COMLEX Step II suggestions for NBOME

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Hello everyone!

I am currently serving as the Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents National Vice Chair and one of my responsibilities is to sit as the student representative to the NBOME. Last year the Vice Chair did an excellent job building a great relationship with the NBOME and was able to open some doors that had previously been out of the question. I will be meeting and speaking with the NBOME president and many of the other administrators throughout the year and would love to have some more student input. Please try to remain civil if possible. I know the tests can be super frustrating, but the constructive criticism is really the only thing that I can present to them without regressing in our relationship. Feel free to p.m. me or post on this forum and I will be sure to keep everyone up to date on any news or changes being made.

Thanks for your comments and time in advance!

Sincerely

Cory Maughan
COSGP 1st Vice Chair
AZCOM 2010

 

[LonePair]

The new COMSAE exam for Level II could certainly use a more detailed analysis report; especially for Internal Medicine because of the many subsections.

 

[surrender903]

i was expecting to be able to go over the COMSAE answers. not being able to really annoyed me.

i paid 50 bucks to simulate what their questions were like? with no ability to work through them?

then again its probably my fault for not reading that i could not do so somewhere on their website.

im just venting.

 

[hammertoe]

Please relay to them the message that they are bastards for the following reasons:

1) Extorsion for making us pay over a grand travel out to that stupid Comshamahokin facility (or whatever it's called) for the PE...which by the way is generic and a waste of everyone's time.

2) Putting together an exam that is generic, archaic and way to general.

3) COMSAE sucks and you can't review explanations...score reports is generic.

Please advise them to get some class and go follow the NBME people around. USMLE is a much better exam.

 

[Terpskins99]

Not that it'll happen... but I recommend dumping COMLEX Level 1, 2, 3, requiring all DO's to take USMLE Steps 1, 2, 3 and just have one exam for OMM principles.

 

[morganyost]

So I just took the Comsae Step 2 and now I'm not sure what to even do with the results. For those who have taken the Comsae and the real test, what are your impressions? I read a lot about the step 1 comsae in a thread but there is very little info on the step 2. I take the real test this week and I'll post my thoughts later.

 

[FM guy in KC]

I just took the comsae step II as well. I thought that it was quite a bit harder than the questions on Combank. It reported my score as a 586, which is the exact same as the only other person I could find who posted their score on SDN. I am wondering how accurate this prediction is. The NBME scores seem to be a good prediciton for the usmle, but I am having my doubts about this camsae thing.

Did anyone else think it was ridiculous how many random tenderpt/chapman pts were on that test!!!!

 

[peppy]

Since OMT is taught differently in different schools, I would recommend releasing a study guide for the PE exam about the OMT techniques that we're expected to know so we are all on an equal footing on that topic. One of the techniques they seemed to consider super important was somethng that was mentioned only in passing (like literally mentioned once for like 5 minutes in one class) in my school's OMT class.

 

[TOXOSIS]

I recommend the NBOME publish a book that has the information they expect us to know for the COMLEX. I was getting all kinds of random questions on legality, ethics, OMM and more that I found nowhere in my 6 sources I used to study. But some students, at some school, probably know the answer because that question writer lectured at their school. Even if this proposed book consisted of 2000 pages and it cost students $750 it's still better than going into this test unprepared - regardless of how hard you studied. I think if you mention the $750 figure, they might actually consider it. I probably spent $400 on random sources anyway. This would allow all DO students to be on a level playing field, know what is expected from us to know at this level of training and have one source to study all of 3rd year. This should also be available for step 1.

 

[FutureInternist]

My school's OMM department did not teach any of the sacrum on L5 rules & we didn't find out about it till we went through the Savarese book....The OMM dept's resopnse.."We don't believe in those mechanics so we didn't teach it" 😡

 

[NavDOman]

On the COMSAE - Terrible... If those questions are indicative of what the real exam will be like, we're all doomed. Several questions had multiple choices that were possible - I did this with two friends and some review books so we could just go through and see questions and learn from them and it was STILL nearly impossible to answer a handful of them because they were TERRIBLY WRITTEN.

On the PE - Are you friggin kiddin me? Students from across the country need to fly in for one day, get a hotel room, take this thing that apparently you have to be mentally handicapped to fail or not speak english at all, and then fly back. Did the NBOME strike a deal with Consha.. conshaho... whatever... hotels as well to split the profits?

On OMM - jesus christ can we get some f'ing standards set up - you wonder why MD's thing we're ridiculous? It's because everyone learned something different, we have no set standard - for god's sake, we don't even have a frickin acceptable textbook out there!!! Screw a review book! How about an actual OMM textbook with references and supported by research?! You can't expect to be tested on something that we "think works, even if we don't know why sometimes" or something that "well, it depends on the school on how you want to do that..."

And testing everything as from the standpoint of a Family Practice physician - that's fine, it's great we can look at diseases from the primary care point of view... but maybe someone can teach us something about what that's supposed to be? Apparently medical law and ethics and whatnot are different for family practice doctors or they have some magical handbook that's not available for students - and it must also include what tests you do first for certain things because I find a lot of the time the generally accepted first test for some cases wasn't so for the nbome people who would rather waste time with one that won't show anything... ok that part was venting...

However, we need standards, we need to not be stealing money from students that are already in debt and going into a profession that's losing it's money rapidly, and we need new writers and contributers. I'm going back to studying - good luck everyone, we'll need it!

 

[BMW19]

where is this Comsae everyone is talking about? how many Q's is it? Is it free?

Thanks,

B-

I just took the comsae step II as well. I thought that it was quite a bit harder than the questions on Combank. It reported my score as a 586, which is the exact same as the only other person I could find who posted their score on SDN. I am wondering how accurate this prediction is. The NBME scores seem to be a good prediciton for the usmle, but I am having my doubts about this camsae thing.

Did anyone else think it was ridiculous how many random tenderpt/chapman pts were on that test!!!!

 

[ShyRem]

Free? You gotta be kidding.

Seriously, it's on the NBOME website and it's the latest version of "keeping up with NBME" - i.e. a practice exam that let's you "see where you stand". And of course, since it's copying the NBME (which has several exams you can take BTW), the exam is more expensive than the NBME exams. $50 I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong).