelia only), general pharmacology and embriology( everything but the systems). Not much to say about this one, it just covers everything they couldn't stuff in the Organ systems books, so it doesn't make much sense by itself.
Organ systems book #1: Cardio, lungs, Renal/urinary, blood/lympho and CNS. There are 686 pages in this one, 354 of which are CNS.
Organ systems book #2: Endocrine, musculoskeletal/skin, reproductive, gastrointestinal.
The anatomy sections- awful. Ganong has more embriology, histology and gross anatomy than these books. Compared to them, First Aid seems like a comprehensive resource of anatomy. Exception- Leslie Manley's neuroanatomy section. Beautifully written, BUT again, not enough clinical correlations. I used Fix's High-Yield as a supplement and it worked great.
Physiology- excellent.
Pathology- so-so. Some good chapters (cardio), some pretty bad (musculoskeletal).
Pharmacology- almost identical to the notes. I guess only the autonomic chapter is drastically different in Trevor's 2004 notes.
My advice: don't waste your money. I ended up using the Kaplan Notes much more than these books...
