If you are to planning to attend a 'review' course, how do you prepare for it? Whats your action plan to make sure you assimilate most of the information.
Depends on which course it is. I used Maine as my "final push" meaning I wanted to be done answering all of my planned questions to be answered before or by the end of the two weeks, then switch to high-yield rote memorization stuff and polishing weak areas between Maine and the actual test. Therefore, if Maine is your only course I wouldn't wait until you get there to go balls to the wall. This allowed me to eat well (although their campus is super "crunchy" now and their menu turned to tons of vegan/vegetarian crap), sleep a lot and work out often while in Maine instead of feeling like I was cramming and going crazy.
FYI, the Maine question bank that was previously only available to you if you went to the course and had access to it on campus is not the case any more. Orthobullets now has all or most of the SAE questions available (which is basically what Maine's q-bank was built from word for word).
Here is my two cents after just going through the process this past summer:
1. Start slamming through orthobullets questions (all 5,963 of them) NOW while keeping track of areas you struggle with. I set up 100 question blocks of random questions (all topics) and try to get through it within a day or two. This will allow you to get through all of them before Maine.
2. Go through all of ResStudy tests. There will be some crossover with these and the SAE/OITE questions, but repetition is good
3. Review all of the previous OITE exams going back about 10 years.
Just do Questions Questions Questions! I didn't "read" anything unless it was too look up a specific thing about a question I kept getting wrong.
Of note, my program pays for everyone to go to Maine course every year so I chose to also attend the AAOS course on my own dime. This allowed me to not think about boards at all until AAOS course since it is earlier in the year (early April). I used it as a "kickoff" to my board studying. The lectures at AAOS were 10x better than Maine because they were all super high-yield and to the point. Maine lectures are hit or miss and often times I felt like I was at college wondering whether or not I should have just skipped the class or not. At AAOS you were just sitting there mouth wide taking in the fire hose. Maine is great for being in the middle of nowhere and able to dedicate 24/7 to questions and relaxing...don't expect it to be a great lecture series.
In Summary, if you are going to AAOS or Miller course then you probably don't have to "prepare" before hand aside from kicking off your regular orthobullets question answering ASAP. If you are going to Maine I would be at least 50-75% of the way done with the 3 steps I listed above in order to be somewhat calm, cool and collected at Maine to be able to focus and not stress out.
