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badgas

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Overall I did not think it was that bad. I probably got every stats question wrong. It seemed like there was a good amount of cardiac on this exam. Also a lot of neuro. The normal number of WTF questions. What did everyone else think?
 
badgas said:
Overall I did not think it was that bad. I probably got every stats question wrong. It seemed like there was a good amount of cardiac on this exam. Also a lot of neuro. The normal number of WTF questions. What did everyone else think?
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I thought there were fewer old standard / big blue-type questions than usual and there was even more general medicine than last year. I'm not a huge fan of the 'choose the best answer out of multiple right answers' questions- I think there was the usual number of those. Not many regional of foot fetish questions. Lots of pain.
 
I thought it was much tougher than last year. Was able to answer every question but had to stay until the end. Lots of questions with answers where 2 or 3 seemed right. Oh well, was good practice for the real one in August...
 
I think there were was a relatively even topic distribution. If anything, regional was lacking. Not a lot of pharm. More medicine than I would prefer as always. Stats screwed me as always. However, there were a TON of questions in the format of "which is the BEST, MOST or LEAST etc etc" with a couple of correct answers but you had to figure out which was the BEST/WORST of the group.... if that makes any sense.
 
sorry for my ignorance (I won't be a lowly CA-1 until next year)... what are the months that we take the ITE? Every year in March?
 
Thanks for the replies... I remembered something being in July and then later in the year or something, but I see that has changed. I hope you all did well and thanks again.
 
I did think it was a lot of cardiac. Few regional ? I have been practicing questions but since I'm a CA-1, I knew there were things I wouldn't know since I haven't done them yet. I felt the questions were fair overall, but couldn't tell how I did.
 
guitarguy09 said:
Thanks for the replies... I remembered something being in July and then later in the year or something, but I see that has changed. I hope you all did well and thanks again.
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Hey guitarguy, you might be thinking of the AKT, which I believe is taken in CA-1 year at one week, six weeks, and six months. Just be glad you're not in a categorical program...I just got to take the ITE as a lowly CA-0!

My take as an intern was that I was surprised by how many questions there were that I felt like I should have known the answer just from medical school, not necessarily an anesthesiology residency...I guess that puts me into the "medicine-heavy" camp.
 
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Weird question - how much does it cost you guys to sit your exam?
 
Lic -

We were told our program paid $100 each for us to take the ITE. As for the actual writtens, I don't know...maybe $800?

dc
 
Having taken this exam for 4 years now (including my intern year)...this was definitely the hardest one. Last year, I came out of the exam knowing I did well. This year, NOT so much.

Agreed with above...Cardiac heavy. Stats was killer. BIG BLUE was not helpful at all. Usually it is. But MAYBE, MAYBE a few of his style q's were on there.


ABA definitely did a number on this one...........
 
Maybe we had different forms but Big Blue was pretty good for me. Many of the "Lock and Loads" made an appearance. By comparison I think Faust did not cover a lot of things that came up.

I thought there were a lot of easy questions but also quite a few very hard ones. From the questions I remember narrowing down to 2 options, I got 2/3 wrong - next time I should just flip a coin. OB in particular destroyed me but I haven't done that rotation yet.

Stats was beyond the level of the review books and USMLE and I had to draw on knowledge from a grad-student biostatistics course I took in 2003 to answer them (although they would have been basic for that course).
 
narcusprince said:
Big D
Did you kill it this year? I was hoping you would represent!!!
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I wish man...I was hoping I could post that I was coming for your intern ITE score, but I think that's safely out of reach :laugh:. How the hell did you get a 97th percentile again?!?!?

I felt like a deer in the headlights, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into for most of the test. Worse still, I'm not entirely sure what I could have done to do much better...I guess I just need to keep reading. The first several questions that I looked up today I got wrong - that depressed me, so I stopped looking.

