Free Oral Review Materials

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Floating Head

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I'm a CA1. My program does monthly mock orals with all residents, and to be honest, I suck at them. The attendings say I'm doing OK but I know my answers to questions posed during mock orals suffer from disorganization and lack of focus. The knowledge base is coming along just fine. I put up a 99% on the AKT6, so the answer isn't more time reading Morgan & Mikhail or Barash.

Has someone published, free on the net, a collection of oral board scenarios, complete with stem, series of questions from the examiner, and solid answers? I am not as yet prepared to pay $100s or $1000s for materials of this nature.

Among textbooks I've found, Yao and Artusio is closest to what I want, but the answers are extremely verbose and not what one would actually SAY during an oral exam.

This is fairly close to what I'm looking for. Lots of [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Would you avoid N2O?" followed by.[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] "Yes. Due to the potential for the nitrous-induced expansion of microbubbles introduced during establishment of cardiopulmonary bypass and the possibility of cerebral embolic sequelae, I would avoid N2O for this procedure."

TIA
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Dude, you have such a long time till you sit for the orals. Don't stress it. I'm sure your examiners are being truthful with you and that you are doing fine. If not they would tell you were to focus. Your thoughts will become more focused soon enough when you have more experience and knowledge.
 
Look at some of the references you may already have. M&M has some case scenarios in the back of each chapter. Those are oral board-ish. Take a look at the Requisites in Pediatrics for similar kinds of scenarios. Those will give you some examples. But I have to agree with Noy. These things come with time and experience.
 
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I recommend getting Board Stiff Too. Its easy reading and has practical approaches to oral exams. It will also be helpful for day to day practice. Its not free, but its only $50 or so. Don't go crazy though. Practice exams are just practice, you've got a long time.
 
I wouldn't sweat orals now either.

But if you wanna start on something for every day anesthesia which will help formulate your thoughts then get: Allan Reed's clinical cases in anesthesia. Solid book.

Hit board stiff too as a CA-3...at least thats what I'm going to do. In addition I'll take a course a few weeks before the actual exam. For now focus on getting your writtens outta the way.
 
Intubate said:
I recommend getting Board Stiff Too.
Is there a new edition in the works? It looks like the current one was published in 2000.

Stay ahead of the game. It can only help you and will separate you from the pack.

Thanks all for the replies. It's not so much that I'm worried about ultimately passing the actual oral exam a few years from now.

Mostly, it's that I'm used to doing well, and this is something I feel weak at. 7 mock orals into the year, I don't feel like I'm getting a whole lot better at taking a stem and in 10 minutes being able to prepare and plan enough to avoid or anticipate the questions they ask. Questions that always seem in retrospect :) to be pretty obvious ones. Some of it is technique and gamesmanship, for example not letting the examiner bait me or talk me into or out of things.

2nd, I think I'm ultimately headed for a fellowship, and that's an incentive setting myself ahead now, as UTSouthwestern says. There's another thread here now that says that cards fellowships aren't too competitive, but that can change and I have to believe that the top programs are always going to be competitive.

Third, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that part of my motivation is to keep some of the more malignant attendings off my back. I have bad or ugly days from time to time, but this is the one day of each month that I consistently feel inept. :(
 
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