Boards Next Week!!!

[Majesty]

ARGGGHH.

Going to da burgh next week to take the oral boards.
Anyone else?

I am going to take that beat the boards course.

I should write a review: So far it has been mediocre. The CD and DVD part is kind of lame, disorganized and the guy is hyperverbal. Plus he talks funny.

Jack Krasoooooskeeee.

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[Majesty]

Just took the boards after taking the BTB course.

Review of Beat the Boards:

The CDs: Lame. I didn't like them at all. Put me to sleep actually. Better if you read with the reading material but then again, you can just read the reading material without the CDs. The reading material is almost transcribed CDs or the CDs are basically the reading material literally read out loud. Totally lame.

Reading Material: Kinda lame. The content wasn't bad but it was waaayy to wordy. No way you needed several hundred pages to describe Interview, HPI, risk assessment, Vignette, presentation and psychotherapies. The 'clinical management' portion was too brief and stupid.

DVDs: So-So. Parts of it were good. Live patients, where people made mistakes etc were good. The model examples were not that good. No models of vignettes. Again too wordy, it has a tendency to make you want to include everything in your presentation which is fine in a mock exam but not on the boards. People often didn't finish.

Live patients. The strength of the course. You can see several people interview and get reamed. But again, it gets too wordy. It may actually mess you up. It messed me up. I didn't finish even one of my vignettes and my interviewers kept interupting me to move me to the next area of the live exam. The best part is the preparation simply by practicing something multiple times. There is no substitute for that.

Well, we shall see how the result comes out.
I think this test is good if you are far away from your residency and can't have them give you mocks, if you are an IMG and have trouble with interviews or if you have failed. Otherwise save your money. The main issue seems to be anxiety and that can be dissipated by doing mock exams somewhere...anywhere. Practice presenting to a wall. Record yourself and listen etc.

 

[whopper]

I've gone through plenty of review courses: for the SAT, MCATs and USMLE from various places such as Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc.

IMHO, none of it was useful except for reading the books. Those places charge an arm and a leg for things like lectures, interviewing people.

I did the oral boards. IMHO paying an arm and a leg is not needed so long as you practice cases on your own or have a colleague assist you. Some of the oral board material you can study is helpful, but buying a book for $25 vs taking a course for thousands IMHO is not needed.

Now that said, I did not pass the interview portion of the oral board when I took it, but I also had a guy that refused to talk to me during the interview and I was still expected to do what I could with that guy. The vignette section I did pass. I thought that section was easy to the point where studying wasn't needed unless you're the type of psychiatrist that works in a specialized clinically-limited scenario (e.g. research) or need help with with practicing these things due to understandable test-anxiety.

 

[Majesty]

Mine was a middle aged ex-alcoholic with depression and serious developmental mommy-daddy issues. However, I really broadened my differential because he had a history of psychosis with DTs, I considered dementia, I considered multiple medical causes of his depression including hep, HIV etc.

My interviwers were completely stone faced as I expected them to be. They got pretty deep into the psychotherapy. I suggested MET using CBT on his distortions, Groups and Couples therapy. I didn't think the guy had an Axis II but suggested possible ASPT because of fights. I gave a broad differential and had to be 'moved along' on the presentation, differential, formulation as well as the assessment/plan areas.

This is why I think I said too much. I should have been concise. Who knows though, I will find out when the results come in a few weeks. The vignettes were ok. One of the guys was a total jerk but the other 3 were the typical stone faced, no emotion guys.