Did you crush it again? How long til the scores come out?

dc
 
pgg -

I suppose you're right. My REAL question (for myself) is: "Will 3.5 yrs really be enough to learn all this super-fine detail, to the point where I can expect to pass the boards?"

dc
 
bigdan said:
Lic -

We were told our program paid $100 each for us to take the ITE. As for the actual writtens, I don't know...maybe $800?

dc
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So your programs pay for you to sit the ITE exam, you guys just have to pay for the boards? You're lucky!
 
bigdan said:
pgg -

I suppose you're right. My REAL question (for myself) is: "Will 3.5 yrs really be enough to learn all this super-fine detail, to the point where I can expect to pass the boards?"

dc
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Many people with suspect motivation and questionable knowledge have done so before us.

Licoricestick said:
So your programs pay for you to sit the ITE exam, you guys just have to pay for the boards? You're lucky!
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We'd be lucky if it were the other way around.
 
Fu*k pH/alpha stat questions, does anybody understand this ridiculous concept? Three freakin questions!
 
Southpaw said:
Did you see how expensive the boards were? Wait, don't you make like twice as much as us as a resident? How much do your boards cost?
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Converted to USD, our primary exams (normally sat during 2nd year of training) are about $3350 a sitting, and it's not uncommon for people to need to sit more than once (sometimes 3 times...and I've heard of department heads that took 7 attempts to get through!). Doesn't matter whether you get an invite to the orals or not, the exam fee is still the same (and unless you live in Melbourne there are also travel and accommodation costs for the orals).

Our second part exams (have to keep sitting until you pass or you don't get to exit training and work independently) are ~ US$3600, again it doesn't matter if you get invited to the orals or not, same exam fee. And same need to pay travel/accommodation for orals.

This is on top of a registration fee to begin training of ~US$1500 and an annual training fee of the same amount for each of our five years of training + the cost of the ATLS course.

Of course our training is very cheap compared to the surgeons - it can cost them about US$13500 a year in training costs.

That said, you are correct, we do get paid more than you.
 
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DreamMachine said:
That sucks.

How much does it cost for you to go to medical school?
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Ah - there we have it good. My med school costs were about $6000/yr and we have this system whereby you get a loan from the government that is indexed according to the CPI, but doesn't have actual interest (applies for all types of uni courses). You then pay it back based on what you earn. So if you earn a small amount on financial year you pay back a small percentage of your income. The more you earn, the greater percentage of your income you pay (but it's never terribly onerous and it comes out of pay just like our taxes do). So I graduated from med school with just over AUD$50000 in debt.

International students paid more ~AUD$36000/yr, and that's about the same as what the domestic full fee paying students pay (there are a few med schools that offer full fee paying places to australian students). When I was in med school the exchange rate was quite favourable, and the students in my class from the US said it was a lot cheaper to do med school here than in the US. I think the exception was state colleges if you were from that state (is that right?).

This is what amazes me about what you guys get paid - how on earth can you manage to live and start paying back a couple of hundred thou in loans during your residencies?
 
ultm8frisbee said:
Fu*k pH/alpha stat questions, does anybody understand this ridiculous concept? Three freakin questions!
Click to expand...

Check out the ph/alpha stat chapter in Faust. It's like two pages and covers pretty much everything you need to know about it... which is not that much.
 
Licoricestick said:
This is what amazes me about what you guys get paid - how on earth can you manage to live and start paying back a couple of hundred thou in loans during your residencies?
Click to expand...

That's a good f'ing question. The answer lies in the fact that absolutely no one in our government has a clue what it means to become a physician in this country, and the cost to do so.

Just curious, what do attendings make there? Also, what's the job market like?
 
ultm8frisbee said:
Fu*k pH/alpha stat questions, does anybody understand this ridiculous concept? Three freakin questions!
Click to expand...

You don't have to know much to get the questions right.
1) With decreased temperature, solubility (of CO2) increases/partial pressure decreases.
2) pH stat - lower temperature on CPB --> decreased PaCO2 so CO2 added to raise PaCO2 to 40
3) Alpha stat - charge ratio on imidazole groups is constant at different temperatures so you don't really have to do anything.
 
