Acing CORD Tests/Reading?

[Old_Mil]

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Anyone have any thoughts on what to use? In medical school I had a fairly easy time finding the "one key resource" that I'd concentrate most of my time and attention on for any given course or rotation. For EM it was the pocket Tintinalli.

However, I'm not having that easy a time trying to find my resource for residency. Reading big red is roughly the equivalent of trying do to an exploratory lap on yourself with kitchen implements. The pocket version is better, but I'm guessing it's nowhere near detailed enough.

Is the "Just the Facts" version of Tintinalli enough to get by?

 

[kungfufishing]

I would say no. Painful though it may be, you really do need to know the contents of the texts. They provide a foundation of info upon which to expand. Those patients and nurses in the future are not counting on you to know the basics, they are counting on you to be excellent at what you do. Your future hospital and group are expecting to pay you a whole lot of money to be good, not adequate.

Perhaps you'd like another text better? Supplement your tint reading with some other, more interesting stuff like a roberts&hedges, an EM atlas, a good question book.

 

[Rendar5]

any specific recommendations on a good question book before I go out and look for one? I'm also trudging through Tintinalli, but a good question book would definitely enhance it.

 

[WilcoWorld]

Sorry - I never found a question book that I liked enough to recommend, but I do have some advice.

Set a schedule that you can both stick to, and that will allow you to cover the entire text during residency. In addition to that, read articles from a source you like (I like Up To Date) on specific topics soon after you've seen them in the ED & diagnosed a gap in your knowledge.

One thing that helped me to read a lot more of Tint was to get the whole thing sliced up & re-bound into 100-150 page sections that I could actually carry with me somewhere like a coffee shop or an airplane. I did this at Kinkos for not too much $$$. Be sure to have the table of contents/index bound as well, or else you wont be able to find the topic you want to read.

 

[NeuroSync]

Sorry - I never found a question book that I liked enough to recommend, but I do have some advice.

Set a schedule that you can both stick to, and that will allow you to cover the entire text during residency. In addition to that, read articles from a source you like (I like Up To Date) on specific topics soon after you've seen them in the ED & diagnosed a gap in your knowledge.

One thing that helped me to read a lot more of Tint was to get the whole thing sliced up & re-bound into 100-150 page sections that I could actually carry with me somewhere like a coffee shop or an airplane. I did this at Kinkos for not too much $$$. Be sure to have the table of contents/index bound as well, or else you wont be able to find the topic you want to read.

That's a great idea. Thanks.

 

[kungfufishing]

I did that too, 6 spiral bound volumes. Much easier to deal with.

 

[Old_Mil]

I did that too, 6 spiral bound volumes. Much easier to deal with.

I think I'm going to go get that done as well.

After looking at the text itself; I think that Tintinallis suffers a bit from lack of editorial control. It's basically a collection of subject matter related chapters from different sources and so there's a lot of overlap - and even occasionally conflicting information - from chapter to chapter.

I flippped through Rosen's a bit and I like it better. Also flipped through Harwood-Nuss a bit, and I like it a *lot* better. It's very well organized and written...

 

[kungfufishing]

I have read most of all three (one per year in residency) and I actually liked harwood the best although rosen's was the most educational for me.

 

[Jeff698]

I think I'm going to go get that done as well.

After looking at the text itself; I think that Tintinallis suffers a bit from lack of editorial control. It's basically a collection of subject matter related chapters from different sources and so there's a lot of overlap - and even occasionally conflicting information - from chapter to chapter.

I flippped through Rosen's a bit and I like it better. Also flipped through Harwood-Nuss a bit, and I like it a *lot* better. It's very well organized and written...

Agree. We were a Tint shop at my residency so all our readings and quizzes were from it. I'm a bit OCD about writing, both texts and questions. Tint drove me crazy. I'd spend almost as much time editing as reading.

Rosen's, IMHO, is much better written. For me anyway, it was much easier to read.

The CORD questions are some of the most painful questions I've ever read. They are truly horrible. I couldn't understand what about half of them were even attempting to ask. Fortunately, they're nothing like what you'll see on either the inservice or the written board exam. Those are MUCH better written. PEER is, for obvious reasons, a better representation of those.

Take care,
Jeff