Kaplan Medical USMLE Master the Boards Step 3 by Conrad Fischer and Sonia Reichert

Conrad Fischer, M.D., is one of the most experienced educators in medicine today. His breadth of teaching extends from medical students to USMLE prep to Specialty Board exams. In addition, Dr. Fischer is the . Dr. Fischer has been Chairman of Medicine for Kaplan Medical since 1999, and has held Residency Program Director positions at both Maimonides Medical Center and Flushing Hospital in the Director of Educational Development at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in New York City.

Sonia E. Reichert, M.D., previously served as Director of Curriculum for Kaplan Medical and is currently a Fellow in Hematology-Oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan. Dr. Reichert has many years of experience in the creation and development of Kaplan Medical's online, print, DVD and other media related educational tools in the medical and allied health fields. She is the leading national expert in the content, scoring and structure of medical licensing and allied health exams.

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I have gone through pretty much all of the step 3 review books in the market including FA, Crush step 3, the nail the board, Board and ward, and Strong Medicine. I also have read the Kaplan Q book step 3 This volume surpass all of the above in terms of the quality of content, amount of fine detail, board relevancy, and the author's unique insights into the material as a good teacher himself. He tend to shed a lot of good Insight into the board questions. I had met him once in person when I was a medical student at the FHMC in Queens, NY. But this book is not perfect (There is no such thing as a perfect board review book, we all know it). I wish there are more complete index, which is pretty bad and too brief. It takes some time to find a topic with "rushed out" kind of index. Also, there are a few errors. It says that Mitral valve prolapse with even regurgitaion does not need endocarditis Prophylaxis but I have been able to verify with a few medical references including Harrison-the recent update- and Washington manual that MR with regurgitation needs prophylaxis. the author boldly claims that there is no prophylatic therapy for cluster headache with some rather unconvincing logic, but I have read from several respectful sources that beta blockade or Calcium channel blockade must be given for prophylatic RX for cluster HA. I also found this misleading information about ASCUS in Pap smear results. It says that if pap results in ASUC, the patient need HPV testing, But it does not mention the important fact that if the patient is a high risk group, ASUCS must mandate immediate Colposcopy biopsy. Other shortcoming is the Leukemia section, which he almost neglect to cover the important facts about ALL and AML but throw in very vague mixed information under title "Acute leukemia". Other than the index, it is a decent volume and very reasonable priced. I would not recommend it as a sole review source though. Step 3 seem to ask the understanding of the concepts and application of the further managements contrast to the step 2 which is more of recognition of the key words and classic signs. Thus I reject this book's so called Guarantee passing score Claim....I highly recommend a second review book beside this for a better performance on step 3.It is really unreasonable to claim that this book has "everthing" to do pass step 3. I never recommend Strong Medicine, which is consistent of skeletal bullet list of the information without no actual bread and butter for each disease presentation. This book fails to demonstrate the competency and confidence of the material presented with a fair amount of wrong information as well. FA is also not recommended since its missing out too many topics and is also very boring to read with little insights. I only use the 100 CCS cases on the back of this book. Board and Ward is not recommended as well since its too basic to tackle the step 3 questions, which tend to ask much more in dept understanding and managements than mere factual key words, which is what is all about Board and Ward. It was useful for step 2 though and NBME Shelf exams. PS: I passed the step 3 with 217/91%,(October 2010) which I have to give a lot of credit toward this great book. Peace after the agony of waiting for the score, which sent to me via a lengthy email @ 12 PM, midnight third wednesday. Yet the matching process is yet to be known. Career in medicine consumes my soul and the person itself. Prayers for all.