APMLE part 2 boards

[oceanicF815]

Getting to that time of year again....

Whats everyone using to study?

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[oceanicF815]

anyone??

 

[oceanicF815]

What's the best way to study for internal medicine?

 

[PeaJay]

What's the best way to study for internal medicine?

Medicine review: Step-up to USMLE Step 2 CK

Other sources:
-Pocket Pod
-Presby
-Radio notes
-Key pharm drugs ( coverage for anaerobes, gram pos, gram neg, pseudo, gout, HTN, HDL, ect.)
-Biomagic notes
-Stats review and other non-sense

Over all, from what I have been told the test is crud and as long as you finished didactics with a solid base you should be fine. You just have to do the due diligence and review key topics and concepts. Pocket pod is a poor resource for actual knowledge, but it does have a good collection of tidbits that you can pull from for test questions.

 

[PeaJay]

This exam was a disgrace plain and simple. How the writers of this exam can seriously determine who is "minimally competent" is beyond me. I studied pretty thoroughly for this exam. Just like I would for any exam. After completing the exam I was quite certain I passed. I could see how the exam could be very difficult if you didn't prepare as much as you should have. My biggest issue with this exam is that the quality of the questions are poor. Some were so easy that I didn't even spend 5 seconds on them, where others were so poorly written that I spent 10 minutes trying to understand what they were asking. Poor grammar in some of the questions stems as well. It's pretty clear someone closes their eyes and randomly picks questions from a hat and creates the test. I'm ashamed of the quality of our board exams and would be embarrassed to let one of my MD/DO friends/colleagues sit and take one of our board exams for fun. The profession of podiatry would take a major hit in my opinion.

I also feel bad for my fellow podiatry comrades, who matriculated into schools where you take a lot of courses with the DO students. You are exposed to such high quality teaching and information and probably understand general medicine better than me or someone who will graduate from a non-osteopathic affiliated podiatry institution. You get all this great teaching and then you get to our board exam and you get questions on "x-ray generation". Are we studying to be x-ray technicians or doctors? I had more questions on x-ray generation than antibiotics...you know the drugs podiatrists use most frequently while managing diabetic foot infections. I'm pretty sure the smartest orthopedic or general surgeon in the world doesn't have a clue about the intricacies of x-ray generation. Does that mean they are not "minimally competent" by podiatry standards?

After taking the exam I will give my opinion on the value of some of the APMLE part II board review manuals and other textbooks floating around:

Hershey: Didn't read it. Too dense. Dated.
Presby: Didn't read it. Too dense. Dated.
PI Manual: Read all of it during clerkships. Stopped reading it as I was getting close to boards. Too wordy and not easy enough to get through in a short period of time.
PEARLS: Excellent review for epidemiology, research, health law, etc. You must read it. I reviewed it the night before the exam and felt I rocked all those questions.
Pocket Podiatrics: Great review book for part II. A lot of buzzwords are in pocket pods that help you recognize the correct and incorrect answers on the exam. Has some mistakes in it but the positives far out-weigh the cons. I would ONLY use this to prepare for boards. Do not use on clerkships or people will laugh at you. It has a bad reputation with attendings/residents.
PRISM: Excellent review for part II as well. Easy read, full of information in a condensed manner. Only really beneficial if you have a solid baseline of knowledge since it's more like a "cliffs notes" of podiatric medicine.
Lower extremity infections (Warren Joseph): Read a lot of it while out on clerkships. Do NOT use for boards. Great book but I had only 1 question on antibiotics so it's not worth it for board review.
***Skin Disease of the lower extremities (Vlahovic): All you will ever need for DERM board review. I've used it on clerkships and used it for boards and it was awesome. Buzz words, condensed summary of pathology and there are pictures to accompany the dermatological condition. Small enough to fit in your white coat pocket. Get it.
McGlamry Anesthesia chapter (3rd edition, NOT 4th [newest one]): All you need for anesthetics for board review.
Step-Up-to-Medicine: More than enough for the general medicine topics. I'd hit cardiology and endocrine really really really hard.
Christman Radiology Foot & Ankle textbook: Hopefully you read this while studying for radiology. If not then study your class notes thoroughly as the above review manuals don't do foot and ankle radiology justice.
Biomechanics: Read Valmassy while studying for biomechanics. Understand closed kinetics chain gait and orthotics pretty well. If you actually have a biomechanics course then review your class notes thoroughly.

***Also for radiology and biomechanics: The APMA website has free educational videos available to APMA student members that cover a large array of topics. Especially biomechanics and radiology. I'd review those specific lectures as I recall some questions asking about material that was covered in these videos specifically. They are extremely well done and are of the quality of the Foot Innovate videos that are done by Dr. Anderson and Myerson. They are even better than the present podiatry lectures IMO. Most importantly they are FREE to APMA student members. They can be found here (you need your APMA student ID and password): http://www.apma.org/Education/content.cfm?ItemNumber=9805

Lastly, I will give a shout out to Scholl for preparing us pretty well for this exam (at least I felt they did). The administration took away our December clerkship month this year to schedule mandatory board review sessions in radiology, epidemiology/research/law, physical therapy, surgery, pediatrics, sports medicine, biomechanics and we had a day where we went over case studies in podiatric medicine. All in all I felt it was pretty helpful. Thanks Scholl.

This is a great summary by AnkleBreaker.

