In Service vs ABR written

[Maforce]

For those stars who have passed written, how did your ABR quartile score compared to In Service? I've heard the ABR content is much better written than in service. Just curious whether your March percentile score differed much from your July quartile score. Thanks

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[BobbyHeenan]

My scores were very similar. I studied Hansen/Roach, radoncquestions.com, and the green book and did very well.

With that said, in my opinion, in-service has slowly improved over the past 4-6 years yet there still remains some significant differences between in-service and written boards.

Looking back at old in-service tests there was a big element of useless trivia and lots of junk like random/rare GU cancer staging or minutia. I felt like it got better over the years and in-service as an exam overall improved. The ABR clinical I thought was pretty well done. A good combo of general numbers (survival, local control, or side effect % for the MAJOR practice changing/standard of care setting phase III trials), overall management principles (ie does this patient need surgery, what sequence, what radiation dose, what staging studies needed?), and anatomy/staging. Not as much trivia as inservice I felt.

Others may disagree, but that was my take.

 

[OTN]

I graduated from residency 6 years ago, so it may have changed, but IMO the in-service exam was terrible and in no way reflected on the ABR written exam. I never studied for the in-service, always did terribly, and passed boards my first try. It infuriated me at the time. Why write and exam that so clearly focused on worthless minutae, rather than real clinical questions? It may have improved since then, however.

 

[oncbuddy]

My scores were very similar. I studied Hansen/Roach, radoncquestions.com, and the green book and did very well.

With that said, in my opinion, in-service has slowly improved over the past 4-6 years yet there still remains some significant differences between in-service and written boards.

Looking back at old in-service tests there was a big element of useless trivia and lots of junk like random/rare GU cancer staging or minutia. I felt like it got better over the years and in-service as an exam overall improved. The ABR clinical I thought was pretty well done. A good combo of general numbers (survival, local control, or side effect % for the MAJOR practice changing/standard of care setting phase III trials), overall management principles (ie does this patient need surgery, what sequence, what radiation dose, what staging studies needed?), and anatomy/staging. Not as much trivia as inservice I felt.

Others may disagree, but that was my take.

By the green book, are you referring to the Question and Answer book put out by Steven Lin?