4 days until the surgery shelf

[GiJoe]

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I have 2 options....

Door #1:

since many have said the surgery shelf is all medicine, I can redo MKSAP these next few days along with some reading from BRS

Door #2:

Do Appleton and Lange Surgery questions and read BRS.

help me decide!!! (and if you have any other suggestions please let me know!)

thanks

 

[tigershark]

The shelf is all about the management of surgical conditions, not medicine. It may seem like medicine to the student who expects it to be all about surgical technique and OR. Know all about fluids and electrolytes, response to inury, wounds and healing, trauma, nutrition, and common presentations of surgical issues.

With four days left I would read case-files and do pre-test....if you are hardcore I would read lawrence essentials of general surgery, but I dont think you have time...

There is also a word file floating around called Pestana's review which is very high yield.

 

[Espion]

The shelf is all about the management of surgical conditions, not medicine. It may seem like medicine to the student who expects it to be all about surgical technique and OR. Know all about fluids and electrolytes, response to inury, wounds and healing, trauma, nutrition, and common presentations of surgical issues.

AMEN.

The surgery test is NOT ALL MEDICINE. I am doing medicine right now, and you will WASTE YOUR TIME doing MKSAP for a surgery exam.

Here's the advice I gave to our newly-minted 3rd years:

Everyone says this exam is “all medicine”. The “all medicine” on the exam is pre-operative/post-operative care, medical illnesses in surgical patients, and some critical care. You’d be hard-pressed to call this “all medicine” and not surgery.
Know what is entailed in a cardiac clearance (i.e. Pt has an abnormal EKG…what test do you order next?) What will the ABG of a pt with pulmonary embolism look like? What antibiotics would you use for prophylaxis in a penicillin-allergic patient with a history of rheumatic heart disease undergoing ureteral instrumentation?) They are not going to ask you "what kind of incision you should use to approach the tail of the pancreas". Leave that to the surgeon’s board exams.
All of these issues are addressed in the first few chapters of most surgery text and review books. Don’t be tempted to skip over these chapters, because chances are, you’ll regret it and end up calling the surgery shelf exam “all medicine”.

Personally, I used NMS, but as I said above, almost any surgery book has chapters about pre-op/post-op care and "medical illnesses in the surgical patient". Don't know how to manage high blood pressure, know whether or not you can continue their meds on the day of surgery.

And of course know acute abdomen, thyroid, breast, colon, etc. etc. etc.
Do as many questions as you can and you'll be fine.

 

[Delta-es]

I just took the Surgery shelf yesterday and it definitely isn't all medicine. I had heard that too, and was surprised to see that it was actually 85% surgery. It's all management of surgical patients and diagnosis of conditions. I found First Aid for Surgery very helpful and also did PreTest.

Good Luck!! 🙂

 

[corpsmanUP]

I just took the Surgery shelf yesterday and it definitely isn't all medicine. I had heard that too, and was surprised to see that it was actually 85% surgery. It's all management of surgical patients and diagnosis of conditions. I found First Aid for Surgery very helpful and also did PreTest.

Good Luck!! 🙂

I have to disagree. I found it to be very medicine oriented. Of course they had to throw in a fact or two for most cases about the surgery the patient just had, but there were tons of questions that were just EXACTLY like questions on the medicine shelf. I thought it was much better than people said it would be overall though, with about 80% of it being very doable, 10% being tough, and 10% undoubtedly having 2 very good right answers.

 

[9hoursofsleep]

See my post in the Surgery books thread. It sucks. Do Pretest instead and maybe read Lawrence (if you're really fast)

 

[bigfrank]

See my post in the Surgery books thread. It sucks. Do Pretest instead and maybe read Lawrence (if you're really fast)

I disagree; actually, A&L is a good book. It was the primary book used by my classmates (along with Recall), and our average was the 93rd PERCENTILE, with one of my friends who exclusively used A&L scoring a 98 RAW SCORE. It has a few annoying typos, but it covers all the basis and serves as one of my favorite clerkship books.

 

[tigershark]

I agree with frank..A&L is good. There are quite a few errors, but for the most part they are not factual errors. All of the factual errors are easily recognizable.....they definitely dont outweigh the usefulness of the book as a whole.