Gas-CCM boards tomorrow...

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Femtochemistry

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Big day tomorrow. Good luck to the handful of gas-ccm people tomorrow taking this beast. Hopefully, it is our last board exam for another 10 years!!! We all had a tough year doing a fellowship and sitting a written and oral gas boards. Almost done!


Cheers and Godspeed.

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Phew, am I glad that's over (for now, anyways...)
 
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What was that? While I felt a considerable minority of the ABA Written Exam was random esoterica, this CCM exam was absurd. Did you guys really feel like that was a test of your knowledge/critical thinking developed over that past year in the ICU?

I'd love to watch my surveillance film from PearsonVue. I was shaking my head and wringing my hands for the entire exam!

Good luck guys/gals! I will be disappointed by not surprised if I have to retake that test next year...
 
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What's the pass rate of the exam? I have noticed that CCM attendings tend to struggle with their boards more than usual. Am I right?
 
The pass score is similar to the written gas boards maybe a bit higher by 1-2%. But ya that was rough!! Some very very random stuff. I'd be shocked if I passed this one. I wish I'd spent some time reviewing my step 1 & step 2 first aid books. It was that random!!

Praying for the best!
 
Yeah - according to the ABA Newsletter thing, the 2013 pass rates for ABA Writtens was 87%, Orals, 88%; the CCM boards that same year was 86% pass rate. As a test taker, that still gives me little comfort.

I thought I heard my computer laugh at me a couple of times when I selected an answer. That test sucked!

Femto - how much of that plane flight do you remember?
 
What plane ride? ;)

Going to spend the week on vacation. Sitting on my arse on a beach drinking miller lite & having panic attacks thinking about starting my attending job the following week!
 
What's the pass rate of the exam? I have noticed that CCM attendings tend to struggle with their boards more than usual. Am I right?
Maybe because their boards are harder than our "usual". ;)
 
Yeah - according to the ABA Newsletter thing, the 2013 pass rates for ABA Writtens was 87%, Orals, 88%; the CCM boards that same year was 86% pass rate. As a test taker, that still gives me little comfort.
Way too high. It shouldn't be more than 70% on first try. That explains why board certification means almost nothing nowadays.
 
I remember when i took mine, i almost got up and asked the proctor if he loaded the right exam. I passed though...
 
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Or people are just studying harder/smarter. Look at the Step 1 scores. Almost every year it goes up bit-by-bit. When I took it in 2006, the score I got would get me laughed out of every gas program in the country these days.
 
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I remember when i took mine, i almost got up and asked the proctor if he loaded the right exam. I passed though...

Haha I felt the same way. I thought they loaded USMLE Step 2 questions.
 
Please share the preperation experience, like what sources to use is there a good q bank or review course. thanks .
 
This is what I used:

1. http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Based-Practice-Critical-Care-Consult/dp/1416054766/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403015314&sr=1-2&keywords=Evidence-Based Critical Care
2. http://www.sccm.org/Education-Center/Adult-Board-Review/Pages/AKAACC.aspx
3. http://www.sccm.org/Education-Center/Adult-Board-Review/Pages/Self-Assessment.aspx
4. http://www.sccm.org/Education-Center/Adult-Board-Review/Pages/Comprehensive.aspx
5. http://www.chestnet.org/Publications/Mobile-Offerings/CHEST-SEEK-App

The evidence-based practice of critical care is an amazing book. Up-to-date as of 2010, easy to read, quick, and down-to-the-point. Get it.

The comprehensive critical care book is also very good. A bit dense, ~1000 pages but the font type is very large w/ lots of pics/tables/graphs. You could read the whole book in <2 weeks.

As far as questions goes (I learn more from Qs then books) I'm mostly using Chest-SEEK app on my iphone/ipad along w/ AKAAC and self-assessment. All 3 I've found very, very helpful.

Disclosure: I get no money from these people (I wish). I'm just a lonely Anes-CCM fellow who is about to graduate and enter the real world attachFull184431
 
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That was a serious beat-down. It is somewhat encouraging to see that I'm not the only one who feels that way.

The breadth of the exam was impressive. Mechanical circulatory support to rashes.

A ton of obscure internal medicine stuff. There were many patients with vasculitis and many with primary heme disorders. I was digging deep for stuff I learned in Step 1 prep, no joke.
 
Maybe because their boards are harder than our "usual". ;)

Or maybe the people doing CCM have no clue of what they are doing?
 
Or maybe the people doing CCM have no clue of what they are doing?
Are you serious? Most of those guys are smarter and more knowledgeable than the average anesthesia grad.
 
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My issue with the CC exam was that in the real world no CCM would manage HIV or Ebola without an ID consult or diagnosis wilson's disease without a GI doc involved, etc.
 
