Hardest NBME shelf exam? Psych surgery or Medicine

[steph curreus]

Do you guys think Surgery, Psych or Internal Medicine is the hardest/most failed NBME shelf?

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[michiganpsych08]

i think it depends on when you take them. surgery before IM a little harder, but surgery after IM totally doable. psych...im going into psych so it was a breeze for me

 

[Womb Raider]

Surgery harder than IM, and both of them much harder than psych.

 

[WingedOx]

I mean, psych is easier simply because it's the only shelf where you likely learned chunk of the material in college, assuming you took a 200 level abnormal psych class.

 

[W19]

Psych does not even come close to Surgery/IM/Peds in term of difficulty...

I did not even study for psych and still got a low 90. I studied my butt off for the other ones and got in the mid 80s...

 

[TypeADissection]

I'm getting kind of old now but I remember my surgery shelf being much more medicine than anything else. So brush up on breast cancer and liver failure and stuff like that. Unless it's changed, in which case I don't have a clue.

 

[NeurologyHopeful2018]

By far the surgery shelf - it requires the most broad knowledge base.

 

[jw3600]

Undoubtedly not psych. Doing uworld thoroughly practically guarantees an honors.

 

[ortnakas]

For me psych was easiest. Surgery felt hardest. My scores would indicate obgyn was second hardest.

 

[vernhart]

I've been hearing Family Med is one of the toughest, where would it fit in here?

 

[Stagg737]

Personal opinion from hardest to easiest: IM>surgery>>peds>>>FM>OB/Gyn>psych

IM felt like a shorter version of Step 1/2, surgery was similar but I thought it wasn't as bad (took it after IM). Psych was by far the easiest with OB/Gyn a close second, but I also always just seemed to do really well on OB in general. The only hard part about psych was that for me it had the longest question stems by far, but they were still easy. I thought FM was easy, but it was also the only shelf at my school that was NBOME and not NBME, so that may have made a difference.

 

[NeurologyHopeful2018]

Personal opinion from hardest to easiest: IM>surgery>>peds>>>FM>OB/Gyn>psych

IM felt like a shorter version of Step 1/2, surgery was similar but I thought it wasn't as bad (took it after IM). Psych was by far the easiest with OB/Gyn a close second, but I also always just seemed to do really well on OB in general. The only hard part about psych was that for me it had the longest question stems by far, but they were still easy. I thought FM was easy, but it was also the only shelf at my school that was NBOME and not NBME, so that may have made a differed.

NBOME vs. NBME would make a huge difference..

 

[Stagg737]

NBOME vs. NBME would make a huge difference..

Idk how big that actually is. We took NBME for everything but FM (which was NBOME), but I took a practice FM NBME and it really wasn't very different other than the NBOME had OMM questions on it. Maybe it makes a difference for the scoring percentile, but in terms of the actual questions they felt pretty similar for the most part imo.

 

[mymembernames]

IM

 

[Redpancreas]

IM or Surgery. Whatever comes first. As a male doing Internal, OB/GYN wasn’t my favorite either. Other than that, peds was good, family was my best score, psych was the easiest for everyone, and I felt surgery was slightly harder than IM. Weird personal trend but NBME breaks questions down by setting and I noticed I’m significantly better with ambulatory questions than inpatient questions (throughout all shelf exams including surgery/IM/etc.) which is kind of disheartening because inpatient questions are usually the harder ones with the meat.

 

[Donald Juan]

Most schools give your grade relative to national averages and percentiles, so if that's the case there is no easier/harder shelf. The broadest shelf in terms of material would be either family or internal. I'm really shocked people are saying surgery, we always considered it easier at my school, just you might not have as much free time to study.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Curious for 3rd year prospectives on HOW you actually study for these things during rotations? For example how does one study for surgery shelf if you're working 12-14 hour days 6 days a week? Personally, I cant see myself getting much done academically on top of an ~80 hr work week.

Is the amount of material relatively low compared to the amount of time you have? Or are people studying while on shift?

(Edited for grammar)

 

[sharkbyte]

Curious for 3rd year prospectives on HOW you actually study for these things during rotations? For example how does one study for surgery shelf if you're working 12-14 hour days 6 days a week? Personally, I cant see myself getting much done academically on top of an ~80 hr work week.

Is the amount of material relatively low compared to the amount of time you have? Or are people studying while on shift?

(Edited for grammar)

Interested about this as well.

 

[flightnurse2MD]

Do you guys think Surgery, Psych or Internal Medicine is the hardest/most failed NBME shelf?

Pretest 500 questions an absolute must for the surgery shelf IMHO. Crushed it.

 

[flightnurse2MD]

Curious for 3rd year prospectives on HOW you actually study for these things during rotations? For example how does one study for surgery shelf if you're working 12-14 hour days 6 days a week? Personally, I cant see myself getting much done academically on top of an ~80 hr work week.

Is the amount of material relatively low compared to the amount of time you have? Or are people studying while on shift?

(Edited for grammar)

Went to bed at 8ish and woke up at 2ish every day. I alternated days between the gym and reading. 12-hr reads on my days off and used my 2 sick days at the every end of the block before the shelf.