Family Medicine Shelf Exam

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Any more advice?

If you have already taken Step 2 CK is the family medicine shelf pretty similar?

I already have taken Step 2 CK and got a 99 2 digit score and I did good on it.

Just wondering if I need to spend that much time studying for this. Since I have already done all my rotations and just have to make up the shelf I missed during a MS3.

Any suggestions?

Bump.

Any new info on this shelf? I take it this Friday.

i just took it recently. It had a very broad mix of questions from basic science, medicine and the ocassional peds and ob/gyn questions.
It didn't have much simple family med type complaints and preventitive care questions.

I agree that it was alot like step 1 in that they wanted to know organisms, how medications work and a few other things that seem MS1&2 more so than clincial.

If this is your last rotation don't study at all, if its your first, no point studying either its just too broad. just use your step 1 knowledge and wing it. i ended up not studying. family is such a worthless rotation (and speciality for that matter)...

If I had the option of taking this shelf closer to the end of m3 and way after the completion of my family rotation, would that be a good idea to do much better on the shelf?

i had a couple of questions regarding fam med shelf......

is there any practice questions for fam med shelf?

how is the ambulatory section of step up to med?

does usmle world have fam med section? is that helpful?

was first aid for step 2 and step up to step 2 good for the shelf?

thanks!!

hello, does anyone know how sweet the family med shelf curve is historically? I know this is a very open ended question, but i was just wondering if there are any opinions out there. please advise, thank you.

This shelf wasn't too bad. It was my 3rd shelf (had psych and OMM first). I did pretty well on it (91). All I did was read case files twice. I wanted to do pretest which I think would have helped a lot, but my attending always wanted to go the bar and/or play golf after work. It was a pretty awesome rotation from that standpoint, but it made it difficult to study.

Originally Posted by SGuttenberg

I signed up for the aafp website, logged in, went to the board review questions and see no quizzes. It says "Please note: You will only see quizzes that are available for you to report for CME credit." Is there another quiz bank for students or something?

Running into this problem as well...

Anyone?

Originally Posted by SGuttenberg

I signed up for the aafp website, logged in, went to the board review questions and see no quizzes. It says "Please note: You will only see quizzes that are available for you to report for CME credit." Is there another quiz bank for students or something?

just use those, you wont get CME credit, but they're great shelf review.

somewhere on the site it said you needed to be a student member to get access to the educational stuff. if you just fill in the generic email info it doesn't seem to work. i filled out the student app and hopefully this will give me access.

When I joined as a student member, the quizzes showed up.
Pretty hard questions, but good for learning.

has anyone read step up to medicine for their FM shelf and if so was it beneficial.. I'm reading casefiles and doing pretest and the free fm questions online. I just dont feel like reading a book like swanson's is worth it for me in the next three weeks before the shelf, but I will read step up if its good.

Originally Posted by Halitosis

hello, does anyone know how sweet the family med shelf curve is historically? I know this is a very open ended question, but i was just wondering if there are any opinions out there. please advise, thank you.

I had this early in the year. I can tell you that 85 raw was 95th percentile. Towards the end of the year and in rotations people care about, (peds, im, surgery) 90-92 raw is a 95th percentile. I am basing this on some conversations w/ MS4s. (small sample size)

I just had the shelf and thought it was really, really hard. Those familypractice.com board review questions are great, though. If I'd known about them sooner, I would've done them all. Unfortunately, there was a lot of Step 1-type stuff - micro, in particular - that wasn't covered much in the questions I did.

Originally Posted by MilkmanAl

I just had the shelf and thought it was really, really hard. Those familypractice.com board review questions are great, though. If I'd known about them sooner, I would've done them all. Unfortunately, there was a lot of Step 1-type stuff - micro, in particular - that wasn't covered much in the questions I did.

I started doing those questions, some of them seemed way beyond the scope of third year, they still helped that much though huh? I guess I'll do as many as I can and go through wrong pretest questions again. I take the shelf next week.

I'm finding blueprints to be a useless read thus far

Well, I wouldn't say they're incredibly helpful, but they are the best resource I found. Blueprints is a complete waste of your time. Case Files was okay, I guess, but you'd probably be better served just doing those question. Honestly, I don't think you can do well on this test without a brief review of micro, so that might be a wise thing to do. I had at least 6-7 questions asking me to choose an antibiotic.

Originally Posted by MilkmanAl

Well, I wouldn't say they're incredibly helpful, but they are the best resource I found. Blueprints is a complete waste of your time. Case Files was okay, I guess, but you'd probably be better served just doing those question. Honestly, I don't think you can do well on this test without a brief review of micro, so that might be a wise thing to do. I had at least 6-7 questions asking me to choose an antibiotic.

Yeah micro was substantial. Did you do pre-test? Some of the antibiotic questions were very similar to pre-test questions. Pre-test saved me for that shelf, I just did all the questions a few days before, got rocked, made a bunch of notes and memorized them. It's so broad it's a hard exam

Originally Posted by 2012mdc

Yeah micro was substantial. Did you do pre-test? Some of the antibiotic questions were very similar to pre-test questions. Pre-test saved me for that shelf, I just did all the questions a few days before, got rocked, made a bunch of notes and memorized them. It's so broad it's a hard exam

definitely agree with you about getting rocked on pretest. I barely got over 50% my first time through. Gonna read for the weekend and then do all the wrong answers over again in pretest early next week.

