Help us out. What is a shelf exam (and others)

[juddson]

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Could a med student go through all of the possible "official" exams one is going to take in medical school. By "official", I mean examinations designed(or administered) by state or national examination or licensure bodies. Specifically (although, I'm guessing there might be more), what are the following, and what subjects do they cover?

1. Shelf exams
2. USMLE step 1
3. USMLE step 2
4. anything esle?

Hope I'm not the ONLY one who doesn't know EXACTLY what these are.

Judd

 

[Starflyr]

The USMLE step 1 covers the basic sciences that most medical schools teach in the 1st 2 years. In most places, you must pass it to progress to clinical rotations. Its administered at testing centers and scored by the NBME. It takes about 8 hours, and is computerized.

USMLE step 2 covers the clinical sciences. It is now expanding to include a clinical skills observation exam - to weed out those with no interpersonal skills and those who dont speak/understand English. Also administerd by the NBME. I guess it now takes 2 days, a written part and the OSCE part.

The shelf exams are exams that have been developed by the NBME to "assist medical schools in assessing their curriculum" during the clinical years - they are NOT required. EG, there is a surgury shelf exam, a family medicine shelf exam, a pediatrics shelf exam, etc. The NBME scores them, but the scores dont "count" towards licensure. They may, however, count towards your grade and ultimate passing/failing of that particular rotation. These take about 2-3 hours and are 75-100 question multiple choice exams, administered at your school.

USMLE step 3 - you take this after your intern year of residency. not sure exactly how it is different from step 2, honestly.Any residents out there that can enlighten us?

Then of course, there are also the board certification exams for each specialty. No idea what those entail, either.

hope this helps!

Star

 

[carrigallen]

btw, i've heard the peds and family med shelf exams look very surprisingly similiar to the medicine shelf exam..in some schools this makes up more than half your grade. :/

 

[aod]

I hear the term mini board used around my school. Is that a shelf exam or something else?

 

[rxfudd]

I was under the impression that there were some schools using shelf exams for basic science tests - I know we have a path mini board (as do many schools), but I've heard of a few schools using mini boards for EVERY class. Truth or myth?

 

[ckent]

Originally posted by rxfudd
I was under the impression that there were some schools using shelf exams for basic science tests - I know we have a path mini board (as do many schools), but I've heard of a few schools using mini boards for EVERY class. Truth or myth?

Truth. There are shelf exams for just about every subject, and some schools use these exams during their preclinical years. They cost a good deal of money to administer and have graded though, therefore most schools write their own exams during the preclinical years. There's no evidence that having students do shelf exams makes them better prepared for the boards too.

 

[Bevo]

Ross administers every shelf exam in the preclinical years.
They also write their own exams.

The shelfs here are weighted about the same as the local exams, although if you dont pass the shelf in any subject, you dont pass the course and you repeat teh semester, even if you scored well in all the local exams.

But thing is with the shelf, it pretty much correlates with how well you do with the local exams ( at least here it does).

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by lmbebo
Ross administers every shelf exam in the preclinical years.
They also write their own exams.

The shelfs here are weighted about the same as the local exams, although if you dont pass the shelf in any subject, you dont pass the course and you repeat teh semester, even if you scored well in all the local exams.

But thing is with the shelf, it pretty much correlates with how well you do with the local exams ( at least here it does).

Why on earth does Ross do this? Are they afraid some of their grads will pass all their classes then fail Step I and make the school look bad? Do they have no faith in their faculty members? Is this to weed people out or hold people back?

 

[Adcadet]

ug

 

[Adcadet]

ug ug

 

[Megalofyia]

Acadet what does the computer have to do with board exams?

You've been studying too much.

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by Megalofyia
Acadet what does the computer have to do with board exams?

You've been studying too much.

What computer stuff? I don't know what you're talking about 😉