Advanced PTEeXAM Preparation

[OR7810]

Hi everybody,

I am trying to prepare for the Advanced PTEeXAM this coming July 2018. I am at odds as to what to use to prepare. I've been reading Perino, Sorrell and journals so far. A few people have said they used PTEMasters to prepare. Others say there are other resources besides PTEMasters. Just posting here to state what I've found so far and what people's experiences have been and what you'd recommend... or not.

PTEMasters
I tried the free trial on PTEMasters and it seems okay. The content is somewhat overwhelming. I am surprised that the QBank is only 200 questions, though. It seems most of the learning occurs through video lectures and written content. What stops me from going for PTEMasters is really the price. $800 for 6 months (with discount) for 200 questions, lots of screen time, and PDF reading? I feel like maybe the guys saying there are other resources might be onto something.

E-echocardiography
No so familiar with this, but seems cheaper?

BoardVitals Echocardiography Q-Bank
It states it understands the requirements for ASCeXam and Advanced PTEeXam. It has 450+ questions and costs $349 for 6 months. The site states it has a free trial and I contacted customer support to try and access the free trial, but it has only been a few hours so I have not hear back. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Echostudyboard
500 questions for $300 for 4 weeks. States anesthesiologists have used their Q Bank. There is a sample of 10 questions and all images in those 10 questions are TTE images. If you score 100% on the sample questions, you get an hour trial. I obviously didn't score a 100%, so I wondered if anyone has any experience with this Q bank?

Books
- Mathews et al - Clinical Manual and Review of TEE - one of my attendings strongly recommends this book. Reviews on Amazon seems to unanimously favor this book's content with a good amount of questions to go with it. Also fairly cheap compared to a Q Bank (<$100)

- Savage at al - Comprehensive Perioperative TEE - this is the book our program gave us. It seems OK, and the main gripe with it is that it has some grammatical as well as informational errors. This is a little off putting if I'm a newbie learning something new. How would I know what is a mistake?

- Sorrell et al - Questions, Tips and Tricks for the Echo Boards - Good all round reviews on Amazon. 700 questions for <$50. Geared for the ASCeXam. Not sure if it is a good idea of PTeXAM.

- Klien - Clinical Echocardiography Review - 1100 questions for <$100. Some issues with videos if you don't open it with a mobile app. Again, geared towards cardiologists (and therefore ASCeXAM). Not sure if it is a good idea of PTeXAM.

- Gallagher - Board Stiff TEE. I read this a long time ago when it was available in our library. I liked it. Good dinner time reading and quick review but probably not enough for echo boards.

Thanks!

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[psychbender]

What's your background? Are you a current CT fellow? What resources are your co-fellows using, or are your staff recommending? Do you have some CME or educational funds that you can use to purchase some of these?

PTE Masters is really good. You missed the boat on the best time to get it, though. Generally, every July there is a sale, one year of membership for $365. The Q bank is also larger than just 200 questions. The content may seen overwhelming at first, but just go lecture by lecture, and it will start to make sense.

E-echocardiography is a good source of relatively inexpensive echo CME, some calculators, references, etc.

I have not done the other Q-banks that you mention.

Matthews is an excellent text, and the CD has two practice tests that are good, too.

 

[pgg]

Nothing much to add to psychbender's post.

I look at the e-echocardiography "echo of the day" most days. It's a good use of 5 minutes. Haven't paid for any of their CME yet.

 

[OR7810]

Hey! Thanks for your reply. I am a current CT anesthesia fellow and yes, we missed the boat on getting PTE Masters in July. We simply just didn't know plus, it wasn't something that occurred to us when we just started at a new place. My co-fellow and I are looking at getting PTE Masters, but our CME funds really doesn't cover our conference costs and the Q Bank. Unfortunate.

Only a couple attendings have experience with PTE Masters and highly recommend it. Other attendings as well as co-residents from my past have used other resources, and they turned out just fine. I am wondering if there is a more cost efficient alternative to PTE Masters. There seem to be more resources for the ASCeXAM that costs much less than PTE Masters. I am wondering if using ASCeXAM material is a reasonable alternative. I realize with the ASCeXAM, there would probably be more TTE and non-perioperative scenarios, but isn't quite a bit of TEE derived from TTE examinations/recommendations anyway?

 

[Man o War]

Hey! Thanks for your reply. I am a current CT anesthesia fellow and yes, we missed the boat on getting PTE Masters in July. We simply just didn't know plus, it wasn't something that occurred to us when we just started at a new place. My co-fellow and I are looking at getting PTE Masters, but our CME funds really doesn't cover our conference costs and the Q Bank. Unfortunate.

Only a couple attendings have experience with PTE Masters and highly recommend it. Other attendings as well as co-residents from my past have used other resources, and they turned out just fine. I am wondering if there is a more cost efficient alternative to PTE Masters. There seem to be more resources for the ASCeXAM that costs much less than PTE Masters. I am wondering if using ASCeXAM material is a reasonable alternative. I realize with the ASCeXAM, there would probably be more TTE and non-perioperative scenarios, but isn't quite a bit of TEE derived from TTE examinations/recommendations anyway?

PTE Masters. Worth the money, that test was a B.

 

[vector2]

Ptemasters is definitely worth it. Only book I read cover to cover was Mathew (including practice q's). Also paid for e-echocardiography and did the majority of the eotd and case of the week archives. If you know those three resources pretty well then you'll pass; if you have them down cold you'll crush it.

 

[pgg]

PTEMasters is probably the single best resource. You might email Dr Burch, tell him you're a fellow, and ask if he'd extend the July offer ($365) to you for the remaining 6 months of the academic year. He's a supremely nice guy and the discount is aimed at fellows, hence the annual July offer ... he might say yes.

It's a difficult test. Part of the difficulty is that it's very different kind of test than we're used to. We take a few ITEs and AKTs so we know exactly what we're walking into with the ABA written. This exam is our first run in with NBE. That said, 84% passed last year, including a bunch of would-be testamurs who didn't do the fellowship. I've got to believe anyone who completes the fellowship and does & reads TEEs every single day for a year is in good shape for the exam, provided they make it through Mathews or some other text and spend a couple hours on some physics review.

 

[OR7810]

The Q bank is also larger than just 200 questions.

On the site, it says 200 questions. I wonder if it seems larger than 200 because when one reviews the questions/answers, it comes with an extensive review of the topic rather than a concise blurb. Like, I got a question on ASD/VSD wrong and read two PDFs. In that sense, I can see how it is the single resource one will need.

 

[OR7810]

TEMasters is probably the single best resource. You might email Dr Burch, tell him you're a fellow, and ask if he'd extend the July offer ($365) to you for the remaining 6 months of the academic year. He's a supremely nice guy and the discount is aimed at fellows, hence the annual July offer ... he might say yes.

I might consider that. Sounds a very ballsy thing to do, haha. But the worse than can happen is rejection. I'll live.

I've got to believe anyone who completes the fellowship and does & reads TEEs every single day for a year is in good shape for the exam, provided they make it through Mathews or some other text and spend a couple hours on some physics review.

I would like to hear from people who didn't use PTEMasters. Why they didn't use it. What they did use. And if they recommend their non-PTEMasters method, or not. I suppose Tommy Burch also did write Conquer PTEeXAM before the days of PTEMasters, so if anyone has used both, I'd like to hear too!

My impression is going through PTEMasters would be similar to going through a textbook like Mathews. I'd rather just pick one and stay focused. Plus, Mathews is also a lot cheaper. Is this fair to say?

 

[PKLA]

Just took the exam and thought I would share a few thoughts from my study and preparation.

PTE Masters:
Great resource. Tommy B explains everything pretty well for a beginner. Recommend doing these lectures early on in fellowship to give you a good foundation and identifying high yield topics. Only con is that he repeats a lot of the same concepts over and over (ie High pass and Low pass filters!) but I guess that's also a pro as repetition is a great way to solidify concepts. His diastology and congenital lectures were particularly high yield this year.

Matthews Book:
Again, great resource. It has short chapters, covers most of the high yield concepts, and has plenty of questions at the end of each chapter. The CD that accompanies the book also has 160 or so questions I think which contain some good images. This is a good read after doing the PTE Masters lectures.

Edelman's Ultrasound Physics Text:
Thought this was a little basic at the beginning but once you get through the first few chapters it is a pretty awesome book for outlining some of the tougher to understand US physics concepts. Also has questions at the end of every chapter. Great read for the last week before the exam.

With these three resources I thought I was pretty well prepared. I would only add that any resource where you can see more echo images of non-routine findings would also be helpful. Good luck to everyone next year.

 

[AdmiralChz]

PTEMasters is one incredible resource - note to the wise, in sale NOW for $365 for the year!

It’s a LOT of content. But it’s structured very well. Only thing truly lacking is prosthetic valve assessment, from what I can tell. It’s best to work through it as you go through the year - and put it in 1.5 speed to help it go faster. I got through all of the lectures in about 4 months.

Did the high yield review (30+ lectures!!!!) the week before the test - at least 10-20 questions straight up from that. And the majority I don’t believe I would have known. That being said, his question portion of the website is pretty buggy and not very approachable in my opinion.

HOCM was tested a whole lot this year. Some obvious, some not so obvious.

I’m not a huge fan of Edelman, clearly his text is geared more towards sonographers rather than physicians. The big test at the end was helpful.

Mathews and Perino are really in need of an update, badly. There aren’t a lot of current, good perioperative echo texts out there. I suspect one or the other will get a big overhaul soon.