Physics & Radbio

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What books do you recommend for Physics?
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What did people think about the test yesterday? It seemed like Rad Bio was a lot harder than the physics.
 
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To echo things that have been said in the past, I went in feeling comfortable with physics and apprehensive about the rad bio. After taking the test, I thought the physics was challenging... not impossible, probably fair... but challenging. Was not expecting it to be as focused on cobalt and brachytherapy as it was. Very little QA or SBRT questions, etc. Rad bio I thought was very straight forward and much easier than the ABR study guide, but there were definitely a couple questions that I stared at for 15 minutes and honestly did not have a clue.

All in all, pretty much what I expected and definitely none of the horror stories from the last couple years with calculator disasters, etc.
 
What's a photon? What's an electron? What's a double stranded DNA break? I don't care b/c I passed the physics and radbio boards!!!

:love:
 
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents regarding preparation for the Physics and Rad Bio exams...

First off, you will find a wide variety of advice and study recommendations both on this site and from your fellow residents. Just remember to stay true to your own study habits and patterns, that's what brought you here to begin with.

Secondly, it is my firm belief the exams from year to year are not created equal, again both from talking to other residents, reading this forum, and also HERE (http://www.theabr.org/ic-ro-score). This link shows you the scores from past years and as your can see, the pass rate for physics can vary between 80-96% (in back to back years!). Just because someone tells you it was easy one year, doesn't mean it will be the exact same your year.

A little background on my prep. I absolutely did not want to retake this test so I studied a fair amount in order to basically guarantee a pass. I thought the test was very easy after I took it. I received very poor instruction at my home institution in both subjects. This is what I did to prepare...

PHYSICS
First 2 years: Got what I could out of class and made sure I understood the core concepts. In the 3rd year, I began my prep second half of the year (after Christmas). I read Khan from front to back. I would not necessarily recommend this, but I did learn a fair amount. When the book gets bogged down in equation derivations, just skim that part. If you don't understand a section, ITS OK! MOVE ON! I later read Caggiano which was decent, but works best if you have at least some footing to start on. I would find it very poor if you are not that strong in physics when you start reading it.

The absolute best physics resource I encountered was The Physics & Technology of Radiation Therapy by Patrick McDermott. As the preface states, this is a book written for radiation oncology residents who's last exposure to physics may have been in undergrad. This book is designed to help you pass the test. It is very well written for the most part and not too basic at all. It has a lot of good practice problems (many of which are harder than those you will find on raphex and the real test, so don't worry too much, I skipped a fair amount of them).

I also watched the video from the Maryland Physics course after I had read the texts (pretty solid actually, good overview, hit core concepts hard) and then did about 7 raphexes. I made flash cards throughout studying and looked at them one time a couple days before the test which was a nice little review.

The test was an absolutely joke after doing all that. You could get away with a lot less but now I know physics really well (and actually like it, strangely enough). The best resources for me were 1)McDermott book, 2) Raphex exams, and if you have access but by no means necessary, 3) Maryland videos.

RADIATION BIOLOGY
This one is a lot easier because you have 2 absolute go-to resources. My class was terrible and a total waste of my time. It was actually detrimental as it deterred me from rad bio my first 2 years out of disgust. I knew very little about rad bio until my 3rd year, when the light of Eric Hall shined forth and granted me total enlightenment. I have a biology undergrad degree (like many of you I'm sure) so it was a bit easier for me to synthesize rad bio than physics. I read Hall one time which was honestly a pure joy (that sounds so ridiculous, but its mostly true, and I'm the type to say that). I then did 3 years worth of rad bio study guides (https://www.astro.org/ARRO/Resident...s-and-Radiation-Biology-Curriculum/Index.aspx). You could stop right here and be completely money.

Leading up to the test, I had a little extra time so I listened to the William McBride lectures w\ powerpoints from the ASTRO website (https://www.astro.org/ARRO/Resident-Resources/Educational-Resources/Radiobiology-Lectures/index.aspx). They were decent. Not gamechangers. Skippable, but not a waste of time. I then skimmed through a couple of the older rad bio study guides I got from another resident, just looking at 3 or 4 of the sections that I though were difficult (like molecular signalling).

Again, test felt straightforward. A couple questions out of left field that I had never seen before, but beyond that, very fair and fairly repetitive. Go to resources: 1) Hall Text, 2) Rad Bio Study Guides.

