Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2022 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Med Bootcamp is a learning platform which affiliated but a separate product of the Anatomy Bootcamp Learning Platform, which is well known and popular for its extensive anatomy videos and question banks. They recently created Med Bootcamp which are Board Style questions meant to help prepare students for the USMLE step 1 exam.

Since it is relatively new there is little knowledge on if it is actually a good resource for the USMLE step 1 exam, and unfortunately a lot of the reviews out there on this product are simply inaccurrate.

Luckily I have used the Med Bootcamp USMLE step 1 questions and in this article I will give an objective review on if it is a good resource for the USMLE step 1 exam as well as for the medical school in general.

Does Med Bootcamp have all the USMLE step 1 subjects?

Med Bootcamp USMLE Subjects

• Cardiology
• Pulmonology
• Nephrology
• Endocrinology
• Neurology
• immunology

Disciplines

• Anatomy
• Embryology
• Histology
• Microbiology
• Pharmacology
• Physiology
• Pathology
• Pathophysiology

What are the pros and cons of Med Bootcamp for Step 1?

Pros

• Questions and interface mirror the USMLE format 
• Questions are a good mix of medium, hard, easy difficulty
• Questions encompass a lot of what is on the exam
• Explanations are in depth,  thoroughly go through each answer choice, and state why the answer is incorrect
• Price is very affordable. Additionally, the payment plan with Zip helps medical students be able to afford this product
• The Board Style Questions can be used in conjunction with the videos as well as the Bite Sized questions
• The ability to prioritize questions based on how well you know it is convenient as it allows you to better prioritize the topics that you put most of your energy. 
• Some individual topics such as Cardiology are very good. In Particular, I believe it covers pharmacology very well in this section as well as Pathophysiology. Both of these sections contain over 100 board style practice questions
• In general another good thing about this product is that certain concepts are asked about over and over. This is a very good feature that this question bank has because they are taking into account that some concepts are mote high yield than others. Therefore to really drill those high yield concepts into  your head they are repeated a large number of times.
• platform has a create custom quiz section which allows you to tailor make your own quiz session based on select topics.
• The interface has a highlight feature which allows you to highlight any part of the clinical vignette. This is a very good feature if you are they type of reader that likes have some way of directing your attention to important information.
• The platform recently added a strikeout feature which allows you to cross out the choices that you got wrong. This feature is one of many improvements that the platform has improved on.
• You can see the percent you got correct after each quiz session. This is a great updated improvement that the platform added because now you no longer have to manually calculate your raw percentage.
• Med School Bootcamp now has a feature which allows its users to see how they are doing in comparison to others who have answered the same question.

Additionally Med School Bootcamp has added major upgrades to the User analytics section at the end of assessments which now shows visual data of how you stack compared to other people who have taken the same questions.

• Med School Bootcamp also has an anki deck. The Anki deck is integrated into Anking V12. To get the deck you just got to the blog posts on the Med School Bootcamp. This is the link

• Another very good attribute of med school bootcamp is the Endocrinology section.Endocrinology is one of those subjects where it’s hard to find quality resources online. Med School bootcamp previously had only 1 section with endocrinology bite questions, but now they have over 200 endocrinology questions!

Cons

• As mentioned above, even though some topics tend to get asked a lot more then others, this can go overboard sometimes. For instance in the pulmonary pathology section, most of the questions asked about Pulmonary embolism, Asthma, and chronic bronchitis. In the Cardiology section the pathophysiology  section asked mainly about aortic stenosis. In the Pathology section for Cardiology  there are many questions about heart failure with very similar patient presentationsThere is not a tool which shows you how you did in comparison to your peers. However, Med Bootcamp is currently in the process of including a feature like this on their platform. in general this is not a substantial problem that should prevent anyone from getting this product.

What is the best way to use Med School Bootcamp for Step 1?

Because there is no way to compare your scores to other users I don’t think you can use the med bootcamp question bank as a measuring tool to see where you stand. 

However, because the  question banks can only be taken one topic at a time,  one way to use this resource for Step 1 would be to use it to review for specific deficiencies that you have in. For instance if you had trouble specifically on pharmacology, then you could take the pharmacology question banks to get targeted practice in this area.

Additionally, I think this resource is beneficial if used during your pre clerkship curriculum. The subjects are organized in a way that makes self learning the material alongside your school curriculum very easy. One of the other ways that you can use Med School Bootcamp is to study for Shelf Exams. In particular, med school bootcamp is useful for the Neurology Shelf exam.

To date I have not seen a more comprehensive resource for learning Neuroanatomy. The sections that I found helpful on med school Bootcamp were the sections which went over the cerebral cortex, radiculopathies, as well as the Diencephalon. These questions tended to show up frequently on the Neurology shelf and are well covered by Med School Bootcamp.

Which Subjects have the best questions in the Med School Bootcamp

Cardiology has very good questions. As far as a specific discipline goes, The pharmacology and pathology banks were had very high quality questions. For these sections in particular, the questions were a good balance of forcing you to rely on brute memorization and also making you rely on your ability to use critical thinking skills.

The Pulmonology question bank is also very helpful. For the Pulmonology section I thought the questions which asked about microbiology were also very good. This was good because microbiology is a very big portion of pulmonology. 

What are the alternatives for USMLE step 1 other than Med School Bootcamp?

There are many good alternatives for Med Bootcamp for the USMLE step 1 exam. I think any of the following question banks are good to use for the USMLE step 1 exam

• True Learn Question Bank
• USMLE Rx
• Lecturio Question Bank

How do you get Med School Bootcamp

Med Bootcamp is a separate product from Anatomy Bootcamp so you have to sign up separately. Luckily Med Bootcamp sign up is relatively simple. You can begin with a free trial or if you are ready to start using it for your studies then use the sign up below.

Are there Discount codes for Med School Bootcamp

Yes. The creators of Med School Bootcamp understand that medical school is not cheap. They always aim make subscriptions accessible and affordable for students. If you are interested in receiving a discount code then sign up below!

In Conclusion

I think Med Bootcamp  can be used for the USMLE exam. Although it is relatively new and is still being developed, the interface and the questions are very representative of what you should expect to see on the USMLE exam. If you found this article helpful, then you may enjoy reading some of the articles ;listed below

• Is Anatomy bootcamp Worth it
• KenHub vs Anatomy bootcamp Question Bank Comparison