 

[Scholl33]

step II is easier than I, but it was still a challenge that leaves you questioning things afterwards. I studied a board review book someone made and gave me and it worked. Just dedicate a good week beforehand to study all of it. When you get to part III you will be laughing your way put of there, but if you passed part I the first time, I wouldn't worry a lot about part II if you take the same approach and mentality into II.

 

[oceanicF815]

thanks for your responses. Between pockets and presby, which in your opinon one is better?

 

[PeaJay]

I would do pocket pod. It is a quick read and is just facts there is very little filler or actual knowledge. All you need are facts for the exam. The board exam does not test your thinking or logic, it is purely fact based. Presby maybe better for interviews though.

 

[oceanicF815]

Anyone with insights as to how much or how throughly pharmacology is on this exam? I've been going through old class notes but it's taking forever!!

 

[Pennsylvania Pod]

Bump. That was rough.

 

[hotdawg]

Here is a bump. How was it?

 

[oceanicF815]

hard

 

[PeaJay]

How was it?

1. It was random and actually quite easy. There was no thing that was challenging due to subject matter. The challenge was figuring out what was being asked. I can see how it could be a challenge for some due to the broad constellation of facts that are required for the test. In the end it does not really test any meaningful skill, just if you did due dillagence and studied a ton of random stuff.

2. The test was a joke in the fact that they tried testing clinical knowledge with poorly written questions. The rest should be replaced with vignettes with full labs and supplental material. This would be a more difficult test that would skim some of the riff Raff and actually test the knowledge we have accumulated over the past four years.

 

[Pennsylvania Pod]

It's good to know that memorizing the physics of radiology will determine whether you are a "minimally competent podiatrist" or not

 

[dyk343]

Every year people complain about the radiology part of that exam. Every year people say to study the hell out of the pocket podiatry radiology section. They ask ridiculous radiology questions, I agree. But they were all in pocket podiatry - At least the exam I took that was true.

 

[terigoo]

Are retakes generally easier or harder than the first exam? Any idea on the percentage that pass the second test, or how students fare overall after the two tests are over?

 

[apollofx]

Wasn't today the scheduled score release date? I'm surprised there is no talk of passing or pass rates.

 

[josebiwasabi]

Passed both CSPE and written. Good riddance.

 

[confusedpod]

welp..unfortunatley didn't pass this time.....anyone with any advice for the retake? how do students usually do on that one? also, any insight as to how this affects match??

 

[confusedpod]

thanks for your response anklebreaker. anyone have an idea of what the pass rates are second time around? is the exam a bit more straightforward? thought i was in pretty good shape first time around, so im tryna figure out how to tweek my studying

 

[apollofx]

You still have time to re-register and pass the exam. Results from the retake will be in before the match. You are under no obligation to tell programs you applied to that you failed. Trust me there is no way they can find out, the school you attend can't disclose that information and they wouldn't even bother calling. The only way they would find out is if you told them if they happened to call you.

Pass it the next time, match, and move on with your life. If you fail it again then you will be disqualified from the match. So if you landed a residency position and ended up failing the retake you and the program are completely screwed. They will have to go into the scramble to fill that position.

Some programs may call you and blatantly ask if you passed or not. You can say whatever you want. That may rub other residents and residency directors the wrong way but programs will always find other candidates to fill the empty spot. This is all a game. Play it.

No offense Ankle Breaker but I think a few things here are inaccurate. For one if a candidate fails part II twice and are then disqualified they are withdrawn from the match BEFORE the match even takes place. Your explanation makes it sound as if they run match and then remove those students that have failed which simply is not true, the match just starts and continues without you. The program will not get screwed and automatically go to scramble it will just continue down their rank list. In addition there is really no advantage from a program's perspective to finding out if a student has passed part II at this point as final rank is in for both the students AND programs, no one can change rank based on your board results! The only reason they may contact you is out of curiosity but I have never even heard of a program doing so. I agree you should play the game but the game is over and your just waiting to see who won at this point, just make sure you pass part II and take some time to relax before match knowing you've done all you can at this point!

 

[apollofx]

On a separate not has anyone heard anything regarding the first time pass rate this year?

 

[dtrack22]

thanks for your response anklebreaker. anyone have an idea of what the pass rates are second time around? is the exam a bit more straightforward?

Historically the re-take pass rate was 50-60%, which make sense when you figure 100% of the people taking it couldn't pass it the first time. Why all of a sudden would 90% of them (for example) pass an exam that is supposedly similar in terms of content and difficulty to the one they just failed? I want to say the last couple years that the re-take has had more like a 75-80% pass rate. I don't think I still have any of that info lying around to confirm though.

 

[Shireiqiang]

Super lame test! So glad I'm done with the APMLE!... Oh wait...

 

[confusedpod]

started studying for this again last night...kinda nervous about this retake. felt like i covered all major points and i feel like i remember a bit from last time. Hopefully will have better luck on the 18th..what more can be done now? idk

 

[oceanicF815]

good luck confusedpod...youve come this far, u can push thru this obstacle as well. wishing u the best

 

[josebiwasabi]

National average pass rate for first time test takers: 87.9%
NYCPM pass rate for first time test takers: 95.5%

 

[confusedpod]

any one else fail this exam? really tough to start studying this stuff again...how r u guyz going about it?

 

[confusedpod]

bump! how's everybody doing?

 

[confusedpod]

welp! retake in the books! hopefully it went well for everyone !