CCEeXAM tomorrow?

[vector2]

Some thoughts bout the exam:

-If one already has a decent understanding of echo, i.e. you've passed the advanced PTE or ASC, you're probably not going to have a terribly tough time with this one.

-The lung and abdomen portions are more difficult than one would think. The questions are not as simple as "Do these b-lines indicate pulmonary edema?" or "Do you see free fluid in Morrison's?" Watching a 10 minute YouTube video on lung U/S or FAST is not sufficient. You need to read journal articles/textbook chapters on lung/body U/S to get all these q's right.

-The valvular questions are pretty basic. This is consistent with the content handbook where the objective of CCE isn't to diagnose paradoxical low flow low gradient AS in the echo lab or tell a surgeon whether a mitral repair is adequate after coming off bypass. The wall motion questions were pretty straightforward too.

-The physics and hemodynamics are relatively basic. A couple of the artifact q's were tricky.

-The still image and clip quality is fine. I may be biased because I look at so much echo that I can generally figure out what I'm looking at and what's wrong even with "bad" images.

-Many of the questions are based on knowing how to correctly manage the pathophysiology of many conditions encountered in the ICU. Doesn't matter how much echo you know if you don't understand the underlying critical care physiology. There was also a fair amount of trauma management on the test.

-Overall I think the exam was very fair and if you just study the topics on the CCE content outline rigorously I would bet your chances of passing would be very high.

-For intensivists who kinda do POCUS for shts and giggles, taking the exam is probably unnecessary. If you plan on using POCUS to make high stakes clinical decisions in the unit then I think you absolutely should have passed the test to demonstrate you know what you're talking about when you slap a probe on the chest.




Main study sources for me: Mathew's TEE book, Otto, PTEMasters, UoUtah videos, a bunch of random YouTube videos and journal articles on lung, abdomen, vascular U/S

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[Katheudontas parateroumen]

Some thoughts bout the exam:

-If one already has a decent understanding of echo, i.e. you've passed the advanced PTE or ASC, you're probably not going to have a terribly tough time with this one.

-The lung and abdomen portions are more difficult than one would think. The questions are not as simple as "Do these b-lines indicate pulmonary edema?" or "Do you see free fluid in Morrison's?" Watching a 10 minute YouTube video on lung U/S or FAST is not sufficient. You need to read journal articles/textbook chapters on lung/body U/S to get all these q's right.

-The valvular questions are pretty basic. This is consistent with the content handbook where the objective of CCE isn't to diagnose paradoxical low flow low gradient AS in the echo lab or tell a surgeon whether a mitral repair is adequate after coming off bypass. The wall motion questions were pretty straightforward too.

-The physics and hemodynamics are relatively basic. A couple of the artifact q's were tricky.

-The still image and clip quality is fine. I may be biased because I look at so much echo that I can generally figure out what I'm looking at and what's wrong even with "bad" images.

-Many of the questions are based on knowing how to correctly manage the pathophysiology of many conditions encountered in the ICU. Doesn't matter how much echo you know if you don't understand the underlying critical care physiology. There was also a fair amount of trauma management on the test.

-Overall I think the exam was very fair and if you just study the topics on the CCE content outline rigorously I would bet your chances of passing would be very high.

-For intensivists who kinda do POCUS for shts and giggles, taking the exam is probably unnecessary. If you plan on using POCUS to make high stakes clinical decisions in the unit then I think you absolutely should have passed the test to demonstrate you know what you're talking about when you slap a probe on the chest.




Main study sources for me: Mathew's TEE book, Otto, PTEMasters, UoUtah videos, a bunch of random YouTube videos and journal articles on lung, abdomen, vascular U/S

Great thank you for following up with updates. If you had to choose like 2 main study resources, which would you choose? I have Otto and have seen UofUt videos which are great. I have background in basic TEE.

 

[vector2]

Great thank you for following up with updates. If you had to choose like 2 main study resources, which would you choose? I have Otto and have seen UofUt videos which are great. I have background in basic TEE.

