- Joined
- Oct 24, 2015
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Hey guys. I've been a long time lurker and thought I would contribute since I think I used every resource available for oral boards and so I'm in a unique position to compare and contrast all the available resources. I failed the first time and I attribute that to a few reasons. Firstly, I was in a busy fellowship and only gave myself about 6 weeks to study which was definitely not enough time (at least for me). Second, I only did 3 mock oral board sessions (one with Osler, and two with my previous attendings). Third, I used the wrong resources! During my first oral boards attempt, I used Osler and Odyssey. I did not feel prepared on test day and I knew I failed before the day ended.
During my second attempt, I gave myself 5 months to study. I did 15 mock oral board sessions. I was in my first year of practice so was still busy but made myself study almost everyday for this exam. The resources I used the second time around were PassMachine, behind the knife podcasts and SurgBoards. And I am so incredibly happy to say that I FINALLY PASSED!!!! I will break down each resource below but I believe SurgBoards is what helped me pass oral boards without a doubt.
1. Osler: I used this during my first attempt because everyone and their mother told me this is what they used. Some of those same people passed and some of those people failed. I think Osler hurt me more than it helped me. They do have a decent number of scenarios ... maybe like 65 or 70 all together. But the problem, and this is a big problem, is that they use actual people studying for their boards in the videos. So if the person in the video is not so stellar, you will learn the WRONG answers! And they don't do a good job of correcting all the wrong things during the debrief. Their videos are also a bit outdated. The website is also stuck in 1992. They also don't only do surgery - they do medicine, pathology, ENT, pediatrics, etc and so surgery is not their sole focus.
2. Odyssey: I will review my experience with this guy by a series of questions. Do you like paying for your oral boards over the phone by giving your credit card number? Do you like being told that you will be charged extra if your credit card payment doesn't go through because they are too busy to deal with payments not going through and this is how they deter that? Do you like making arrangements to your schedule in advance so you can attend the course, and then within a week find out only through the website that the course date has changed? Do you then like emailing them and basically being told "tough luck." Do you like being yelled at on zoom in front of 10 other people? Do you like being told that you just gave a dumb answer? Do you like spending $3,000 and watching the examiner say the above to other candidates, repeatedly stopping them while they are trying to answer a question to tell them how bad their answer was? Do you like only hearing that you need to be positive and smile when interacting with board examiners and getting the equivalent of 20 minutes of content review over 3 days? If so - this is your guy! Seriously, this was a terrible investment. All he did was scream at us and tell us we sucked. There was very little content review. He somehow spent most of the time telling us how to act and speak on oral boards. Most of what he focused on was incredibly obvious to people smart enough to complete general surgery residency training ... don't argue with the examiner ... don't answer a question with a question ... be well rested on test day ... keep your answers short and simple.
3. Dimick's "Clinical Scenarios in Surgery: Decision Making and Operative Technique": This was a book that I used during residency and I really liked it. I think this is important to use during your chief years in training. This will give you a solid foundation that you can then expand on during dedicated oral boards studying.
4. PassMachine: This was a little bit better than Osler but they had less scenarios, and similar to Osler, they also used real people in their videos. So same problem here - you risk learning the wrong answers. I did like their examiners more and thought they did a better job during the debriefs. But the candidates in their videos were way worse than Oslers. Maybe if you switched the examiners from PassMachine and the candidates in the Osler videos you would get a better result!
5. Behind the Knife General Surgery Oral Boards Audio Review: I like these guys a lot and definitely used their material for ABSITE. I don't remember ever needing to pay for any of their ABSITE stuff but podcasts for ABSITE works really well because you can get away with a lot of recall memory. You don't need to have a deep understanding of the material to answer a multiple choice question and so hearing ABSITE factoids over and over again, and then seeing them again in question banks worked really well for me during residency. I didn't kill the ABSITE each year but got above 75th percentile consistently. For oral boards, podcasts don't really work well and so I didn't think this was too helpful, and a bit expensive for a podcast.
6. SurgBoards: From all the resources, this is definitely the best one. If I had it the first time around, and gave myself a bit more time, I know I would have been successful the first time around. They have more videos and scenarios than all the other prep companies. They also have a simulation module option for the videos which basically stops the video after the examiner asks the question, allowing you the chance to think about how you would answer the question. You could then read the answer and click continue to watch the candidate give the answer. The whole scenario is premeditated and so the answers are all correct which was huge. The only drawback I can think of for surgboards is its the same examiner and candidate for all the videos but they are both really good and so its ok but if you like variety that might bother you a bit. It didn't for me. I also did a couple of the intensive sessions over zoom which was incredibly helpful. On both of my oral boards, some of the scenarios were from the videos I did on surgboards so it definitely gave me an advantage.
