Pain Board review courses

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Any recommendations on a good pain board review course? Im currently considering Dannemiller or Jensen. My background is PM+R s/p Anesthesia Pain fellowship.

Thanks in advance.....i know it's a late request with the test coming up in September.

T

Im disappointed no one has answered. Does that mean no one has taken a Pain review course?

T

Todd-

I have posted before asking info for pain board review courses. No one replied. BTW, i am just reading review book by Raj. I dont think i could find time to go for review courses. Please let me know if you have other ideas to prepare for the test. I would also appreciate if some one else add some help for us.
feel free to PM me.

Originally Posted by Pain Specialist

Todd-

I have posted before asking info for pain board review courses. No one replied. BTW, i am just reading review book by Raj. I dont think i could find time to go for review courses. Please let me know if you have other ideas to prepare for the test. I would also appreciate if some one else add some help for us.
feel free to PM me.

I would be biased in providing a recommendation, since I am one of the course directors for the ASIPP review course....but I think it is excellent.

The pass rate for the review course attendees is very high.

The lectures at ASIPP have a large specialty representation among the speakers and all the speakers have been asked to create test questions for their subjects. In other words, a psychologist will ask questions related to pain psych and inject their specialty bias into the questions. I have found that the ABA/ABPMR exam questions tend to reflect the bias of the exam question writer, unlike the ABPM exam (which I personally believe is more clinically relevant).

So you have to decide, if you would like the stress of taking practice exams during a labor intensive review course week, a month before the exam- Sagar and Bert Fellows prepare the statistical results for each daily exam, so you can see how you did compared to others.

I have also heard wonderful things about Nalini's course at U of Wisconsin and Ken Candido's Dannemiller courses.

I don't know anything about the Jensen or the AAPMR courses.

As for review books, you should read at least two different ones to complement each other. I never went to a review course, but I studied Raj's review text (the orange one) and Raja's text cover to cover several times....and the ABA/ABPMR pain exam was the easiest exam I have ever taken (next to the ABPM).

There are several good review texts....Raj, Benzon, Staats + Wallace, around.
I have found Dr. Smith's book on Pain Drugs to be excellent...but I would only use it as a reference, this late in the game.

also, take stock of your background and start preparing for subjects in other disciplines

PMR back ground....make sure you understand post-op pain control, regional anesthesia, complications, analgesic pharmacology

Anesthesia background...make sure you understand the musculoskeletal/nervous system anatomy, diagnosis and treatment, radiographic imaging.

and of course the wild card topics

Pregnancy and Drugs...Dr. Rathmell has written an excellent article on this subject....don't ask me to send it to you....find it on PubMed or go to the library.

The ABA pain exam is simple and easy. Some questions are poorly written. If you did a fellowship (anesthesia based) you don't need a review course. The only book I read was Pain Management: PreTest Self-Assessment and Review by Cynthia Khan. Also consider taking a quick look at Raj's multiple choice questions ( orange soft cover).

Thanks drrinoo

I have Raj's comprehensive pain review book which is purple colored with blue letters. I guess it is the new edition of your orange soft cover book. right?

Originally Posted by Pain Specialist

Thanks drrinoo

I have Raj's comprehensive pain review book which is purple colored with blue letters. I guess it is the new edition of your orange soft cover book. right?

Yes, the purple is a newer edition....however, in the spirit of brevity (since he has published a number of extensive textbooks), he thinned out this edition. I still admire him for having the stamina to come out with another book. I still prefer the orange book, even though it is 9 years old...some things may be outdated...new pain drugs and advances in pain neurobiology....but the regional anesthetic and interventional pain sections are tops.

I dont think the orange edition was edited well cuz it has too many mistakes. I was hoping the purple edition, which i just started reading, was improved and fixed those errors, but now i see i may not have my wish. Guess ill have to compare both chapter by chapter to make sure i dont miss anything important.

T

Okay. It's almost Pain Boards time, so this thread needs a bump.

What's the best review course?

What are the best review books?

Is it worth going to the Dannemiller review course or just get the mp3s? I heard the Benzon book is good. What about painexam.com? Jensen Big Yeller? Abdi?

Any thoughts?

i looked at multiple sources, and the test has almost nothing to do with the questions.

As far as general knowledge goes, i really liked the Dannemiller review mp3s, especially downloading it and listening to it at home, in the car, at night, during dates (well, maybe not, cause ive been married a thousand - er i mean 13 years). The Benzon book is like a summarized bible, and there is a lot of info in it. i do have the older version, however.

