what are people's experiences with it? mine is in october. it's just a gauge of what we need to work on right? did anyone study for it?
In Training Exam
- Thread starter surge55
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2011
- Messages
- 385
- Reaction score
- 111
Disagree. The ITE exam is the direct correlation that your PD will use to gauge where you are in respect to your intern class and for you to gauge where you are in the nation. Going into it cold to me is the equivalent of going into the USMLE cold...just not smart. I didn't study last year on the recommendation of some seniors and attendings. While I had a reasonable showing because I did not perform where I could have if I had studied I have 1) to wait another year to moonlight so I can meet the previously unknown score desire of my PD and 2) I have a perception that I am being watched which adds more pressure on an exam that is already ridiculously boring and excessively long compared to the actual IM boards.
If you are trying for Cards, GI, or (insert specialty) one of the most important criteria your PD will use in crafting you LOR is your performance relative to your co-residents. Same deal for word of mouth recs to potential research mentors or for that future hospitalist position you want. They can not give the exact number but just like med school they have code phrases (ie. exceptionally knowledgeable compared to peers vs solid medical knowledge etc) that are cryptic to us but are PD speak.
My recommendation is that after you take a month to learn the lay of the land and get adjusted to your residency system that you pull out a MKSAP and read the corresponding subject. Its hard because you will be tired at night but its a good habit to get into reading 20 min a night and titrate up as able.
Do not fall into the don't study trap. My guess is more people study than not as interns though I have no data to support this. Use the new USMLE World IM Q bank or digital/book MKSAP questions to gauge where you are. You did not get to where you are by not studying for exams that they make entire book series and expensive review courses about.
My 2 cents.
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2006
- Messages
- 69,368
- Reaction score
- 61,721
You had a PD that would let you moonlight first year? And you had a PD that used the test as something it's not intended for? Would you please send me a PM and let me know which program this is, so that I can recommend people not go to it?
To the OP, the test is designed to be taken in your SECOND year, and to be taken COLD - no studying - a 30%ile in your second year roughly corresponds to just passing boards, and 60%ile essentially mean you will pass boards. THAT'S IT.
I mean ask around . . . If your PD is the kind of asshat that uses these scores against you, then do some studying. If they don't use it against you, then **** the studying. I didn't study. Not once. I wanted to see what I knew and how well I was learning things in my program just being a resident. I was pleasantly surprised by my great, but not astronomical scores. I also passed boards without issue, so the numbers were correct, at least in my case.
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2011
- Messages
- 385
- Reaction score
- 111
No I could moonlight my 2nd year after passing Step 3 and getting a license. My PD actually is not ridiculous about it at all. My med school IM residency PD was known for being a way more uptight about it than my current PD. There is no significant heat or feeling like my job is in jeopardy or I can't get the fellowship I want. Its just I have regrets I did not put in work and score higher since I could have been moonlighting by October of this year instead of now waiting until the spring when I will be busier. Just my personal desire for cash thats all. However, other programs may be different.
I am well aware that the ITE was historically designed to be used for 2nd year medicine resident evaluation and the percentile ranks associated with passing boards. Only now does every class really take it. ( Great breakdown here by the way from a recent thread http://www.im.org/Meetings/Past/2010/AIMW10/Presentations/Documents/2010%20APDIM%20Fall%20Meeting/Wksp%20208_Drake.pdf
You are being a bit naive though. PDs are people, They say USMLE Step scores are not supposed to be used to compare people but rather as a metric for competency but we all know those numbers are very important for specialty choice and where you have a chance to match. Plenty of WAMC threads about it. I think the ITE is more of an internal metric that can have benefits or detriments that would not be immediately apparent to a new intern and may be program specific so SDN advice may not be as helpful in this regard. I do agree you should talk to your seniors to get a sense of this.
Just giving a different opinion. I don't think that it is the best place for you to be doing gauging. There are other places to do that than the annual assessment of your medical knowledge by your program.
- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Messages
- 2,045
- Reaction score
- 10
So what exactly is the point of having these in the first couple months of internship? I think most of what I will have learned by that point in training will mostly involve not $hitting myself when my pager goes off and maybe how to order an effing TTE on our ******ed E-ordering system!...I think some of my first couple weeks of frustration may be coming out in this reply
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2006
- Messages
- 69,368
- Reaction score
- 61,721
No point really. I suppose it can point out what you don't know from what you REALLY don't know. Unfortunately, there's a lot of sub-specialty diagnosis and out-patien management of chronic disease and disease screening that you simply haven't had access to you so it's kind of stupid to make first years take it, but no one ever listened to me about that.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2011
- Messages
- 72
- Reaction score
- 2
Just out of curiosity, what ITE percentile or percentage correct is considered good, great, or astronomical?
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2006
- Messages
- 69,368
- Reaction score
- 61,721
I suppose that is up for a subjective debate.