Don't want to go on a tangent but how well does Anes-CC prepare you for running a MICU or a combined MICU/SICU unit? Seems like getting an exclusive SICU position is somewhat difficult outside of academics with most community hospitals only have one ICU unit.
 
For the sake of injecting a bit of optimism:

I completely agree, there were alot of random, med school knowledge questions I hadn't encountered since the steps either. But, there were also stretches of questions that I (and I'm sure many of you), were able to answer with only a few seconds of pondering. I found they asked multiple questions on certain high-yield concepts. The random questions were a minority, and there's an 86% pass rate. Most of us will probably be fine.
 
Personally, I thought the Anes CCM exam was THE hardest test I had ever taken….all comers including Step I and Orals
 
Don't want to go on a tangent but how well does Anes-CC prepare you for running a MICU or a combined MICU/SICU unit? Seems like getting an exclusive SICU position is somewhat difficult outside of academics with most community hospitals only have one ICU unit.
That is an excellent question. Not only that, but you get a lot of sick surgical patient experience during your anesthesia residency, while not being exposed to the MICU trainwrecks, who would never qualify for surgery. On the other hand, some people argue that in both MICU and SICU the intensivist only deals with the ICU-level problems, which are the same regardless of his/her background; for the rest, s/he consults with other specialists.

There are multiple fellowship programs that offer a combined SICU-MICU experience (some of them even warn you when they offer you an interview). You just need to find them.

Unfortunately, this might be offered less and less in the future, because the IM RRC now requires IM residents and fellows to be trained by internists exclusively. Board-certified anesthesiologist intensivists are not good enough to provide intensive care training for the fleas. :rolleyes:
 
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Don't want to go on a tangent but how well does Anes-CC prepare you for running a MICU or a combined MICU/SICU unit? Seems like getting an exclusive SICU position is somewhat difficult outside of academics with most community hospitals only have one ICU unit.

I think it depends less on is it an "Anes-CC" fellowship than it does on the specific fellowship in question. It also depends on your med school/residency background, and your willingness to read and learn.

My "Anes-CC" fellowship was very medicine heavy. 24 weeks in ICUs that were mostly medical patients, just a dash of mixed surgical population. 12 weeks in surgical or CT surgical ICUs. The grads from my program understandably feel very comfortable with a MICU type population, even coming from an anesthesiology background. It takes some extra reading and some willingness to ask somewhat dumb questions of medicine PGY-2s and learn from them. One of my goals for the one year fellowship was for my internal medicine knowledge/practice pertinent to the ICU to be as good as that of the IM PGY-2s rotating through the unit. I also did a medicine prelim year, and neuro-ICU during residency; those helped.
 
It is called Critical Care MEDICINE, not critical care surgery, for a reason.

I don't see much benefit from a surgical icu rotation. Most patients were fine before the surgery. So, most of your patients will get better in a few days without you doing much.

Granted there are infections, lung injury, strokes.... but it is usually a small percentage of the volume.

Every medicine patient is probably a learning experience.
 
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Are you saying you wouldn't do it again, but rather do a SICU-based fellowship instead?
 
I don't see much benefit from a surgical icu rotation. Most patients were fine before the surgery. So, most of your patients will get better in a few days without you doing much.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment. Yes, many patients are fairly healthy before undergoing large, elective surgery. However, the SICU is also home to a large volume (depending on your location) of major trauma, burns, intra-abdominal sepsis, abscesses, bowel perforations, aortic dissections, etc. Many patients are anything but 'fine' prior to going under the knife for what is, in almost all instances, an emergent and life-saving procedure. And critically ill patients with surgical pathology require VERY aggressive intervention and management if they are to survive, in a manner quite different from MICU patients.
 
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I strongly disagree with this sentiment. Yes, many patients are fairly healthy before undergoing large, elective surgery. However, the SICU is also home to a large volume (depending on your location) of major trauma, burns, intra-abdominal sepsis, abscesses, bowel perforations, aortic dissections, etc. Many patients are anything but 'fine' prior to going under the knife for what is, in almost all instances, an emergent and life-saving procedure. And critically ill patients with surgical pathology require VERY aggressive intervention and management if they are to survive, in a manner quite different from MICU patients.

Agreed. Has anyone ever been to a VA SICU? Those patients have all the major medical problems with the addition of a major surgical insult. It's pretty awful ... But you learn a lot. Looking forward to my time there actually.
 
Are you saying you wouldn't do it again, but rather do a SICU-based fellowship instead?

No, I'm pointing out that not every medicine patient is a learning experience.

On the flipside, there's a lot to be learned from SICU and CTSICU rotations. Spice of life, y'know
 
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