Clinical boards

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samysmiley

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I was wondering if anyone had any last minute study tips or study materials for the clinical boards. I find that the Osler lectures and the Astro refresher lecture is sometimes leave important things off
 
Don't mean to offend those who put on the ASTRO refresher lectures, but they're starting to deviate from "what is necessary to refresh" and move towards "interesting topics I as an expert want to talk about."

For example, last years peds lecture was an hour long discussion on protons and the physics lecture mostly dealt with MRI-treatment machines.

Sorry - off topic - yes any last minute study tips please...
 
Don’t underestimate rad bio. If you don’t do well at that Astro study guide questions for rad bio, better go back and read hall closer so you get all those questions right
 
Does anyone know how many questions the Clinical Written is and does RadOncQuestions accurately resemble the questions? I've been told it's nothing like the inservices. Thanks!
 
400 questions in 4 hours? Holy speed racer.
 
knuckles said:
Does anyone know how many questions the Clinical Written is and does RadOncQuestions accurately resemble the questions? I've been told it's nothing like the inservices. Thanks!
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I used RadOncQuestions a couple years ago. I think it resembles the actual exam more closely than the inservice. I felt adequately prepared by using it.

Last minute I think I reviewed ASTRO refreshers and perused one of the handbooks. I didn't find the Osler lectures to be very helpful.
 
CptCrunch said:
I used RadOncQuestions a couple years ago. I think it resembles the actual exam more closely than the inservice. I felt adequately prepared by using it.

Last minute I think I reviewed ASTRO refreshers and perused one of the handbooks. I didn't find the Osler lectures to be very helpful.
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Back in the day, I think people went to osler for mock oral board prep when they didn't have good opportunities at home for group study (which is absolutely crucial imo for oral board prep). Not really well known for written prep
 
ROQ sometimes asks questions from small and not-well-known studies. Are the boards like that too?
 
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Is there a ton of imaging, stats, and physics? A resident from a couple ago said 1/3 was imaging, 5% physics, 5% states
 
No, I got that from the ASTRO website

Format
The written examination is computer based and consists of 325 to 425 questions per section. Areas tested in the written examination are the physics of radiation therapy, cancer and radiation biology, and clinical oncology. Questions will all be multiple choice; there will be no true or false or matching type questions.
 
You can find all the exam information on the ABR website: ABR


samysmiley said:
No, I got that from the ASTRO website

Format
The written examination is computer based and consists of 325 to 425 questions per section. Areas tested in the written examination are the physics of radiation therapy, cancer and radiation biology, and clinical oncology. Questions will all be multiple choice; there will be no true or false or matching type questions.
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That is for the entire written exam including rad bio and physics.
 
samysmiley said:
ROQ sometimes asks questions from small and not-well-known studies. Are the boards like that too?
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My year I felt like there were a lot of these. Honestly, I felt like the test I took was closer to an in service in terms of nit-picky crap than I expected. I heard for years that the real thing was nothing like an in service. Hopefully your experience is different than mine and it is worth noting the residents from subsequent years didn't think that their test sounded anything like ours.

I would say to everyone just to keep in mind that if you prepared well and are a decent test taker and you think that the real test feels hard its likely everyone else is thinking the exact same thing. Try not to let it psych you out.
 
I've done the entire rad onc q Qbank and it's hard to gauge if your % correct will be good enough to pass. Anyone have any thoughts on this based on how they did %ile wise compared to others on their final score report?
The Estes tables are awesome for a summary of all relevant trials in table format - found it on the ARRO facebook group.

Also - the Cleveland Clinic Essentials of Clinical Rad Onc was excellent, succinct, and up to date (AJCC 8 etc). Does anyone think any other reference book is worth casually reading with the test 3 days away? (Hristov Q/A vs John Suh book from a few years back).

Is the test heavy on staging questions? Was debating taking the last day to try and cram in some AJCC 8 staging..

Will feel good to put this one behind us and move on with life.

Thanks all!
 
I thought, at least for this year, they said that staging questions would be relatively minimal and if at all, focus on differences between 7th and 8th edition?
 
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So how did people feel? I felt like the exam was difficult, but that may be what they are going for. I felt like there were a lot of zebras and small studies asked, but there was more common stuff too
 
samysmiley said:
So how did people feel? I felt like the exam was difficult, but that may be what they are going for. I felt like there were a lot of zebras and small studies asked, but there was more common stuff too
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I felt the same way!

Any idea when we should expect scores this year? I feel like last year they were delayed beyond normal.
 
6-8? First I heard anything over 6 weeks. Source?
 
ASTROGODDESS said:
Called the ABR on Friday and was given the 6-8 week window with no projection for the actual posting date.
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From the ABR website (shrug):

Initial Qualifying Exam results are posted in each candidate’s myABR account approximately four to six weeks after the exam. Candidates will receive an email when results have been posted. “Next steps” letters and performance reports also will be received within three weeks after the results are posted to myABR.

During this time, please do not request scores by email, fax, or any other method. If you have not received your results within six weeks after the exam, you may contact the ABR office.

Guess they aren't going to stick to their timeline.
 
Did anybody unexpectedly fail clinicals this year? With this year's radbio and physics s***storm, I have little faith the ABR won't try to pull some crap with clinicals next year as well. My mentors have all told me that if they're letting me graduate residency, then I am plenty qualified to just go and take the clinicals cold and pass. Just curious if anything has gotten weird with it over the past year or two.
 
For those of you who passed clinical, what did you do to study? How did you spend the last few weeks before the exam?
 
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Bumping this from last year since the test is Friday and nobody has really started anything new. Must have fallen off the radar amongst the radbio/physics craziness.

Is anybody here using anything besides RadOnc Questions and maybe some books like the Q&A, Cleveland Clinic book, etc? I just found out stats is included in the ABR syllabus so that's awesome...
 
Are there any physics or rad bio on the clinical test? Per the ABR curriculum for clinical boards, there should not be, but just making sure.
 
There is some physics as it relates to qa. But it was minor.

Some questions did ask “know main result of study x” where study x was almost always a big, foundational trial. Couple were from more random studies.

There are images and image related questions that on the exam I took were straightforward - what is this organ?

Rad onc questions fairly good.
Used notes I made during residency and rad onc q

Felt like a better written and less nitpicky in service

Disclaimer - all info provided from couple years past, and should be general enough to share but delete if not.
 
Uncertainty about how to prepare for this exam is making me nervous esp. considering number of rad bio/physics repeats this year.

ABR says basically know everything. Thanks guys.

I find myself memorizing trial data only to forget it the next day and completely blanking on what the main findings were.

Have done about 7-8 old in-service exams in preparation. Is this sufficient? The general consensus is this exam is straightforward and nothing like inservice, which picks out data points from random trials, and that if you're clinically competent you should pass.

Unclear how heavy the exam is on trial data and staging trivia.

Was basically told to spend most of my time focusing on the rad bio repeat and not worry too much about clinical by multiple people. Is this fair?

I plan to cram stats and staging the night before the exam. Any other high yield last minute strategies?

Sure would be nice to have more than 24 hours between this and rad bio.
 
4 years of training + radonc questions is totally sufficient for clinicals. It was a pretty straightforward test. No more than a couple random radbio questions. Definitely the easiest of the three exams as is evidenced by the pass rate.
 
Anyone what to talk about the test? Feeling not great...I felt there was lots of minutiae. Although half the test felt straight forward.

Some questions not worded well? eg Which structure does not count as T4 invasion? But doesn't give for what site it's asking about, lol?
Way too many questions on obscure (to me at least) mutations/syndromes.
 
w00tz said:
Anyone what to talk about the test? Feeling not great...I felt there was lots of minutiae. Although half the test felt straight forward.