Originally Posted by 2012mdc

Yeah micro was substantial. Did you do pre-test? Some of the antibiotic questions were very similar to pre-test questions. Pre-test saved me for that shelf, I just did all the questions a few days before, got rocked, made a bunch of notes and memorized them. It's so broad it's a hard exam

Nope, I read about 1/3 of Case Files and did maybe ~200 of those board review questions. I haven't looked at Pre-test, but if I had the shelf to do over, I'd definitely look through FA's micro section and memorize the **** out of the "most common's," every disease with some sort of catchy buzz term, and antibiotics. That plus the board review would probably be solid preparation.

Originally Posted by MilkmanAl

Nope, I read about 1/3 of Case Files and did maybe ~200 of those board review questions. I haven't looked at Pre-test, but if I had the shelf to do over, I'd definitely look through FA's micro section and memorize the **** out of the "most common's," every disease with some sort of catchy buzz term, and antibiotics. That plus the board review would probably be solid preparation.

i guess it varies, my friend said his exam had maybe 2-3 micro, that was it

Originally Posted by PokerDoc

definitely agree with you about getting rocked on pretest. I barely got over 50% my first time through. Gonna read for the weekend and then do all the wrong answers over again in pretest early next week.

Yeah it was rough but it helped a lot.

Originally Posted by MilkmanAl

Nope, I read about 1/3 of Case Files and did maybe ~200 of those board review questions. I haven't looked at Pre-test, but if I had the shelf to do over, I'd definitely look through FA's micro section and memorize the **** out of the "most common's," every disease with some sort of catchy buzz term, and antibiotics. That plus the board review would probably be solid preparation.

I didn't really like CF for that shelf, maybe got thru half of it. Wasn't aware of those board review questions.

I felt Pre-test helped for the micro and those damn immunizations and screening tests the most.

I think having Surgery helped a little bit specifically for the GI stuff.

Yeah, definitely agree on CF. It's better than Blueprints, but that's not saying much. I'd rate the family medicine Blueprints up there with the neuro BRS in the race for the title of crappiest review source. I'd certainly give the Pre-test a whirl, knowing what I know now. Practice questions always teach me better, anyway.

I'm with you on the surgery thing, too. I got quite a few questions right just because of that.

Originally Posted by MilkmanAl

Yeah, definitely agree on CF. It's better than Blueprints, but that's not saying much. I'd rate the family medicine Blueprints up there with the neuro BRS in the race for the title of crappiest review source. I'd certainly give the Pre-test a whirl, knowing what I know now. Practice questions always teach me better, anyway.

I'm with you on the surgery thing, too. I got quite a few questions right just because of that.

at least blueprints has a 100 question practice test atthe end, gonna do it tomorrow

I've struggled with studying for this shelf. I've used primarily the AAFP questions and feel like they are a good learning tool. I have also used some UW questions and studied basic medicine concepts a lot, but I'm most worried about pediatrics. I have yet to have my peds or surgery rotations, although I have had OB so I know that will come in handy.

Any advice on peds topics to study that will be high yield? To what extent do I need to study immunizations?

Originally Posted by lildave2586

I've struggled with studying for this shelf. I've used primarily the AAFP questions and feel like they are a good learning tool. I have also used some UW questions and studied basic medicine concepts a lot, but I'm most worried about pediatrics. I have yet to have my peds or surgery rotations, although I have had OB so I know that will come in handy.

Any advice on peds topics to study that will be high yield? To what extent do I need to study immunizations?

Because I only had Surgery before FM I used Case Files to read OB and Peds cases.

I don't remember the exact detail for the immunizations but felt prepared for the questions after doing pre-test.

I thought the 100 question test at the back of blueprints was helpful (even though the book sucked)... at least it made me feel better lol.

Originally Posted by PokerDoc

I thought the 100 question test at the back of blueprints was helpful (even though the book sucked)... at least it made me feel better lol.

What do you guys think of doing World+AAFP Questions? My family rotation is pretty chill and I can usually go through 100 questions/night. Its a 5 week rotation...I already finished world once, and I loved it for all my other rotations.

There aren't any family med UW questions...If you have time to go through the whole freaking thing again, then fire away. Otherwise, the AAFP questions and FA micro should do you just fine.

Originally Posted by MilkmanAl

There aren't any family med UW questions...If you have time to go through the whole freaking thing again, then fire away. Otherwise, the AAFP questions and FA micro should do you just fine.

I was planning on doing the whole thing over again lol. Maybe the conservative approach of doing the AAFP questions is a wiser option

Any reason people think Blueprints is THAT bad? I have FM next, and checked it out and it looked like it covered all important topics, so I'd like some specifics about why you guys found it useless.
Thanks.

It's just incredibly half-assed all the way through. It glosses over topics and covers many important things poorly. For example, somatiform disorders get a page and a half, if I recall correctly, and somatization disorder is the only thing covered. The psych disorder section is 6-ish pages, I think. It's terrible.