If you know Otto and the UofU material well, and then look up the Lichtenstein lung articles/ the ASA I-AIM lung article you'll probably pass.

 

[vector2]

Good list of articles to read here:

READING LIST | Criticalcareecho

Article recommendations to review while preparing for the NBE CCeEXAM.

www.advancedcriticalcareecho.org

Some nice critical care echo cases here:

Case Studies

2019 – Canadian Conundrums Case 1: A 70 Year Old, Armenian Origin Case 2: A Case of Pink Eisenmenger? Case 3: Black Hole in the RV Case 4: A 42 Year Old Male Case 5: A 75 Year Old Male Case 6…

csecho.ca

 

[mudderMD]

Good luck to everyone taking the exam tomorrow!!!

 

[Magicman47s]

Dang It's been like 6 weeks. When are the results of this exam coming out.

 

[psychbender]

Dang It's been like 6 weeks. When are the results of this exam coming out.

NBE is ridiculously slow. For certification processing, it was not uncommon for it to take over a year from receiving the completed packet to granting the actual paper showing that your certified. Haven't done anything with them in a while, so not sure if it's the same now, but I'm sure that the recent system downtime for the upgrade didn't speed things up.

 

[jtre506]

The results are out.

Im interested to see however see faired

 

[mudderMD]

The results are out.

Im interested to see however see faired

Passed... but barely. 3/5 of my class who took the class passed. The test seemed much different this year compared to prior years (in speaking to my attendings who have passed the exam).

 

[FiO2@21]

Some thoughts bout the exam:

-If one already has a decent understanding of echo, i.e. you've passed the advanced PTE or ASC, you're probably not going to have a terribly tough time with this one.

-The lung and abdomen portions are more difficult than one would think. The questions are not as simple as "Do these b-lines indicate pulmonary edema?" or "Do you see free fluid in Morrison's?" Watching a 10 minute YouTube video on lung U/S or FAST is not sufficient. You need to read journal articles/textbook chapters on lung/body U/S to get all these q's right.

-The valvular questions are pretty basic. This is consistent with the content handbook where the objective of CCE isn't to diagnose paradoxical low flow low gradient AS in the echo lab or tell a surgeon whether a mitral repair is adequate after coming off bypass. The wall motion questions were pretty straightforward too.

-The physics and hemodynamics are relatively basic. A couple of the artifact q's were tricky.

-The still image and clip quality is fine. I may be biased because I look at so much echo that I can generally figure out what I'm looking at and what's wrong even with "bad" images.

-Many of the questions are based on knowing how to correctly manage the pathophysiology of many conditions encountered in the ICU. Doesn't matter how much echo you know if you don't understand the underlying critical care physiology. There was also a fair amount of trauma management on the test.

-Overall I think the exam was very fair and if you just study the topics on the CCE content outline rigorously I would bet your chances of passing would be very high.

-For intensivists who kinda do POCUS for shts and giggles, taking the exam is probably unnecessary. If you plan on using POCUS to make high stakes clinical decisions in the unit then I think you absolutely should have passed the test to demonstrate you know what you're talking about when you slap a probe on the chest.




Main study sources for me: Mathew's TEE book, Otto, PTEMasters, UoUtah videos, a bunch of random YouTube videos and journal articles on lung, abdomen, vascular U/S

Maybe I should just shoot for Testamur Status for the learning; I agree that there are a lot of people in the ICU who plop probes on people without meaningful conclusions being made. Not really motivated to try for 150 complete TTEs though. I'm only going to be doing a few days of ICU coverage every month.

Maybe CCE Testamur + ASA's POCUS certificate...

 

[vector2]

Maybe I should just shoot for Testamur Status for the learning; I agree that they're a lot of people in the ICU who plop probes on people without meaningful conclusions being made. Not really motivated to try for 150 complete TTEs though. I'm only going to be doing a few days of ICU coverage every month.

Maybe CCE Testamur + ASA's POCUS certificate...

That's not the worst idea. Honestly I haven't seen a lot of uptake in the critical Care community for the cceexam, but again you never know what the future is going to bring.