Several months before the Board Exams, Dr. Carlos Santos sent members of our class a copy of a Philippine Board Exam Survival Guide via email. Although I was tempted to write my own survival guide to send to the succeeding batches, I eventually decided that annotating the original would suffice. (The annotated version can be downloaded here.) What I’d really like to share now is how I studied for the Boards using the Internet and the software I used to organize the vast amounts of data at my disposal.

At first, I was hesitant to use the Internet as a study tool. I had a bookshelf full of medical textbooks and study guides within arm’s reach so it felt rather superfluous to mine on-line data sources. I came to realize that on-line medical data had several advantages over printed media: the information was more current, was oftentimes more concise, and had links to more sources. There were times when I felt more comfortable clicking through web pages than thumbing through the poorly organized indexes of textbooks. The only caveat here is that not all on-line sources are credible, and one must always be wary of who is saying what.

Useful Sites

Here is a list of sites I used in the latter part of my review. It’s still advisable to start with the textbooks but if any questions come up during your first reading, jot them down so you can research for answers on-line. It would be helpful if you knew exactly what pieces of information you’re looking for. Aimless surfing is good for kicks but not for studying and serious research.

The Family Practice Notebook and E-medicine.These sites contain articles and practice guidelines in outline form, which are very useful when trying to learn how to manage common cases.

Medscape. This is one of the best medical sites out there. Not only does it feature medical articles but it also offers a healthy serving of journal reviews and case reports. Short quizzes at the end of the articles help the reader in self-evaluation. The site also has a lot of searchable databases, including Medline and a medical dictionary. You have to sign up to gain access but membership is free.

Chan Robles Virtual Law Library. What’s a law site doing here? Well, aside from having satisfactory knowledge of Medical Jurisprudence and Legal Medicine, a medical student must also be familiar with the laws regarding preventive medicine, hygiene and medical insurance. The site, with its gaudy color schemes and disorganized tables, looks like it was designed by a three-year old, but content-wise, it’s the most comprehensive Filipino law site in the net. Use it’s search page to find what you’re looking for. A definite must read is The Philippine Health Insurance Act of 1995.

Software

I used two pieces of freeware during my on-line study sessions: TreePad Lite and Webstripper.

TreePad Lite is a program which allows the user to organize information in a tree structure, which makes it the perfect application for organizing one’s notes. I’m a big fan of tiny apps and this wonderful program fits in one floppy disk — internal search engine, basic word processor and all.

Webstripper, on the other hand, is an application that can download an entire site into your hard drive for offline viewing. This is very helpful when you find yourself needing to view a graphics intensive site. Once the site is saved on your machine, you don’t have to connect to your ISP to view it again. I used it to download three Biochemistry sites (the data amounted to around 10 MB) so I wouldn’t have to waste time waiting for images and tables to appear on my browser.

Speaking of browsers, it was during one of my review sessions that I chanced upon an alternative to Internet Explorer. I was so satisfied with the performance and usability of Mozilla Firebird that I’ve made it into my default browser.

Well, that’s pretty much it.

For medical students looking for advice regarding what textbooks to read, what topics to concentrate on, and what documents to prepare for the application process, please refer to the annotated guide.

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