ENT Inservice-HOW TO ACE IT

[Moola]

Hey guys,

Hows everything? Just found out that we have to take the inservice in our PGY-1 year? WTF!! I really want to do well so i can be all spruced up for PGY-2 yr and I wanna do a general plastics fellowship and craniofacial or Head/Neck fellowship afterwards. ENT residents are really smart and I would think that it would be harder to score well on our boards rather than gen surg residents taking the absite (ENT residents rock!). The competition to do well is probably pretty stiff, right? What books would you recommend to read? To do well, how much and how long should we be studying? My attending told me he read Bailey's and read abstracts and got a 99% on his first try, lol. Listen, I'm a self-proclaimed gunner and I know I'm gonna get mocked a lot in this forum . Lay it on me coz i probably deserve it. But really, any advice you got is really appreciate it. God bless and good luck to all.

Moola (should change the name-get no love, lol)

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[aggernodi]

Well, you aren't going to do that well bluntly speaking. But that's OK, because you will be compared not only to all residents who take the in-service, but to those in the same year as you.

I personally didn't study at all for the in-service. I didn't have time (I trained back when there was no such thing as 80 hour work week limitations).

My chair told all of us that he would be happy if we scored at the 50th percentile or higher which was just fine with me.

Personally, I found that if you really want to do well under time constraints, do a lot of Q&As and review them comprehensively. The home study course Q&A are also helpful.

 

[resxn]

You have to take the ENT in-service during your internship? That's ******ed. You can tell your chairman I said that as if he'd care.

Don't worry. No one will give a rat's a-- regarding an in-service score from your internship. And if they do, they're not worth even talking to.

Aggernodi had good suggestions for quick and dirty studying which is what you'll likely need to do in your first year. I liked KJ Lee and tried to get that book memorized as much as possible. I started off right around 50th percentile as an R-2 and went up every year compared to my year colleagues until I cranked it for a 97th percentile in my chief year. I just didn't get that test the first time I took it and learned more and more about what to study as I got older. I can't imagine an R-1 doing real well, but since they compare you to your fellow R-1's, the more you put in the better off you'll be. I just personally would waste my time doing it in internship.

 

[TheThroat]

Studying for the inservice during the intern year is like trying to learn Korean, without having ever met anyone Korean nor having the first clue of how to learn the language, other than having a few huge Korean-English dictionaries.

My advice is to try to use the test as a learning tool for the next year, thinking about the questions and looking up answers. Of course, you should NEVER write down questions and share them with other residents, as that is breaking the rules...

The inservice is designed for ONE THING: preparing oto residents for the written oto boards. Using it as a comparison to judge residents' knowledge, to compare different oto residency programs, or for any other reason, is beyond its scope.

That said, after scoring in the 60th percentile my R2 year, I did study the R3 year to make myself feel a little better. Did not study much the R4 or R5 year, other than thinking about past questions.