As the above poster stated, you could do a whole lot less and pass. I do enjoy the knowledge base I obtained while studying though.
 
I can happily say that I never opened Khan (I just couldn't subject myself to the torture), didn't take the Maryland course (or any other), and only did Rabex 2013 and Raphex 2010-2013 and a 1 day skim of Hall and PASSED!!!
 
Anyone have updated or more recent Caggiano notes for physics review available?
 
Did anyone here take the RABEX exam? Was that at all representative of the real exam? I hear a lot about RAPHEX, but not the RABEx.
 
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medgator said:
Because it isn't very good ;) stick to hall and the astro rad bio study guides and you'll be fine
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That's what I'm thinking too. Did you feel the RAPHEX has been representative of the Physics test in the past year?
 
Done... All I can say is that I hate physics!
 
Anyone else felt like they got reamed by physics this year?
 
Lol, I meant to say guessed right enough... That was hideous!
 
I don't mean to play the role of contrarian, but I actually thought Physics was reasonable and easier than I thought it would be. While I thought that the RadBio exam was also fair, I didn't think that it was very representative of the ARRO "study guides" from the past three years.
 
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CyberKnife19 said:
I don't mean to play the role of contrarian, but I actually thought Physics was reasonable and easier than I thought it would be. However, I did not think that the RadBio exam was very representative of the ARRO "study guides" from the past three years, but still fair.
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I didn't think it was UNreasonable - just tricky like the RAPHEX. Radbio seemed pretty straight-forward, I thought.
 
I thought radbio was much easier than expected, but physics was a little but more difficult. I forgot and walked outside between physics and radbio though, so that's given me some added stress I need not need!
 
Dude, the physics portion was really, really tough. There wasn't nearly enough time to get through it with all of the calculations. And the authors sure like their Air Kerma and brachy! (I have an MS in medical physics and I still thought it was tough to get through the physics part).

The radbio portion was pretty simple, though.
 
Apparently it's against the rules. They reported it to Pearson Vue and the ABR and they will decide what to do. The guy there said they can invalidate my test results! I'm REALLY hoping it doesn't come to that :mad:

thesauce said:
What's wrong with walking outside?
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Pewl said:
Dude, the physics portion was really, really tough. There wasn't nearly enough time to get through it with all of the calculations. And the authors sure like their Air Kerma and brachy! (I have an MS in medical physics and I still thought it was tough to get through the physics part).

The radbio portion was pretty simple, though.
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Hmm, I thought it was pretty easy. You really have a MS in medical physics???
 
h0mie8503 said:
Apparently it's against the rules. They reported it to Pearson Vue and the ABR and they will decide what to do. The guy there said they can invalidate my test results! I'm REALLY hoping it doesn't come to that :mad:
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Wow. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope everything turns out ok. So long as it was during the break, I don't see why they'd have a problem with it.
 
How is this thing scored... Raw percentage vs percentile for each section or is it scored together. If I fail one (most likely physics) would I have to repeat one section or take the entire thing again.

I try not to think about it, but I'm freaking out!
 
RadOncDoc21 said:
How is this thing scored... Raw percentage vs percentile for each section or is it scored together. If I fail one (most likely physics) would I have to repeat one section or take the entire thing again.

I try not to think about it, but I'm freaking out!
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There's a strange scoring process called psychometrics. ND talked about it here at one point. If you fail one, you only have to retake that one. But think positive - I'm betting you did fine!
 
thesauce said:
There's a strange scoring process called psychometrics. ND talked about it here at one point. If you fail one, you only have to retake that one. But think positive - I'm betting you did fine!
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Thanks man, I appreciate the words of reassurance and here's to being done and one step closer to completing residency! Congrats to everybody who got through it today.

Good luck to all my peeps about to take their clinical exam tomorrow!
 
Bio was totally fine. Physics though, wtf the majority wasnt about testing concepts but about conversions/calculations etc. They really need to put out a study guide if they want people to think this test is a serious thing. It just comes down to them being lazy.

That said you just have to be sure you have some of the more challenging concepts conceptually down and the test is ok. But it is quite different from Raphex.
 
I know you guys are just stressed/looking for reassurance and curious but I would really refrain from posting any specific questions or anything from the exam.

