I did PREP mainly and a little bit of medstudy. I did not have time at all, so I ended up using Medstudy just as a reference when I wasn't sure about something - which is NOT the way to use Medstudy! I know lots of pple who read all 4 medstudy books cover to cover. I unfortunately was/am in a very busy fellowship and did not have the time for that. I only studied for like 4 weeks.
So I just did the last 4 years of PREP, studying both the right answers and reading around the wrong answers. This made it very tedious, of course. I studied for 4 weeks. I had asked for vacation for the 2 weeks before the boards and I studied like no man's business in those 2 weeks. I could have been living in my PREP CD. I would wake up early and do NOTHING all day except for the PREP questions. I only showered, went to the gym or slept, if I needed to cool my head from the studying - there were no planned activities. I ate while doing questions. I was pretty much a zombie.
What I wish I couldve done:
All of Medstudy's 4 books cover to cover
Looked at Zitelli pictures like everyone else
The day before the exam, my friend and I crammed vaccine schedules (in great detail e.g.. catching up) and developmental milestones, (in great detail - walking forward, walking backward, pointing, shoelaces, dressing, undressing, triangle, square, tower of blocks, etc - the whole shebang).....My advice on vaccines and milestones is dont waste any time trying to study them BEFORE the night before the exam. You will forget stuff. Of course we all know when kids walk or babble. But the tiny details are harder to remember. Ok lemme rephrase.....you need to know "about" the vaccines ahead of time, but save the complex scheduling details for the end. Same thing with milestones. For instance, you need to understand the Denver ahead of time, but save the complex milestones for the end. Because it will take longer to attempt to commit everything to longterm memory upfront. So just commit them to short-term memory on the night before the exam.
It actually was a lot of fun for my friend and I cramming the milestones. We were acting out stuff and being goofy. At that point (5pm 10/26/08)
, there was no point in being unduly serious. The deed was done
! So we joked and crammed. And some of the jokes helped me remember stuff in the exam!!!!
So......thats the story of how I passed the pediatric boards. Crazy but true. A lot of questions I was able to answer with my so-called "residual knowledge".....i.e. not stuff that I studied prior to the boards, but just information stored somewhere in my brain from reading/activities of years ago, including medical school, residency, fellowship, master's.
I also prayed like hell, no pun intended....