At my old shop your first year score didn't really mean dick. If you were below the 30%ile in the second year, they asked you to submit a structured study plan to the program for how you were going to pass boards, and if you had not bumped up by your third year, you got stuck doing some extra studying with kind of a didactic reading course directed by on of the assisstant PDs. Anyone less than 10%ile in the second year was placed immediately into the didactic reading course.
For me, I'd say in your second year >60% is good, >80%ile is great, and >95%ile is astronomical if you were going to pin me down. 30-59%ile is aight - make sure you don't blow off studying for boards, but you're probably a decent enough resident otherwise.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2010
- Messages
- 146
- Reaction score
- 0
The point is to evaluate how you progress from R1 to R3 year. If you do awful R1 and improve to a respectful score by R3 then the system is working. If you digress or have no significant improvement, this is a red flag and helps the program identify people at risk for failing boards.
thanks guys for the advice.
I may consider studying. although I'm getting kind of hammered with 6 weeks of wards now with a 2 week 'break' with neuro then 2 more weeks of wards. then its october and the exam is that month and I have nightfloat the first 2 weeks of it.
not sure if this was a coincedence or not, but the guy who killed the ITE during his intern year (he's a 2nd year now) got intern of the year at my program. I suppose it doesn't mean much, but I'm sure it helped him in the long run.
I'll consider studying; but as one person said, I do get worn out at the end of days, and that's even now with just doing h+p's; I start doing discharge summaries soon. yay...
love it though. I"m glad I get to be where I want to be.
I may consider studying. although I'm getting kind of hammered with 6 weeks of wards now with a 2 week 'break' with neuro then 2 more weeks of wards. then its october and the exam is that month and I have nightfloat the first 2 weeks of it.
not sure if this was a coincedence or not, but the guy who killed the ITE during his intern year (he's a 2nd year now) got intern of the year at my program. I suppose it doesn't mean much, but I'm sure it helped him in the long run.
I'll consider studying; but as one person said, I do get worn out at the end of days, and that's even now with just doing h+p's; I start doing discharge summaries soon. yay...
love it though. I"m glad I get to be where I want to be.
Almost everyone who gets slammed on the ITE and does awful goes on to pass the ABIM boards without problem on their very first try if that tells you anything of the value of the ITE.
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 22,033
- Reaction score
- 19,184
Now would be a good time to learn the difference between causation and correlation.
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2001
- Messages
- 9,319
- Reaction score
- 125
Sure, but that's probably largely because they start studying like fiends after they get their scores back. That doesn't mean the exam is worthless, it means that it's fulfilling one of its intended purposes. Probably if you bomb the ITE and then change nothing, then you fail the boards, but there just aren't enough completely self-destructive IM residents to test this theory.
I didn't say it was THE reason...just found it interesting 😀
I do plan on doing a little studying. I don't want to go into it cold. I am definitely rusty seeing as how I graduated last october and my last 8 weeks were surgery electives. I've survived one week of wards though, that's a start.
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 22,033
- Reaction score
- 19,184
Why study? Unlike the ABSITE, the ABIM ITE is meant to gauge improvement...and many programs don't have interns take it at al.
Bomb it this year, blow it out of the water next near, wait for somebody in power to ask if you want to be a chief resident then laugh loudly in their face...preferably at noon conference or Grand Rounds.
we have chief residents as third years. I wouldn't mind that.- Joined
- Mar 17, 2011
- Messages
- 385
- Reaction score
- 111
Why bomb it at all? I don't understand the objection to some review before taking the exam. You have brand new interns who spent 4th year chilling and not doing any substantial work taking the exam. I'd argue it's not even their true baseline.
I think this issue is very subjective and varies from program to program. When I saw this thread I freaked out and went to talk to my program cordinator. She told me that...it doesnt matter because it is supposed to gauge how much we learn. Just when I was about to exit her office she called me and said...off the record....if I bomb it, I am gonna draw extra attention from the program director and I shd avoid that. Btw I am an intern.
Sigh...and another big sigh...
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 22,033
- Reaction score
- 19,184
And you should. Because, while the ITE doesn't (or shouldn't) mean anything, it's a joke in comparison to the actual ABIM exam.
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2012
- Messages
- 51
- Reaction score
- 2
Disagree. Felt the ITE was a fairly good representation of abim. The abim was probably one of the fairest written exams I've encountered.
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2008
- Messages
- 86
- Reaction score
- 1
I also thought the ITE was a fair representation of the ABIM.
You should be 'studying' for 3 years for the ABIM. By reading and learning every day about your patients. If you actually do this, then you won't need to 'study' any review materials.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2003
- Messages
- 1,531
- Reaction score
- 48
Main thing would be to see what areas you did better in and what needs improvement. Study a topic in the area you are weak in every week and see how you do next year. You can go online and find out what broad topics you missed and read up on those.
Each years percentile score is computed separately so this means you are slightly below mean for all PGY-1s who took the test.
ah ok that makes sense. not too bad then. I def did poorly on GI and Pulmonary so I'll work on those.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2003
- Messages
- 1,531
- Reaction score
- 48
You should go to the online link that you get with your result and see what questions/topics you missed. That will help as well.