If it makes you feel better I walked out of the physics section (and oral boards) sure that I had failed but I passed both and am currently living the dream!
 
Anybody know if test results will be posted today? My ABR invoice was due Aug 4th, but got an email earlier this week that said I needed to pay by July 31st to ensure that my exam scores would be released. Logic would suggest that means today.
 
I wonder if I left a little extra money, they would accept it as a bribe.
 
Anyone know when the scores are coming out?
 
Pointless said:
"Passed Phys and Bio"... sweetest fragment sentence I will ever see.
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Same exact verbiage this year...staying consistent.

When they send out the official report (with quartiles), I will post again with my study plan if I scored well. If I didn't, you probably don't want my study plan. :)
 
1 down, 2 to go
 
The ABR site is back up.
I passed both exams. :highfive: I really felt like I could have failed physics. Glad I passed.
 
Glad they are giving out quartile score for phys and bio....thought they only do that for the clinical subcategories.
 
A user who wished to remain anonymous asked me to post this:

"I wanted to share my approach to physics and radbio, which I successfully passed in July 2014.

I dedicated 6 weeks to studying for these exams, which was overkill. 4 weeks is PLENTY. Our program has excellent radbio instruction, but very poor physics instruction, so take that for what it's worth.

Physics:
I started with physics just to nail that down. The first thing that I did was acquire the following materials:
1. The latest edition of Caggiano's notes
2. The last 3 years of RAPHEX exams
3. The wikibooks equation sheet (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Radiation_Oncology/Physics/Equations).

These are all of the materials that you'll need. I took a solid week to go over the Caggiano notes in detail. Pretty much everything you need to know is in there. It's a little light on electrons and protons, but I still thought those were adequate for the test. I took notes on anything I thought I'd have trouble remembering.

I then took the first RAPHEX under testing conditions with a score in the low 70s (2014). I re-read Caggiano again over the next couple days and then took another test which was in the mid-70s (2012). Then I re-read Caggiano for a final time and my last RAPHEX was in the low 80s (2013). At that point, I felt confident, so I just tried to maintain by reviewing the Caggiano material, my notes, and the equation sheet every 3 days or so. This was a bit overkill, but I wouldn't do anything different in hindsight.

The exam itself was a bit tricky - similar to the RAPHEX exams. I was pretty sure that I passed, and I don't know of any questions that I actually missed (after looking them up later), but some required a lot of thinking and re-thinking. Time was a bit of a factor - I barely had time to review 4-5 questions. However, I felt that my study materials (AND ESPECIALLY CAGGIANO) were money and I don't think I could have been any better prepared.

Radbio:
The first thing that I did for radbio was acquire the following materials:
1. The latest edition of Hall
2. The last 3 years of ASTRO's study guide (https://www.astro.org/ARRO/Resident...s-and-Radiation-Biology-Curriculum/Index.aspx), and
3. The wikibooks equation sheet (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Radiation_Oncology/Radiobiology/Equations).
I printed these out and set them aside. These are all of the materials that you'll need.

Since I had already read Hall for my radbio course, I started with the first ASTRO radbio exam. If you haven't read Hall, I would suggest that you do this first so you'll understand what the questions are talking about. I took notes on each question that I thought I might forget. The next thing that I did was re-read all of Hall. I then completed the last 2 ASTRO SGs the same way that I did the first, so I had several pages of notes that broke down the concepts from each SG. My scores on these exams were in the mid-70s to 80s, FWIW.

I then reviewed my notes on these study guides at least every 3-4 days leading up to the exam (intermixed with studying physics as above). The day before the exam, I re-read the key points in Hall which I thought was helpful.

I thought the exam itself was pretty easy and I left the room early (which I never do).

Good luck to those taking this in 2015 and beyond!!
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for those of you who passed on first attempt.... on average, how many months do you need to study for the physics and bio exam (and not feel like you're in rush / cram mode)? is 4 months enough?
 
brendav said:
for those of you who passed on first attempt.... on average, how many months do you need to study for the physics and bio exam (and not feel like you're in rush / cram mode)? is 4 months enough?
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Four months is plenty. RAPHEX and the ASTRO Radiobiology guides are great resources for question prep. Most of the radbio questions were lifted right from those tests.
 
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