I thought I was gold going into the FM shelf. I previously got a 90 on Internal Med shelf so I figured I'd be fine. I didn't want to slack though so I went ahead and did nearly all of the AAFP questions (over 1000) plus some world questions. I ended up having the worst shelf to date with a score of 78. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what I would do differently if I had to do it all over again. It was a weird test to say the least. I'm just going to forget about it and move on.

Originally Posted by lildave2586

I thought I was gold going into the FM shelf. I previously got a 90 on Internal Med shelf so I figured I'd be fine. I didn't want to slack though so I went ahead and did nearly all of the AAFP questions (over 1000) plus some world questions. I ended up having the worst shelf to date with a score of 78. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what I would do differently if I had to do it all over again. It was a weird test to say the least. I'm just going to forget about it and move on.

I think Pre-Test is the best question resource. 500 questions and quite a few of my shelf questions were very similar. Touches the nit-picky stuff like immunization schedules and screening tests.

I took it 2nd after Surgery and Pre-Test really saved me. Barely made it through the ambulatory section of Step Up to Med and didn't do much of anything else. Got an 85

Would FA for Step2 CK be good for this test?

Originally Posted by Phenytoin

Would FA for Step2 CK be good for this test?

after reading this and another thread, I'm thinking I'll read master the boards step 2 and do the AAFP practice q's for this rotation.

These AAFP questions are way harder than PreTest. I am thinking of adding in Case Files for a quick read. I'm getting slaughtered on the AAFP questions lol.

I wonder what AAFP percentages would be reassuring to do decent on this test. I've been around 60-70% and i've heard they are way easier so kind of worried. Still have a week to finish them but my percentages haven't been going up much recently with studying.

AAFP questions are impossible. They nitpicky and annoying. Hopefully Pre-test gets a bit easier and the shelf easier still haha.

What do people think of the ambulatory medicine section in Step Up?

I am just about to finish AAFP. What should I do, Pre-Test, Step 2 Secrets, or review world IM answers??

Thanks!

Originally Posted by DrVanNostran

I am just about to finish AAFP. What should I do, Pre-Test, Step 2 Secrets, or review world IM answers??

Thanks!

B-zump

Took the exam recently.

1. AAFP questions-I thought they were the best resource for the exam.
2. I read a majority of the explanations in world (all of 2000 some questions). I thought they were excellent, obviously out of the focus of family, but I felt prepared for just about every questions on the exam.

I hope I did well, but shelfs are notorious for kicking my ass.

Originally Posted by DrVanNostran

Took the exam recently.

1. AAFP questions-I thought they were the best resource for the exam.
2. I read a majority of the explanations in world (all of 2000 some questions). I thought they were excellent, obviously out of the focus of family, but I felt prepared for just about every questions on the exam.

I hope I did well, but shelfs are notorious for kicking my ass.

Raw 84, 93%tile

I'm starting my FM rotation and have no idea what book(s) to buy. I was gonna go with BluePrints (really liked it for OB), but it's getting horrible reviews here. Besides doing PreTest questions and AAFP questions, are there any other real solid resources? I usually enjoy having a "review text" like blueprints or First Aid or something.

Bump?

I read through case files and liked it. Although, we didn't actually take the shelf for this one (took the FM version of the clipp exam, weird).

Originally Posted by GuyWhoDoesStuff

I'm starting my FM rotation and have no idea what book(s) to buy. I was gonna go with BluePrints (really liked it for OB), but it's getting horrible reviews here. Besides doing PreTest questions and AAFP questions, are there any other real solid resources? I usually enjoy having a "review text" like blueprints or First Aid or something.

The only book I read was the ambulatory section of Step Up to Medicine and some other selected sections of the book that could be related to FM. Haven't heard of a great single review source for FM so I just made it work with what I had

Originally Posted by 2012mdc

The only book I read was the ambulatory section of Step Up to Medicine and some other selected sections of the book that could be related to FM. Haven't heard of a great single review source for FM so I just made it work with what I had

Hmm, I'll definitely go back and read that section of Step Up.

I'm about 100 pages into Blue Prints and I agree, this is a pretty terrible resource. I just feel like I have no clue what to study for this rotation.

99%tile
aafp qustions were by far the best
pre-test was good too i suppose
went through step 1 first aid to remember all the random stuff

not really a bad test, only goes over stuff superficially though it is really random

Originally Posted by xx216xx

99%tile
aafp qustions were by far the best
pre-test was good too i suppose
went through step 1 first aid to remember all the random stuff

not really a bad test, only goes over stuff superficially though it is really random

Agree. Don't have my score back yet, but I used Casefiles, Pre-test, Ambulator Section of Step Up, and DejaReview for Family Medicine (skimmed this the last day).

Test wasn't too bad. It goes over everything, but not in extreme detail.

That's what I thought, and I felt good about it. Which means I probably did crappy, we'll see.

How does one access the AAFP questions? I set up a username/login but when I go to the page where the questions supposedly are there is nothing. Thanks in advance!