How much medicine to study for surgery shelf?

[eilis721]

I'm in my first rotation right now--surgery--and I keep hearing that medicine is more heavily tested than surgery on the shelf. I'm of course worried about this, not having taken medicine yet. Someone suggested reading the medicine chapter of Boards and Wards. Will this be enough to do well on the surgery shelf? Any other suggestions? I appreciate any input.

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[daisygirl]

I'm in my first rotation right now--surgery--and I keep hearing that medicine is more heavily tested than surgery on the shelf. I'm of course worried about this, not having taken medicine yet. Someone suggested reading the medicine chapter of Boards and Wards. Will this be enough to do well on the surgery shelf? Any other suggestions? I appreciate any input.

I'm in the same boat as you. Surgery will actually be my first clerkship. I would love some advice on this matter also

 

[Jaded Soul]

Like both of you, I didn't have medicine before surgery and I feel my score suffered because of it. I remember a lot of questions medical management about surgical patients that just didn't seem fair. In retrospect, I don't know what I could have done to prepare for the medicine side of the exam. So much of it just seemed dependent on having that experience rather than learning it out of a book.

Sorry...I just realized this post was kind of a downer and didn't have any real advice in it...

 

[Scooby Moo]

Someone suggested reading the medicine chapter of Boards and Wards. Will this be enough to do well on the surgery shelf?

That's what I ended up doing myself (not having the benefit of medicine before surgery either)...it did help somewhat but at nowhere near the level going through a medicine rotation would have. I'd like to say that using some of the review books people routinely suggest for Medicine would be beneficial, but there simply isn't enough time to take care of all of the surgery reading and ward/clinic work on top of what would essentially amount to studying for a clerkship you have yet to go through.

It just seems that folks who go through medicine first will struggle less when it comes to the surgery shelf. Wish I had a different opinion...


Edit: By all means, pick a good medicine review book if you have the time to. It does help IMHO.

 

[MD'05]

Someone told me that lie and I wasted precious time.

You don't need to know medicine for the surgery shelf. All you need to know is the surgical management of the presented cases. Sometimes you cut, sometimes you don't.

If you are a fast reader with great comprehension, read NMS surgery and do the A&L questions. If you have time, do the pretest questions also. And remember to immerse yourself in the world of surgery. You will learn alot just being involved with the trauma, vascular, general, orthopedic, and urology services. Don't forget to read up on ob / gyn management also. It is all in NMS. Good luck.

 

[Carm]

I thought Lawrence "Essentials of General Surgery" was a good resource. If you have orals at your school the practice orals at the end of each chapter are great.
Best medicine prep for exam is just understanding surgical management with your patient. I found the best way to learn this is to pick up what you can on the rotation, and then try to do a review in question form (A&L, Pre-test). Learning medicine or having medicine couldn't hurt, but the main thing is just knowing how to handle common situations that can best be reviewed in question format (IMHO). I am taking Step II tomorrow, and even after I have been through all the rotations, the Qbank surgery questions can be tough.

 

[njbmd]

Someone told me that lie and I wasted precious time.

You don't need to know medicine for the surgery shelf. All you need to know is the surgical management of the presented cases. Sometimes you cut, sometimes you don't.

If you are a fast reader with great comprehension, read NMS surgery and do the A&L questions. If you have time, do the pretest questions also. And remember to immerse yourself in the world of surgery. You will learn alot just being involved with the trauma, vascular, general, orthopedic, and urology services. Don't forget to read up on ob / gyn management also. It is all in NMS. Good luck.

Hey there,
I had not done medicine when I took my surgery clerkship exam. I studied Surgery (Mont Reid) and aced the exam. You need to know about Surgery. Mont Reid covered everything in enough detail that I didn't have to read Lawrence. I just studied the cases in the back. That was more than enough. A&L is way overkill.

njbmd

 

[12R34Y]

Many of my friends all agree that the surgery shelf is nothing more than medical management of surgical patients. very little surgery and lots of medicine. i would definately study up on medicine. The sample questions that our school's surgery department gives us are all: Patient X had blah blah surgery and 2 days later develops dyspnea, an S3 and blah blah...........basically it is fluid overload from IV fluids etc.....not really surgery per say.

later

 

[Gut Shot]

I had surgery first and survived the shelf exam. People told me that it was heavily geared towards medicine, but I couldn't really believe it until I took the exam. Sure enough, a substantial number of questions were seemingly randomly lifted from everything except actual surgery.

My advice would be to breeze through Boards & Wards shortly before the exam, just as a quick refresher. Historically, a lot of the surgery-oriented questions involve GI and trauma, and the relevant sections from Appleton & Lange Review of Surgery helped out. Some of my classmates appeared to have less GI and trauma on their exams than I did, however. I couldn't use NMS because it was far too dense, and I just don't retain info from outlines very well.

Also, a good friend used Lange's "Casefiles: Surgery" and did very well. I skimmed it months after taking the exam and wished that I had known about it sooner. I think the Casefiles books are great for other clerkships as well, (medicine, OB, peds).

Just remember, it's not uncommon to walk out of the surgery shelf exam thinking "There is no way I could have passed that thing. I'm screwed." I think that sentiment was reflected in about +90% of my classmates. Good luck!