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First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 2025
The time-tested, most popular board prep resource—updated to reflect the newest Step 1 exam
First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 is a veritable blueprint for preparing for this critical exam, revealing all the content you will encounter on test day. This unmatched text is written by carefully chosen students who excelled on the Step 1 exam and reviewed by top faculty—ensuring the content is relevant, high-yield, and accurate. The book is organized and formatted in ways that help you easily hone in on the most important content.
The new edition of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 is filled with 1,000 color clinical images, including more depicting diverse patients; 1,300+ high-yield facts and mnemonics, organized into basic principles and organ system; and invaluable test-taking advice. There’s a reason for the longstanding success of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. Once you open the 2025 edition, you’ll instantly understand why it’s a resource you can’t be without!
First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 is a veritable blueprint for preparing for this critical exam, revealing all the content you will encounter on test day. This unmatched text is written by carefully chosen students who excelled on the Step 1 exam and reviewed by top faculty—ensuring the content is relevant, high-yield, and accurate. The book is organized and formatted in ways that help you easily hone in on the most important content.
The new edition of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 is filled with 1,000 color clinical images, including more depicting diverse patients; 1,300+ high-yield facts and mnemonics, organized into basic principles and organ system; and invaluable test-taking advice. There’s a reason for the longstanding success of First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. Once you open the 2025 edition, you’ll instantly understand why it’s a resource you can’t be without!
864 pages, Paperback
Published February 20, 2025
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May 15, 2025man.
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January 12, 2026One of the only celebrity-meeting-flexes that I have is actually Dr. Tao Le. I first met him on a Zoom call in 2021. He seemed an astute man with excellent business skills and a genuine desire to help others. It was on this Zoom call that he shared with me and my fellow members of Beta Theta Pi, Epsilon chapter (of which he was an alumnus (class of 1991)), not just advice on a successful career, but also his struggles with finding a career in medicine and the process of meeting the standards of medical boards. Having read First Aid 2025, I can also confidently say that he understands a crucial detail of the medical profession: it runs entirely on numbers.
In the fall of 2024, I began medical school. Very quickly, as many people do when entering a new profession or professional program, I started to learn the vernacular that comes with the territory. Of everything that I picked up, the concepts of high-yield and low-yield permeate my thoughts constantly. Every concept or idea in medical school that you learn has "yield." The yield of content is how frequently it shows up on a board exam, e.g., Steps 1, 2, and 3. Higher-yield topics come up more frequently, and so it is best to put more energy into learning them to maximize your chances of passing or improving your score. And I'll say it: it is concerning that a cornerstone strategy of studying in medical school is based on how content shows up on board exams, rather than, maybe, how valuable knowledge is for healing another person.
All of this culminated in what happened to me a few days ago: I took Step 1. And, really, every day I cope with the fact that to become a doctor in America is to "play the game," per se. You have to consistently prove that you are capable of thinking and performing in a way that dominant institutions designate as acceptable or useful. You have to produce certain numbers; otherwise, it's game over. The song of reducing education and intelligence to numbers is an old refrain, so I'll just leave it at that.
Soap-boxing aside, for what this book is, it is solid. Dr. Tao Le gets it. He just does. What he wanted during his time studying for boards, a Bible-esque tome brimming with only the finest and highest-yield information, is now ours. He walked so we could Step. Good luck.
In the fall of 2024, I began medical school. Very quickly, as many people do when entering a new profession or professional program, I started to learn the vernacular that comes with the territory. Of everything that I picked up, the concepts of high-yield and low-yield permeate my thoughts constantly. Every concept or idea in medical school that you learn has "yield." The yield of content is how frequently it shows up on a board exam, e.g., Steps 1, 2, and 3. Higher-yield topics come up more frequently, and so it is best to put more energy into learning them to maximize your chances of passing or improving your score. And I'll say it: it is concerning that a cornerstone strategy of studying in medical school is based on how content shows up on board exams, rather than, maybe, how valuable knowledge is for healing another person.
All of this culminated in what happened to me a few days ago: I took Step 1. And, really, every day I cope with the fact that to become a doctor in America is to "play the game," per se. You have to consistently prove that you are capable of thinking and performing in a way that dominant institutions designate as acceptable or useful. You have to produce certain numbers; otherwise, it's game over. The song of reducing education and intelligence to numbers is an old refrain, so I'll just leave it at that.
Soap-boxing aside, for what this book is, it is solid. Dr. Tao Le gets it. He just does. What he wanted during his time studying for boards, a Bible-esque tome brimming with only the finest and highest-yield information, is now ours. He walked so we could Step. Good luck.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews