Books for Surgery

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It is fairly difficult if it is your first rotation

I read Lawrence quickly throughout the rotation, then Read Pre Test and Hight Yield the week before. I think I passed on that

I had some Urology,Some Ortho,some NeuroSurgery

seemed like a lot of it was Medicine

hope this helps
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i took the medicine shelf today and the surgery shelf was administered simultaneously in the same room with us. after the exam the people who took the surgery shelf looked at the MKSAP and said that the questions were similar and that's what we used to study for the medicine shelf. so i figure if you use the MKSAP it will help. one guy said "this was our test, literally." just a heads up, the surgery shelf is mostly medicine.
 
Would the Surgery NMS be enough then? Should I have been studying the Medicine NMS?

(Too late anyhow, I take the exam at 8:30 tomorrow morning.) :eek:
 
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I took the surgery shelf today and didn't think it was really that bad... I'd say it's about 40% surgery and 60% medicine/Step 1 review... The questions that were most similar in difficulty IMO were NMS Review for Step 2. In fact, there were some questions on the shelf that were nearly identical to those in the book! The question prompts are fairly lengthy however, but doable w/i the time constraints. I would say that Surgery Pretest is definitely way harder than the shelf and not nearly as well written as the shelf is. The shelf is a very fair test if you remember some step 1 material. Really know some of the basic and classic disease presentations for surgery and you'll be fine...
 
monchi said:
Thanks for the advice/insight. I'd be interested in your retrospective, if you're up for it - I'll keep an eye out.

MM question, on a gen surg shelf?!?! I was really way off on what a gen surg exam would ask about!
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Okay, time for a little retrospection (unless, of course my stupid laptop freezes for the EIGHTH TIME IN A ROW IN THE SPACE OF TEN MINUTES). Frustrated? Slightly.

Well, I actually, uh, did a LOT better on that exam. Better than I could have hoped or dreamed. Keep in mind, that even though I managed to survive the rollercoaster, the test still sucked.

So, that being said, here's what I did/studied if you're looking for a place to start. (I say that, because everyone is different. I think I also had the amazing benefit of some great surgeons who were willing to teach. That, in my mind, helped a LOT.) And those of you who "just used Surgery Recall"...must be rocket scientists.

Okay: I studied NMS. Yup, the NMS Surgery. (In my opinion) its not that hard to read, it has tons of questions (which you can even put on your computer with a CD that comes with the book) and its the only book with perioperative care detailed enough for, perhaps, 25-50% of the exam. (Which considering how flipped out some of the questions are, its about par for the course.) The book actually has charts detailing which antibiotics to give for different situations that may arise in a patient that requires prophylaxis due to damaged heart valves. Yes, that is detailed. Yes, it is a teensy bit over the top. Yes, the exam asks crap like that. Just lettin' you know, perioperative care is a BIG deal on this exam. Don't let it fall by the wayside. My advice a little farther up still applies as well.

I also read some Lawrence, but not very much. I did all the questions I could though (almost every one of them). I did all the questions in NMS...I did most of the questions in PreTest. I'm not telling you not to read anything, I am saying that questions are a big part of helping integrate your knowledge into something that might be useful for this exam. Don't memorize, expand and think about what you are reading. Easier said than done, so recreate it artifically by doing as many questions as possible.

At the beginning of the rotation, I read a great deal from "Current Surgical Diagnosis and Treatment", but in the end it all came down to me and the trusty NMS.

Also keep in mind that our surgery rotation is 12 weeks long. I know a lot of you don't have the luxury (or to some, bane) of having that much time to devote to such a difficult subject. To those people, I say don't neglect doing questions, don't neglect perioperative care, and do NOT spend all your time going over abdominal pain/problems. Chances are, you've seen enough cholecystectomies to take out your great aunt's gallbladder at Thanksgiving with a turkey baster and a paring knife. Do yourself a favor and glance over the other stuff...thyroid, breast, lungs, etc. FYI, the endocrine stuff threw some people for a loop. Know how to interpret lab values and what they might mean for a patient. Knowing the patient should have a stress test isn't enough...you should know do they need an exercise stress test? A dobutamine stress test? A nonstress test? Etc and ad infinitum.

I better post this before I lose all sense of what the word "brevity" means...and before my computer freezes again.

And of course, anyone is welcome to confirm or deny.
 
Chances are, you've seen enough cholecystectomies to take out your great aunt's gallbladder at Thanksgiving with a turkey baster and a paring knife.
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:laugh: How true :laugh:

I'm taking the shelf on Thursday. I'm in big trouble. I didn't read very much during my 8 weeks on surgery- well, I really couldn't considering my days began at 5am and ended 7:30pm pretty much every day (except when I was doing 24 hour call or weekday call till 12:30am). I've done so few questions too. I have a feeling that I may be taking this damn exam over sometime in the future :mad: .
 
I'm happy to report that I passed the surgery shelf exam. I have no clue how I did it since that test whooped my arse- I didn't even read the last 30 questions (no, I'm not kidding). I literally chose 'c' for the last 30.

:smuggrin: hasta la vista surgery :smuggrin:
 
what are the best books to read for the surgery shelf? what are the best chapters to read? i hear there isn't much on specialty fields. thanks.
 
first aid for surgery is obscenely long, poorly organized, and absolutely useless. i cant believe they call that thing a review book.

recall is terrific.

i used ONLY recall and pretest/A&L for questions. havent gotten score back but im sure i did fine.
 
I did fine by reading Lawrence, reading pertinent (to me) portions of Recall, doing ~3/4 of A&L, and paying attention.
 
besides pretest and A&L are there any question books for surgery that are like MKSAP for IM?
 
I took the Surgery shelf today and I must say that it is certainly easier than the Medicine one. I think this is mostly attributable to the fact that I just had medicine; however, I also believe that the questions were basically more straight-forward.

I used Recall, A&L, and Pretest. I bought FA but thought it was crap.

I'll post when I get the score and if my study methods worked at all.
 
I didn't study anything but general and vascular and I passed the shelf. I didn't do superbly though. I probably read the least for this clerkship too due to time constraints. If I can pass this exam, anyone can :D . Back to ob-gyn triage for me :smuggrin:
 
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What do you guys who have taken the shelf already think about the Blueprints Q&A book for surgery? (specifically the newest one) I've been doing questions from it and it seems pretty good. Actually it reminds me of medicine, but from what I understand that's good.

Also, is there really a lot of hemodynamic monitoring and vent management?
 
bigfrank said:
I took the Surgery shelf today and I must say that it is certainly easier than the Medicine one. I think this is mostly attributable to the fact that I just had medicine; however, I also believe that the questions were basically more straight-forward.

I used Recall, A&L, and Pretest. I bought FA but thought it was crap.

I'll post when I get the score and if my study methods worked at all.
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Got shelf exam back today -- 99th percentile.

Very pleased with Surgical Recall (twice through), Pretest (once-through), and Appleton & Lange question book (once through, taking notes).

You will NOT be asked questions on any shelf exam or the Step II about ventilator settings. Don't worry about that.
 
bigfrank said:
Got shelf exam back today -- 99th percentile.

Very pleased with Surgical Recall (twice through), Pretest (once-through), and Appleton & Lange question book (once through, taking notes).

You will NOT be asked questions on any shelf exam or the Step II about ventilator settings. Don't worry about that.
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Big Frank

how do you know your precentile for the shelf. Is the precentile the 2 digit score they give us? I dont think thats precentile is it? because I heard they scale it with 70 as the national average.. therefore really a 70 is around 50percentile. so the two digit score doesnt correspond to a percentile?? anyway, just confused as to what our scores mean.
 
I took the surgery shelf last week.

several urology questions (maybe 7), a few ENT, a few ortho, a couple of neurosurgery. most of it GI, vascular, chest etc....

I cannot tell you how much having medicine first helped.

There were ZERO surgical questions. All of them in my opinion were general internal medicine questions. Crohns v.s. UC, ulcers, esophageal stuff, murmurs, liver disease, Gall bladder disease etc.... all of it internal medicine shelf type stuff. No surgical approach questions. No what type of surgeries etc....mostly post-op, perioperative, antibiotics. Again.......IM questions. I used pre-test and felt overly prepared. They are good questions.

later
 
12R34Y said:
I took the surgery shelf last week.

several urology questions (maybe 7), a few ENT, a few ortho, a couple of neurosurgery. most of it GI, vascular, chest etc....

I cannot tell you how much having medicine first helped.

There were ZERO surgical questions. All of them in my opinion were general internal medicine questions. Crohns v.s. UC, ulcers, esophageal stuff, murmurs, liver disease, Gall bladder disease etc.... all of it internal medicine shelf type stuff. No surgical approach questions. No what type of surgeries etc....mostly post-op, perioperative, antibiotics. Again.......IM questions. I used pre-test and felt overly prepared. They are good questions.

later
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Hey 12R34Y,
Just a couple of ques. about the surgery shelf...which subspecialties would you say were the least represented? Would a book like boards and wards be enough for the subspecialties that you mentioned, better yet, what did you use to study for the shelf for both surgery and its subspecialties?

Thanks.
 
I absolutely recommend boards and wards before the surgery shelf. I probably got 10 questions right just because I read that the day before. It's only 50 pages and an excellent review. I did pre-test questions and B&W's the day before. worked out great.

later
 
I was looking for this certain 'surgery shelf' exam thread that was 2-3 pages long...it seems a bunch of shelf threads were merged. That thread detailed experiences with the shelf and studying materials, and now that I have my score, I'll provide mine.

My rotation was 12 weeks...4 weeks in the ER (didn't learn much) then 8 weeks of general (learned a lot about GI). Following the advice of someone in the thread, I used NMS almost exclusively...I used recall only to survive pimping. In the last couple of weeks, I used A&L and the questions in the Lawrence textbook. I bought First Aid, but it was worthless. I hardly used it except for 1-2 hours to study all the subspecialties (it's that light).

The test itself was HARD as hell. I methodically skip questions I have to think about and I could only answer about 40 questions on my first run-through (half-way through the test, I stopped even reading questions and just looked at the answers to see if I even knew anything about it). For the other 60 questions, I literally just went with a hunch because I didn't really know much about the answers or questions. I had a lot of neuro/uro/ortho and peds.

I felt sort of demoralized because I thought with all my NMS prep, that I would feel more confident with my answers. Also, I was so braindead after 12 weeks and all that studying that I just picked answers since I couldn't really think and uncharacteristically finished 40 minutes early (usually take the entire length of time). I was only certain about 15-20 questions, thought I'd be lucky to pass. I got my score back today, and I couldn't believe it, but I got an 84 percentile. I'm so amazingly happy (well, i'd be happier if I knew i'd get an honors for the class since the grade also depends on our evals) and stupified.

So even though I felt the NMS book didn't prep me while I was taking the test, apparently it worked for me and it worked for the other guy earlier, so I'd highly recommend it.
 
A&L for surgery was hideous. Too many errors. I actually liked Blueprints question book for surgery. I thought it was like the test more so than pretest, and fewer errors than A&L. Only problem, only 200 questions to practice on.
 
wht does everyone mean by the surgery shelf is 'all medicine'. everyone and their moms say this, but i have no idea what to make of it!
 
While its been awhile since I took it, what they mean is that the focus is really on the pre and post operative management of surgical patients. Therefore, you will not have any questions about HOW to do a procedure.

As I recall, there was a fair bit about fluid and electrolyte management, critical care, Trauma/ACLS, and some basic surgical presentations - appy, cholecystitis, wound infection, etc. You should know the medical complications associated with surgical procedures: pulmonary embolism, MI, ARDS, CVA, pneumothorax - how to recognize them, how to diagnose and treat them. Know what the basic pre-op workup is for the most common operations, for healthy patients, elderly etc. Do they need a Dobutamine Stress, what labs, antibiotic propylaxis, etc?

I haven't cleaned out and organized the Shelf Exam Sticky yet but you nmight find some info there about what to study and what books to use.
 
Kimberli Cox said:
While its been awhile since I took it, what they mean is that the focus is really on the pre and post operative management of surgical patients. Therefore, you will not have any questions about HOW to do a procedure.

As I recall, there was a fair bit about fluid and electrolyte management, critical care, Trauma/ACLS, and some basic surgical presentations - appy, cholecystitis, wound infection, etc. You should know the medical complications associated with surgical procedures: pulmonary embolism, MI, ARDS, CVA, pneumothorax - how to recognize them, how to diagnose and treat them. Know what the basic pre-op workup is for the most common operations, for healthy patients, elderly etc. Do they need a Dobutamine Stress, what labs, antibiotic propylaxis, etc?

I haven't cleaned out and organized the Shelf Exam Sticky yet but you nmight find some info there about what to study and what books to use.
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Its been since September when I took that Shelf, but this is right on the money. As much as people complain about the surgery shelf being "all medicine", you'd be hard-pressed to say the above isn't surgery.
I used NMS to study, but I used it nearly from the first day, and I had a 12 week rotation. If you get one to study from, I highly recommend at least reading the first few chapters over peri-operative care and operative clearance.
The exam also likes you to think about those initial moments when you see a patient...pt (as gathered from the question) has obvious diverticulosis...what would you do next? Antibiotics? Colonoscopy? Sigmoidoscopy? Straight to the OR?
Also, don't neglect the thyroid and the breast. Everyone focuses on the abdomen, but chances are, your abdominal cases outnumber all others 3:1.
 
Espion said:
Its been since September when I took that Shelf, but this is right on the money. As much as people complain about the surgery shelf being "all medicine", you'd be hard-pressed to say the above isn't surgery.
I used NMS to study, but I used it nearly from the first day, and I had a 12 week rotation. If you get one to study from, I highly recommend at least reading the first few chapters over peri-operative care and operative clearance.
The exam also likes you to think about those initial moments when you see a patient...pt (as gathered from the question) has obvious diverticulosis...what would you do next? Antibiotics? Colonoscopy? Sigmoidoscopy? Straight to the OR?
Also, don't neglect the thyroid and the breast. Everyone focuses on the abdomen, but chances are, your abdominal cases outnumber all others 3:1.
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1. Which books are must-haves for the surgery rotation?

2. Which books are must-haves for the surgery shelf?

3. If the surgery shelf is mostly medicine, why don't students simply read the medicine textbooks? Are the surgery books not including the necessary medicine information?
 
what's everyone's opinion on BRS Gen Surg?
 
Kimberli Cox said:
It isn't about winning. I just focused on your first two questions which asked "which are must have books for..." and saw it as incredibly similar to the other thread.

I probably overreacted because I've been openly criticized about the Stickies but have only gotten one compliment from the dozens who asked me to fix them.

So no hard feelings - on either end, I hope. It is a tough job at times but I shouldn't make it even harder by being a PITA to the users. :laugh:
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I love the stickies-- keep them up there!!
 
anyone know w/ when books relivant to clinical rotations are coming out?

-I think surgery recall 4th ed coming out June (bn.com)

any others?
 
If you have a specific book in mind, try the publisher's website. Often they will give you a head's up.
 
Pox in a box said:
1. Which books are must-haves for the surgery rotation?

2. Which books are must-haves for the surgery shelf?

3. If the surgery shelf is mostly medicine, why don't students simply read the medicine textbooks? Are the surgery books not including the necessary medicine information?
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Hmm...it's been a while, but this is what I remember:

for the shelf--Lawrence--why, you ask? The questions at the end of the chapters are more "medical-management" oriented and more in line with what you'll see on the test. Also, I liked A&L Surgery--very good. the one I didn't like was Pretest surgery--and one of the professors at my school wrote it.

the medical management of surgical problems is slightly different than straight medicine....that's probably the best way to put it. the issues will be pre-op/post-op issues, not the bread-and-butter diabetes/CAD/HTN etc etc etc. and they will ask you to identify situations in which going to surgery is necessary, but they will not ask you about surgical technique. (which is why the exam is more "medicine than surgery"--emphasis is on medical management of surgical and post-op issues)
 
Hi,

I've read amazon review as well as a few random posts on sdn saying the the a&l surgery question book is full of errors in terms of editing as well as factual info. is there any merit to this? thanks.
 
I tried to use this book during my 3rd year clerkship and found several editing errors and some outdated factual info...didn't like it very much and found pretest to be a little better IMHO. also, case files for surgery was a nice review before the exam (no questions in it though). good luck.
 
klubguts said:
I tried to use this book during my 3rd year clerkship and found several editing errors and some outdated factual info...didn't like it very much and found pretest to be a little better IMHO. also, case files for surgery was a nice review before the exam (no questions in it though). good luck.
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I found a few errors but for the most part I think the questions were more reflective of the shelf than pretest. If you stick to the questions which are of a clinical vignette style, you should be fine. THe neurosurg chapter was especially good.
 
moo said:
I found a few errors but for the most part I think the questions were more reflective of the shelf than pretest. If you stick to the questions which are of a clinical vignette style, you should be fine. THe neurosurg chapter was especially good.
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are the errors blatant errors that a beginner can easily find or do u have to know ur stuff before u can figure out what u're learning is wrong? if anyone has a list of errors...please post. thanks.
 
I don't know what all the abuse RE: A&L is about. It may have some spelling errors, but I didn't notice any more than any other review book. And as far as the factual information, it's essentially a good review for the Shelf. Maybe someone could find a recent case report that disputes some information, but that's not what Shelf exams are about. It gives you the essentials to rock the Shelf. It was my primary source and my raw score was "90," which was reported to be >99th percentile.
 
bigfrank said:
I don't know what all the abuse RE: A&L is about. It may have some spelling errors, but I didn't notice any more than any other review book. And as far as the factual information, it's essentially a good review for the Shelf. Maybe someone could find a recent case report that disputes some information, but that's not what Shelf exams are about. It gives you the essentials to rock the Shelf. It was my primary source and my raw score was "90," which was reported to be >99th percentile.
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u used it more than surg recall? man, ur record is pretty darn impressive! do u go to the bookstore's review books before a rotation and say: "hey, give me all u got?" ;)
 
Kimerberli you rock! If I wasn't already married and if I lived in Pennsylvania....... ;)



Spang
 
I used A&L at least as much as recall. Surgery was the only rotation where I bought too many books. For others, I always use one review book and 1-2 question books. But thanks for the nice words.
 
A&L has a ton of errors. If you read Lawrence and then do A&L you'll pick up the mistakes and get so aggravated you'll throw that stupid question book in the trash where it belongs.

A&L is the worst series of question books ever!
 
Methyldopa said:
A&L has a ton of errors. If you read Lawrence and then do A&L you'll pick up the mistakes and get so aggravated you'll throw that stupid question book in the trash where it belongs.

A&L is the worst series of question books ever!
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hi,

can u post a couple of examples of what errors u found? was it blatantly wrong stuff, or just subtle details? i.e. there's a big differences between saying that something like tylenol is a cox2 inhibitor, and saying that tylenol is the most commonly used drug, when it may actually be second most common to aspirin (random analogy).
 
bulldog said:
Hi,

I've read amazon review as well as a few random posts on sdn saying the the a&l surgery question book is full of errors in terms of editing as well as factual info. is there any merit to this? thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's bad, although some chapters are better than others. I can't think of any exact examples offhand, but its more than spelling and typos. There are a lot of questions where the answer doesn't correspond to the question or the wording is messed up. Unfortunately I asked around and couldn't find a great surgery question book, although some people said the surgery chapter of Kaplan USMLE Step II book was good.
 
bulldog said:
hi,

can u post a couple of examples of what errors u found? was it blatantly wrong stuff, or just subtle details? i.e. there's a big differences between saying that something like tylenol is a cox2 inhibitor, and saying that tylenol is the most commonly used drug, when it may actually be second most common to aspirin (random analogy).
Click to expand...


The errors I found were blatantly and annoyingly wrong. Unfortunately I can't give you any examples of errors because I no longer have the question book on me (I had borrowed it from a classmate).
 
bulldog said:
Hi,

I've read amazon review as well as a few random posts on sdn saying the the a&l surgery question book is full of errors in terms of editing as well as factual info. is there any merit to this? thanks.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is. But don't worry, so is the shelf exam. That is, if by "errors" you mean archaic crap that hasn't been practiced in any decent medical center in at least 15 years. ;)
 
I'm going through Lawrence's Essentials of Gen Surg, but it seems to be mostly GI stuff. Do I need to get Lawrence's Surgical subspecialties book to round out my knowledge base for the shelf? Thanks
 
9hoursofsleep said:
I'm going through Lawrence's Essentials of Gen Surg, but it seems to be mostly GI stuff. Do I need to get Lawrence's Surgical subspecialties book to round out my knowledge base for the shelf? Thanks
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Yes! You need the subspecialty stuff but most of the test covers the stuff in Lawerence. Getting through Lawrence , Lawrence subspecialty book, and a question book is a challenge so I would maybe look use First AIde.

I read about 60% of the Lawrence only and did maybe 75% of Pre-test and got the lowest score to pass the exam but I also already had taken Medicine which is a good portion of the test. So if you don't want to barely pass like me, at least read a subspecialty book or the subspecialty portion of First Aid.
 
Questions range from overly simplistic to esoteric and are far too frequently wrong. Doing these questions will be an exercise in your frustration threshold. Stick with Pre-test and maybe case books (Blueprints cases or NMS cases). I really liked the Lawrence text for a general overview and the end-of-chapter questions are great, but you'll need more. Just stay far away from A&L.
 
9hoursofsleep said:
Questions range from overly simplistic to esoteric and are far too frequently wrong. Doing these questions will be an exercise in your frustration threshold. Stick with Pre-test and maybe case books (Blueprints cases or NMS cases). I really liked the Lawrence text for a general overview and the end-of-chapter questions are great, but you'll need more. Just stay far away from A&L.
Click to expand...
I used A&L as my primary source for the surgery clerkship and scored at "99th+ percentile." I thought it had excellent vignette questions and I had several near-repeats on my surgery shelf exam.
 
bulldog said:
u used it more than surg recall? man, ur record is pretty darn impressive! do u go to the bookstore's review books before a rotation and say: "hey, give me all u got?" ;)
Click to expand...
No, I usually bought only 1-2/3 books per rotation. I like question books, so I tend to focus on those.
 
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