Emergency Medicine "Shelf" exams & Away Rotations

[FunkyScutMonkey]

I have been looking over hundreds of EM program websites to see where to do an away.

Question 1) Almost every site says they give a "Comprehensive Final Exam: a 100 question test designed for 4th year medical students (available on internet)"
**Does "available on the internet" mean we can get to it or that a question bank exists to study from - or what???
**If you did well on this, how/what did you study?

Question 2) When looking for an away rotation, is there any way to know what programs to AVOID? Word of mouth only gets you so far. I am looking in the midwest...suggestions?

THANKS!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[MSmentor018]

I have been looking over hundreds of EM program websites to see where to do an away.

Question 1) Almost every site says they give a "Comprehensive Final Exam: a 100 question test designed for 4th year medical students (available on internet)"
**Does "available on the internet" mean we can get to it or that a question bank exists to study from - or what???
**If you did well on this, how/what did you study?

Question 2) When looking for an away rotation, is there any way to know what programs to AVOID? Word of mouth only gets you so far. I am looking in the midwest...suggestions?

THANKS!

I rotated at a ton of EM programs and all had some kind of exam. some used SAEM test bank and gave us a choice of 2 diff topics to be tested on, others the large 100q SAEM exam, some had their own written exam. I used "into to clinical emergency medicine" and a little EM recall. aced them.

don't know anything about the midwest, good luck!

 

[RxnMan]

Programs to avoid: There's been a few threads on choosing and scheduling aways in the EM forum, so you may get some info there. But what's the harm? You're done in a month, and if you don't like them, don't interview there.

Exams: There are tons of EM texts for students. Take a look at CORD's EM Primer. I like this book, myself.

 

[MSmentor018]

Take a look at CORD's EM Primer

great information! 👍

 

[jstuds_66]

Question 1) Almost every site says they give a "Comprehensive Final Exam: a 100 question test designed for 4th year medical students (available on internet)"
**Does "available on the internet" mean we can get to it or that a question bank exists to study from - or what???
**If you did well on this, how/what did you study?

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd revive this old one. I'm taking the SAEM comprehensive exam tomorrow. Any last words of advice? I'm kinda nervous about it since it counts as a fifth of my grade.

 

[jstuds_66]

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd revive this old one. I'm taking the SAEM comprehensive exam tomorrow. Any last words of advice? I'm kinda nervous about it since it counts as a fifth of my grade.

Since nobody else has any advice, I thought I'd post some for a future student who searches these forums to answer the same question.

The best thing you can do to prep for the SAEM comprehensive final is to do all the tests at saemtests.org. More than one question came directly out of that question bank. Do yourself a favor and go through all of those questions even though some of the answers are freakin' weird, wrong, or non-existent (you'll see what I mean!)

 

[EMdoc10]

.

 

[secants]

I took the SAEM final and thought it was very straight forward. I didn't have access the to practice questions but I did half of pretest and thought it helped. I already took Step 2 and had shelves after each rotation so this wasn't bad at all. You also learn a lot of what they ask on a typical one month rotation.

 

[link2swim06]

I took the SAEM final and thought it was very straight forward. I didn't have access the to practice questions but I did half of pretest and thought it helped. I already took Step 2 and had shelves after each rotation so this wasn't bad at all. You also learn a lot of what they ask on a typical one month rotation.

Also this is the first year the nbme has an EM shelf. That was by far the easiest shelf when compared to the typical 3rd year core rotation shelf exams. Granted many people have just spent 1 month studying for step 2.

 

[secants]

I don't think mine was the NBME as I only had 50 questions. But everything was classical EM presentations questions were 2-3 sentences long and not much lab data.

 

[akbanbulo]

agree.I thought I'd post some for a future student who searches these forums to answer the same question.

 

[thinker]

What about Lang case files for EM or Pre-test series for EM? are they recommended?

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

What about Lang case files for EM or Pre-test series for EM? are they recommended?

I liked Pre-Test EM and felt well prepared for the test with it as my sole book.