Some questions not worded well? eg Which structure does not count as T4 invasion? But doesn't give for what site it's asking about, lol?
Way too many questions on obscure (to me at least) mutations/syndromes.
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Felt the exact same way. Thought it was like an in service exam. Talked to some other people who felt the exact same. That would normally make me feel ok, but after what the ABR pulled last year...
 
bob1988 said:
Felt the exact same way. Thought it was like an in service exam. Talked to some other people who felt the exact same. That would normally make me feel ok, but after what the ABR pulled last year...
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Oh-oh brace yourselves folks. PW/LK coming for ya!
 
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It was pretty hard... granted I also made some pretty dumb mistakes, but there were a handful of trivia questions that made it seem like an in-service exam. Things you probably would have never ever looked at and were not really covered by any sources (aside from deep google searches).

Good luck to us all...
 
Grubbe-a-dub-dub said:
It was pretty hard... granted I also made some pretty dumb mistakes, but there were a handful of trivia questions that made it seem like an in-service exam. Things you probably would have never ever looked at and were not really covered by any sources (aside from deep google searches).

Good luck to us all...
Click to expand...

Another terrible test. 40% was obscure and irrelevant. At least 10 genetics questions that were obscure. Way too much sarcoma. Poorly worded questions at times and terrible image quality on one in particular. In service this year was easier.

Feel slightly better walking out than RadBio last year but that’s not saying much.
 
Without going all conspiracy theory on you,

The ABR did it again.

That was absurd. Sarcoma way way way way overrepresented, even minutiae into sarcoma.

So many questions asking you to pick between 15% 25% 35% 45%

Nobody f'ing knows that. It's always going to come down to a guess between two. These are TERRIBLE questions and they were the majority of the test.

Regardless...

Historical pass rate on this exam was high 90%tile range as would be expected for a "minimal competency" exam after 4 years of training. No way in hell there was a high 90% pass rate on this.

Fully expect to have failed this despite months of studying. And I told you all this was going to happen.
 
I did all of rad onc questions (and repeated incorrect until I got them right) then did almost all the high yield ones again the week before the exam. Made tables to learn study details. Made and did flashcards for things I still couldn't keep straight.
Hit staging again separately. Used some of the main handbooks to catch and review some other details.

Felt completely underprepared for that exam today. Makes me sick the amount of time I dedicated to what felt like a likely fail.
 
For what it’s worth, it felt exactly the same way a couple years ago. Complete with several obscure genetics questions and nothing short of around 15 questions related to vaginal/vulvar cancers. I thought it was the hardest of the written boards in terms of sheer minutia. But the pass rate was still super high. I hope it plays out the same for your class.
 
metallica81788 said:
Another terrible test. 40% was obscure and irrelevant. At least 10 genetics questions that were obscure. Way too much sarcoma. Poorly worded questions at times and terrible image quality on one in particular. In service this year was easier.

Feel slightly better walking out than RadBio last year but that’s not saying much.
Click to expand...

When you look back and noticed you flagged half the questions...it’s like why did I even bother? 2weeks 2 days 2 months wouldn’t have mattered.
 
I mean, if you are not grading your patient's hearing at every patient interaction, you don't deserve to pass... :dead:

Speaking of, clearly, I do not know sarcoma, so I'm just going to go apply for a sarcoma fellowship somewhere. I need to know the second most common metastatic site for some obscure sarcomatous histology.
 
Do you guys think PW/LK have a damn clue about cdc25 and p21? Any idea about the fifth most common metastatic site of right nut cancer? SOL!
 
Our board is a joke thinking these exams are anything more than a power trip on their end. We are just dancing puppets for their entertainment. Over the last two years I've taken three tests of about 400 questions total where maybe 100 are clinically relevant (all of which this year out of 228). I could have studied more, but now I'm glad I didn't. I'm embarrassed that I wasted so much time and effort studying for this exam today when I could have spent extra time on packing, moving, house hunting, time with my family, etc. Studying may have bought 10 extra questions. Most of RadOnc questions actually felt relevant and I felt like I was learning. None of these tests have anything to do with clinical radiation oncology.

I cannot wait until all of this is behind me one day. Nobody in our field should have to put up with this.
 
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