Abdi was okay... there were a lot of questions, but the answers were hit and miss in terms of info. Some chapters were well written (especially the one by the pain fellow, who i met once).

painexam.com is a good site, with lots of good questions. I got Jensen, listened to it a couple of times, then decided the info was too outdated and i got tired of wasting time listening to war stories.

on the other hand, as i said before, much of the questions were not "covered" or part of any of these sources. i would study to further your knowledge and to allay some fears about the exam, but i think a lot of the test is more geared towards not being completely clueless, and to try to think through each question, as opposed to, for example, a history exam.

but if i had to choose again, i would listen to dannemiller OR read Benzon, and do painexam.com, and learn as much as possible on the job.

Originally Posted by Ducttape

i looked at multiple sources, and the test has almost nothing to do with the questions.

As far as general knowledge goes, i really liked the Dannemiller review mp3s, especially downloading it and listening to it at home, in the car, at night, during dates (well, maybe not, cause ive been married a thousand - er i mean 13 years). The Benzon book is like a summarized bible, and there is a lot of info in it. i do have the older version, however.

Abdi was okay... there were a lot of questions, but the answers were hit and miss in terms of info. Some chapters were well written (especially the one by the pain fellow, who i met once).

painexam.com is a good site, with lots of good questions. I got Jensen, listened to it a couple of times, then decided the info was too outdated and i got tired of wasting time listening to war stories.

on the other hand, as i said before, much of the questions were not "covered" or part of any of these sources. i would study to further your knowledge and to allay some fears about the exam, but i think a lot of the test is more geared towards not being completely clueless, and to try to think through each question, as opposed to, for example, a history exam.

but if i had to choose again, i would listen to dannemiller OR read Benzon, and do painexam.com, and learn as much as possible on the job.

Thanks. Anyone else?

Originally Posted by Ducttape

but if i had to choose again, i would listen to dannemiller OR read Benzon, and do painexam.com, and learn as much as possible on the job.

Agree

I did the Dannemiller review, it is time consuming so start early

I also recommend painexam.com

you will really not have the time to do more than the two of those

painexam.com is useful, questions are difficult and I and my fellows felt disocuraged when taking it, but scoring 60-70% is a good sign. Dannemiller I thought was very detailed for the test and it is good if you have the time to review it all. I also used the Jensen Big Yeller binder for review. During our fellowship, we used both Jensen and dannemiler as study aides which helped when it was time to review. I did not go to any of their courses, previous fellows said it was not worth the money since we reviewed material during the year.

Good luck! All of our fellows passed the boards.

Originally Posted by emd123

Thanks. Anyone else?

dannemiller and paper back pain books.

IMHO Jensen's book was one of the biggest wastes of money since I took that epiduroscopy course years ago.

thanks for the info.
Doc Todd let me know how the test goes in Sept.

Originally Posted by stim4u

thanks for the info.
Doc Todd let me know how the test goes in Sept.

The original post was in Sept 2005. Kinda late dont ya think? I guess whatever it was worked.

Originally Posted by Doctodd

The original post was in Sept 2005. Kinda late dont ya think? I guess whatever it was worked.

Let me know how your med school graduation goes...

funny... I was talking about our upcoming pain re certification pain exam. What are people using????

Does anyone know anything about the 5 day "10th Annual Comprehensive Pain Board Review Symposium" at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. I get flyers for this every year and was thinking of going this year. Get my learn on....

Originally Posted by Jcm800

Let me know how your med school graduation goes...

funny stuff......we all need a sense of humor

What about the annual Harvard Course in June. I've heard some of their tapes...sounds pretty good.

http://cme.hms.harvard.edu/index.asp...&SO=N#prgsched


BTW...I've got the mp3 for the Dannemiller Course from back in 2010, think much has really changed in terms of test material?

Does anyone know if the Dannemiller DVD's are in a format that can be loaded onto an ipod for listening in the car?

Originally Posted by NEPain

Does anyone know if the Dannemiller DVD's are in a format that can be loaded onto an ipod for listening in the car?

The files are easy enough to copy from the DVDs. Any videoconverter can make them whatever you want.

I'll try it out on some other dvd just to make sure it works before I spend the bucks. I think maybe handbrake will do it for my macbook. They ought to make them available on the apple store<g>

Hello all,
Danmiller do have Lectures which can be DL on I pod. Search there website.

I've emailed them, specifically asking if they offer anything that can be downloaded to ipod and they don't answer. I guess I'll take my chances that I can figure out how to do it, but I sure as hell am not watching them on TV.

I specifically put the actual DVD in my desktop, copied it over, and was easily played on a laptop and converted to any format I wanted.

Thanks to all. I'm sold. I appreciate the tech support

dannemiller 2010 dvd for sale email coupon9825@hotmail.com