If I could do it all over, I would red through the Dimick book during my last year of training, give myself 4 or 5 months to study for oral boards, watch all the SurgBoards videos two times with the module mode on, and try to do 15-20 mock oral board scenarios. I think if you do that, you will definitely pass.
The oral boards was a beast of an exam to study for. It feels great being on the other side, and you will be there too. Good luck guys and gals!
During my second attempt, I gave myself 5 months to study. I did 15 mock oral board sessions. I was in my first year of practice so was still busy but made myself study almost everyday for this exam. The resources I used the second time around were PassMachine, behind the knife podcasts and SurgBoards. And I am so incredibly happy to say that I FINALLY PASSED!!!! I will break down each resource below but I believe SurgBoards is what helped me pass oral boards without a doubt.
1. Osler: I used this during my first attempt because everyone and their mother told me this is what they used. Some of those same people passed and some of those people failed. I think Osler hurt me more than it helped me. They do have a decent number of scenarios ... maybe like 65 or 70 all together. But the problem, and this is a big problem, is that they use actual people studying for their boards in the videos. So if the person in the video is not so stellar, you will learn the WRONG answers! And they don't do a good job of correcting all the wrong things during the debrief. Their videos are also a bit outdated. The website is also stuck in 1992. They also don't only do surgery - they do medicine, pathology, ENT, pediatrics, etc and so surgery is not their sole focus.
2. Odyssey: I will review my experience with this guy by a series of questions. Do you like paying for your oral boards over the phone by giving your credit card number? Do you like being told that you will be charged extra if your credit card payment doesn't go through because they are too busy to deal with payments not going through and this is how they deter that? Do you like making arrangements to your schedule in advance so you can attend the course, and then within a week find out only through the website that the course date has changed? Do you then like emailing them and basically being told "tough luck." Do you like being yelled at on zoom in front of 10 other people? Do you like being told that you just gave a dumb answer? Do you like spending $3,000 and watching the examiner say the above to other candidates, repeatedly stopping them while they are trying to answer a question to tell them how bad their answer was? Do you like only hearing that you need to be positive and smile when interacting with board examiners and getting the equivalent of 20 minutes of content review over 3 days? If so - this is your guy! Seriously, this was a terrible investment. All he did was scream at us and tell us we sucked. There was very little content review. He somehow spent most of the time telling us how to act and speak on oral boards. Most of what he focused on was incredibly obvious to people smart enough to complete general surgery residency training ... don't argue with the examiner ... don't answer a question with a question ... be well rested on test day ... keep your answers short and simple.
3. Dimick's "Clinical Scenarios in Surgery: Decision Making and Operative Technique": This was a book that I used during residency and I really liked it. I think this is important to use during your chief years in training. This will give you a solid foundation that you can then expand on during dedicated oral boards studying.
4. PassMachine: This was a little bit better than Osler but they had less scenarios, and similar to Osler, they also used real people in their videos. So same problem here - you risk learning the wrong answers. I did like their examiners more and thought they did a better job during the debriefs. But the candidates in their videos were way worse than Oslers. Maybe if you switched the examiners from PassMachine and the candidates in the Osler videos you would get a better result!
5. Behind the Knife General Surgery Oral Boards Audio Review: I like these guys a lot and definitely used their material for ABSITE. I don't remember ever needing to pay for any of their ABSITE stuff but podcasts for ABSITE works really well because you can get away with a lot of recall memory. You don't need to have a deep understanding of the material to answer a multiple choice question and so hearing ABSITE factoids over and over again, and then seeing them again in question banks worked really well for me during residency. I didn't kill the ABSITE each year but got above 75th percentile consistently. For oral boards, podcasts don't really work well and so I didn't think this was too helpful, and a bit expensive for a podcast.
6. SurgBoards: From all the resources, this is definitely the best one. If I had it the first time around, and gave myself a bit more time, I know I would have been successful the first time around. They have more videos and scenarios than all the other prep companies. They also have a simulation module option for the videos which basically stops the video after the examiner asks the question, allowing you the chance to think about how you would answer the question. You could then read the answer and click continue to watch the candidate give the answer. The whole scenario is premeditated and so the answers are all correct which was huge. The only drawback I can think of for surgboards is its the same examiner and candidate for all the videos but they are both really good and so its ok but if you like variety that might bother you a bit. It didn't for me. I also did a couple of the intensive sessions over zoom which was incredibly helpful. On both of my oral boards, some of the scenarios were from the videos I did on surgboards so it definitely gave me an advantage.
If I could do it all over, I would red through the Dimick book during my last year of training, give myself 4 or 5 months to study for oral boards, watch all the SurgBoards videos two times with the module mode on, and try to do 15-20 mock oral board scenarios. I think if you do that, you will definitely pass.
The oral boards was a beast of an exam to study for. It feels great being on the other side, and you will be there too. Good luck guys and gals!
