18D ACCP Prep Course

[Eagle5US]

Don't waste your money on Netter-

Want the most effective and proven learning tools for anatomy and physiciology? Get the Anatomy and Physiology coloring books and a good set of 50, or so, colored pencils.

You read about the part, then you look at the part carefully as you color it (to not go outside the lines and make it look pretty) then you look at it again as you color the parts adjacent to it.

There are hundreds of anatomy books...they all have the same basic parts inside-Schick Charts are great-cheap-and appropriate.

As was said earlier-it's all work, and lots of it. "The Best Book" for anyone on anything is the book that an individual relates to and can learn from.

Good luck

Eagle

[Books]

+1 for the coloring books, they are very helpful. It's also one of the few books issued to us that we get to keep. . . how generous.

[x SF med]

Books-
ANY of the textbooks is available to keep, all you have to do is go to a college bookstore, or Amazon and plonk down the cash. If you don't buy a Taber's and a Merck during the course, you'll have to buy them once you get to your Team. I still have my medical library, and even update it occasionally. Expensive, but you have to realize your buddies' lives depend on you keeping up with your reading and studying on your own. The Q is just the initial learning, you have to keep up.

Just my .02, from experience - oh yeah, NREMT-P REQUIRES CME credits and periodic retesting to current standards, nothing is free.

[submariner]

Books,

Thanks for the response. You make some very cogent points. Understanding that there are A&P texts designed for different audiences helps with understanding the reviews.

D9, Thank you too. Although the Essentials was/is good for you, I will err on the side of too much information. When I was going through the nuclear power pipeline in the Navy, more info was better for me. Especially on some of the more difficult concepts. Sometimes that one last way of explaining or showing something caused that proverbial lightbulb to click.

[Books]

Originally Posted by x_sf_med

Books-
ANY of the textbooks is available to keep, all you have to do is go to a college bookstore, or Amazon and plonk down the cash. If you don't buy a Taber's and a Merck during the course, you'll have to buy them once you get to your Team. I still have my medical library, and even update it occasionally. Expensive, but you have to realize your buddies' lives depend on you keeping up with your reading and studying on your own. The Q is just the initial learning, you have to keep up.

Just my .02, from experience - oh yeah, NREMT-P REQUIRES CME credits and periodic retesting to current standards, nothing is free.

Roger that x_sf_med! We've been told by cadre that we should put in for the books when we get to our team and that our "work medical library" moves with us through our career. As for keeping a personal library, well, my screen name should say it all.

Other than the general medicine books (Merck, etc.), are there any others that you've found particularly valuable? For example, one of my instructors highly recommended that we get a couple of Sports Medicine exam/treatment books so we could bone up on shoulder, knee and ankle injuries.

[x SF med]

Books-
What's good for me, may be horrible for you - I go to the bookstore and browse, and then realize, I can't pay rent when I'm done, and really need to get a bigger car before I go home....

I used to work for a major publisher, so all I had to do was ask the medical division for anything I wanted (after I was out of SF, as karma would have it)

I liked "A Complete Guide to Sports Injuries" it was a quick find manual, and if you needed more info - get a Sports Medicine Text - Google is agreat resource for JAMA articles etc.

I hope I didn't just give you areason to spend your next paycheck in a bookstore.

[Mr. Freeze]

Eagle is right on with the A&P coloring series; my dad bought me one 20 years ago to keep me occupied while he worked on his PhD. I'm still using the exact same one in medical school, although I colored in most plates long ago.

There is obviously no replacement for pre-reading the actual book used for the course. I still use my Martini 4th Ed. from EMT-I. That said, there is an anatomist, Kyung Chung, that writes a book for medical licensing board review called Gross Anatomy BRS which a lot of people use instead of Netter's Atlas. It is very concise and geared entirely towards clinical application. Nearly all of the end of chapter questions involve some sort of GSW, stabbing, or blunt trauma; answering accurately requires knowledge of spatial and functional relationships between structures to diagnose/treat the injury.

As a disclaimer, I know nothing about the pipeline you can't read here, I lurk a whole lot more than I post, and I just try to absorb what I can from the best medical professionals on the planet...

[haztacmedic]

Getting slightly back on the original subject slightly: Some of the correspondence courses are out of date. The CPR course is definitely out dated and the Blood, Electrolytes, and IV infusions course emphasizes performing a veinous cut down when normal attempts fail. A veinous cut down may be life saving but now days medics can place needles directly into a patient's bone marrow cavity (procedure is called interosseous infusion and is simple to perform) to provide Fluid replacement, and medications. This more current procedure is not included in the course...Still though this is a good learning experience and a review at times as I stated in previous post.
HTM

[haztacmedic]

I just finished the Drug calculations sub course and I have to say that it definitely was a good (difficult experience) in math and in calculating drug doses. There were some problems in the course I have never had to calculate. Any one else have the same experience?
HTM

[Surgicalcric]

Originally Posted by haztacmedic

...There were some problems in the course I have never had to calculate. Any one else have the same experience?
HTM

I had the same issue, with respect to calculating doses and drips, in Med Funds (first 4 weeks of SOCM). Its not too bad though. The dimensional analysis was strange at first but its easier than long math in the end.

Crip

[haztacmedic]

Crip: Did you find this stuff more difficult than your paramedic calculations you already had? There is a few problems in the exam that normally are calculated by pharmacy staff in a normal hospital setting.
HTM

[Surgicalcric]

i wouldnt say more difficult, just different. It was pretty easy once I figured out the dimensional analysis. I had a mental block for a day or so and couldnt let go of the long math I had learned some 13 years ago.

Crip

[SRT31B]

Got to finish Pharm Calc tomorrow then I am D, U, N, DONE with the prep course! On to bigger and better things...

... like more rucking.

[RADIO82]

I have been looking for the course on both ATTARS & ACCP and can't find it on either one. Is there anyone that knows the course number and the actual course name?

[Scimitar]

OK,

It is kinda hard to find them. It is on ATTARS, but you find the actual course downloads on https://rdl.train.army.mil/soldierPortal/soldier.portal

The whole course is referred to as 081-18DPrep
WARNING: this info is a bit old but should still be solid

There are 11 Sub-courses

MD0006 - Basic Human Anatomy = 26 hrs
MD0007 - Basic Human Physiology = 26 hrs
MD0010 - Basic medical terminology = 5 hrs
MD0532 - CPR = 10 hrs
MD0801 - Prescription interpretation = 3 hrs
MD0802 - Pharmaceutical calculations = 10 hrs
MD0803 - General chemistry = 14 hrs
MD0851 - A&P related to clinical pathology = 6 hrs
MD0852 - Urinalysis = 7 hrs
MD0900 - Basic math = 8 hrs
MD0913 - Drug dosage and therapy = 16 hrs

Simply type the code in the keyword section and hit the submit button on the right hand side

Excluding the A&P which is covered in more detail in the textbooks recommended here you're looking at 79 hrs worth of work + your own A&P Study

Hope this helps

S