So if you get 76th percentile in PGY-1 what does that mean? Is that considered good? I wish they gave us an average score for our program, or else it's not that helpful if they compare across ALL of North America?
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2008
- Messages
- 8,827
- Reaction score
- 9,081
It means you did better than 76 percent of the interns in the country. Of course it's considered good.
I think, for many/most programs, at <35 %tile in the PGY2 year they start getting concerned about possible extra studying to make sure you do well on the boards.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2009
- Messages
- 15,492
- Reaction score
- 10,128
The test itself is not that hard. If you want to read before taking it that's fine but you should be okay if you have been reading about the cases you encounter and just paying attention.
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2011
- Messages
- 1,235
- Reaction score
- 120
we take ours yearly in march. the other important thing to consider is your year to year progress. If you scored 55% intern year, you were ahead of 55% of your fellow interns across the country. If you scored 50% your second year, you are now only ahead of 50% of those same classmates you were previously 55% ahead of. From what my attending have told me your score is irrelevant apart from the fact that it is one, above whatever is needed to be a passing boards score (i think that is like 60% as a third year) and two, your scores progressivly improve from year to year. If you were in the bottom 1/3 of the country in GI every year 1 through 3 then you really did not improve much from what you knew as an intern in that subject.
Hmm so it's in my best interest not to do too well in PGY-1? Lol. Oh well, will see what happens next year. Isn't there an absolute % correct too? Like by 60% correct, you're referring to that score right, not the percentile in PGY-3.
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2011
- Messages
- 1,235
- Reaction score
- 120
lol yes if you do terrible pgy 1 and average pgy2 it will look like you improved dramatically, not that I think that is a good way to go. I am not sure on the %correct idea. I personally would like to know what my %score in terms of pgy 2 comparison means for my chances of passing the boards. As an intern I had exactly 50% in terms of comparison to interns. Have no idea what that meant in temrs of % questions correct or what my chances of passing the boards were had I taken the test that day. I take the PGY 2 test in 3 weeks though, will take a closer look at the breakdown then.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2009
- Messages
- 15,492
- Reaction score
- 10,128
Yeap. You should aim to get at least 65% correct to be on a decent percentile.
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2009
- Messages
- 211
- Reaction score
- 4
bump! taking my ITE in October... any suggestions for prep and or not prepping?
mksap questions work well
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2011
- Messages
- 257
- Reaction score
- 30
+1 on studying. PD's definitely use this to "place" you in your class whether you "studied" or not. It's one of the few objective markers in residency, and it's a shame people blow it off. In the new system, I think it will be even more prominent.
Never study on your first year specifically for the ITE. After that, study or don't study it's up to you. But your scores are bound to come up. Worst thing you can do is study on your first year, do excellent on it, then drop down drastically in percentile the next year because you were in hard rotations and couldn't study for it. Personally, I never studied for them.. I think it's a waste of time. Just study whatever patients you have and try to be a good doctor.
Just my opinion. Other people may have different thoughts. Also, I've always been a good test-taker so I never really worried about it.
Just my opinion. Other people may have different thoughts. Also, I've always been a good test-taker so I never really worried about it.
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 22,033
- Reaction score
- 19,184
Never studied for them in residency or fellowship. Always did fine (not great, but good enough). It was never an issue.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2006
- Messages
- 2,851
- Reaction score
- 2,775
Not sure that your scores are BOUND to come up. It's all about the percentiles, so even if you improved from your intern year, it's still possible that your contemporaries caught up, especially if you were a above average intern.
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 22,033
- Reaction score
- 19,184
If you're an intern, don't bother. Tank it (not on purpose of course). That way you'll look better the next 2 years.
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2011
- Messages
- 1,235
- Reaction score
- 120
/nod
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
- Messages
- 249
- Reaction score
- 7
I'm not sure how you can do well on it as an intern anyway after only three or four months. I feel like while I'm learning a lot, it isn't always necessarily "book knowledge".
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2008
- Messages
- 8,827
- Reaction score
- 9,081
Well. Just finished the newly electronic ITE. Annoying that it's a month earlier this year.
Overall reaction:
They made the test even longer, which sucks. But really, the # of questions stayed the same, they just gave us a whole bunch extra break time, which is nice. Wish that it rolled over the extra time in each block to the next break like the steps though. The questions that stood out (again) were all the god-awful rheum and heme/onc, but those are my weak points so it might just be me.
Wonder when we'll get our scores.
Overall reaction:
They made the test even longer, which sucks. But really, the # of questions stayed the same, they just gave us a whole bunch extra break time, which is nice. Wish that it rolled over the extra time in each block to the next break like the steps though. The questions that stood out (again) were all the god-awful rheum and heme/onc, but those are my weak points so it might just be me.
Wonder when we'll get our scores.
