Tough exam, although the content was fair. ASE wants you to know their guidelines (all of them). Overall prep included ASE videos and Mayo videos (not all of them, and a 2x speed as I started my prep late), ASE practice questions, Klein, Pai (first 6 chapters), Petersen packet for congenital. I was planning to do echosap but I was told it sucks.
-physics: straight forward. I was surprised it was not as esoteric as I thought it would be. Edelman and Klein should be fine. Concepts must be known cold. A few interesting concepts were covered by small Otto.
-hemodynamics: a lot of formulas, again very straight forward. I completely missed one question by not remembering a very famous hemodynamics formula starting with P. Understanding how pericardial disease affects hemodynamics is extremely high yield.
-M-mode: only 2 o 3 M-mode pics. Again, straight forward. I read Feigenbaum paper (I guess same or even more examples are in the actual book) and tried to learn about every possible M-mode finding I found/heard/saw.
-valvular: now things get interesting. I believe the exam content was fair it just required extensive familiarity with multiple/complex valvular disease. I thought every single formula in the ASE guidelines showed up. The valvular regurgitation guidelines in particular were heavily tested. You need to understand what you are calculating: you can memorize the formulas listed in Klein but the exam required a very efficient use of those formulas. I ran out of time by the end of 1st block. All blocks were loaded with same amount of time consuming calculations, maybe blocks 1 and 5 (already fatigued and hungry) were the hardest.
-congenital: my impression is that they tested the “common rare” congenital diseases. Calculations were straight forward, 2DE images were to the point, and there were quite a few questions on epidemiology of these diseases. Last 2 chapters on Klein are golden, and so is Petersen.
-stress testing: people told me the stress testing images had been crystal clear in the exam in the past. I think I took a different exam then. A good 8-10 questions on stress testing, either you can see the affected territory, or you need the additional clinical information provided to decide on it. Only practice in the echo lab can prepare you well for this part of the test.
-miscellaneous findings: common cardiomyopathies and other findings were tested but I felt all of them came with a twist. They will not show the common views of an uncommon (but known by everybody) condition, they will show it in a view that needs basic understanding of the pathophysiology. I think I spent up to 5 minutes on a single question that I was able to answer after realizing what finding they were trying to hide, but sacrificed time for calculations. Again, the more time in the echo lab, the better. The echo atlas by McGraw Hill did a very nice job.
