ABSITE & Qualifying Exam Comprehensive Study Guide

[Gensurgresident]

I am a graduating general surgery resident who is soon to take the qualifying exam. As someone who took the ABSITE a number of times, I know how difficult it is to obtain proper resources to study for this exam. Resources that are accurate, up to date and concise were just about no where to be found. So I took it upon myself to create my own study guide. I compiled it over the past 5 years. I wanted to share it with you all with hopes that this will come in handy.

I have compiled over 125 pages (size 7 font), with images, charts, and equations. I categorized the information into organ systems. I attempted to make it as concise as can be but as you know there is a lot of information. The sources that I used include SESAP, Truelearn, SCORE, uptodate, and NCCN. This is just about all the I use while studying for the ABSITE (as well as questions). If you are wondering if its useful, I have scored from 70th-90th% only using this.

Of note, the Fiser books are extremely outdated, containing inaccurate information. Be careful if you choose to study from those books. With that being said, I am not perfect either, and this guide may have some inaccuracies. If that is the case, please let me know so that I can make corrections. Also, I had to upload it as a PDF due to size.

Good luck studying to you all.


Edit: I have made some major edits to the document and re-uploaded it. This will be my last edit since qualifying exam is coming up. Who knows, maybe one of you will continue to update and refine this document and share it with others. Wish you all the best.

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[Lem0nz]

Wow.

 

[1032]

This is awesome. Thank you

 

[TE Fistula]

Wow! Thank you!

 

[bob123451]

Thank you. What is your plan to study for the QE? Was thinking of SESAP alone? Thoughts? Any utility in SCORE?

 

[Gensurgresident]

Thank you. What is your plan to study for the QE? Was thinking of SESAP alone? Thoughts? Any utility in SCORE?

My plan for the QE is to focus mainly on SESAP, however, I also use TrueLearn and only the weekly TWIS quizes on SCORE. The SCORE question bank has a large volume of questions, unfortunately, you have to weed through too many questions until you get to ones that are worth your while. The TWIS weekly quizes on the other hand, are money. They are well written and have decent explanations.

SESAP definitely trumps all for the QE, according to individuals who have taken the exam. The only issues is that it does not include all topics. No pediatric, statistics, and a few other subjects. So make sure you fill those in somewhere else.

 

[Gensurgresident]

Made some major edits to the document and re-uploaded the study guide. Make sure you get the new version. Some inaccuracies in the previous one.

 

[forums2012]

thanks for this. Are you a grtaduating chief now?
Any recommendations on how to go about studying. PGY2 here with 70 %ile in first year, aiming for at least 80%ile this year

 

[Lem0nz]

SCORE was largely useless from my experience (my experience is slowly becoming dated but still within the last three years). DeckerRX or whatever has more detailed questions but I don't know how it is for general surgery - I'm using it for the CGSO QE right now and its 'ok'. The questions are ~3 years out of date and missing some key trials but I don't really fault them for that and its easy to find those questions and not take the study guide as gospel. SCORE specifically for the CGSO QE is turning out to be the most accurate in that the questions are the correct level of difficulty (per the fellow one year above me) and are current, and they also avoid controversial topics which the boards generally always do.

For what its worth - I think the surgical oncology fellowship level questions are actually still more or less general surgery level and give you an absolutely fantastic overview of the breadth of knowledge you will want for the cancer portions of the QE and very translatable to the CE. I would do all ~260ish of the SCORE surgical oncology fellow level questions (they really aren't fellow level) as part of your studying for the ABSITE, the QE, and the CE. Took me about half a day this weekend - would take an average resident no more than two full days at the absolute most but I think even one day would be enough. I also think this specific subgroup of questions is exactly at the level of the ABSITE. I can't/won't speak to the rest of SCORE, though I suspect that perhaps the other 'fellow' level questions are also far more useful than the generic general surgery SCORE questions. Do it with an UpToDate window open and search the genetic syndromes so you have a good basic grasp of their primary gene mutations, their screening, and their surgical management. If you do this once or twice over the course of 5 years you probably won't need to do it any more than that and not get any of those questions wrong moving forward.

Outside of that I used truelearn exclusively and did fine for the QE. The QE is easier than the ABSITE.

 

[Sinty_dreamer]

I am very interested to read your work! Thank you very much for over 125 pages of information with images, charts, and equations.
I don't know how much time I can spend studying it, but thank you in advance for your work!