Southpaw said:
Just curious, what do attendings make there? Also, what's the job market like?
Click to expand...

Job market variable - difficult to get a public job (similar to your academic jobs) in the city I'm in at the moment (but there are a large number of people who have just completed training, so it probably won't be so bad in a year or so), but there is still a reasonable amount of private work available. Groups don't have the same concept as yours - no contracts with individual hospitals, no partnerships. Anaesthetists join groups to simplify billing and to enable them to take leave (someone else from the group can cover the list). But even the newest private anaesthetist earns what they bill (minus a small percentage in overheads to fund admin/billing etc) - no one is on a salary type system.

Mid levels essentially non existent (we have a couple of nurse sedationists, that's it). We do have GP anaesthetists working in rural areas who do part time anaesthetics, part time general practice and have less training that us (but they are still docs), however they usually work where there isn't enough work (or variety of casemix) to employ a full time specialist anaesthetist.

Specialist anaesthetist income depends on how much work you do. Full time public make around $200000 AUD.
Private can probably make $350000 or more (I have almost nothing to do with the full time private guys so I don't have first hand info on that) if you're prepared to do lots of long lists (12-15hr days not uncommon for some lists). Obviously depends on what you bill as well. Many people have visiting or part time appointments in public and work the rest of the time in private. No registrars in private, therefore no teaching opportunities, and often don't get the weird and wonderful cases you can get in a major public referral centre, but the surgeons are faster and the turnover is faster.
 
GypsySongman said:
You don't have to know much to get the questions right.
1) With decreased temperature, solubility (of CO2) increases/partial pressure decreases.
2) pH stat - lower temperature on CPB --> decreased PaCO2 so CO2 added to raise PaCO2 to 40
3) Alpha stat - charge ratio on imidazole groups is constant at different temperatures so you don't really have to do anything.
Click to expand...

Nice summary Gypsy, now give me your tears!!

The only thing I think may be relevant to add is that alpha stat seems to be more physiologic based on recent evidence.

I don't have any problems with the above concepts but the way the ?s were worded did make it seem more confusing that it needed to be. I get pissed if I spend more than 30-45 sec on a question, and I did on several poorly written ones.

Kinda felt like I was taking the COMLEX again.
 
ultm8frisbee said:
Fu*k pH/alpha stat questions, does anybody understand this ridiculous concept? Three freakin questions!
Click to expand...

Overall Ho (oral board review book) is not really set up to help on the written boards, BUT his explanation of somethings including electrical safety, anestheia machines, and random tid bits here and there (including alpha vs ph stat) was the FIRST time I actually really understood the concepts. If you have access to the book, read that section, its explained in such a way that even a mentally challanged person like myself can understand.
 
Do you guys know if any of the questions are completely experimental or do they decide to throw questions out after the exam? I hate those damn "best answer" questions when every answer is right
 
Dryacku said:
Do you guys know if any of the questions are completely experimental or do they decide to throw questions out after the exam? I hate those damn "best answer" questions when every answer is right
Click to expand...

They must have experimental q's. I think that's pretty much standard practice for administering licensing exams of this nature. That's probably the primary benefit to the ABA of administering this exam.

I want a straight answer from the USMLE regarding how many of the 500 questions I answered for Step 3 were really required to tell me I passed.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how a dude can have an intrauterine device?

The exam sucked. Statistics questions were crazy, my natural choice is chi-squared. I'll study statistics a little more next year before the exam since it would have payed off this year.

I'm just glad it's over and I still have a year and a half to get my butt in gear!
 
DreamMachine said:
I've seen dudes with boobs (aka moobs), but never an IUD.
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I was fascinated to learn that they had two different props for Bob to wear in that movie - with nipples (that scene) and without (other scenes). Maybe they were trying to say something about the, uh, intimacy of that scene.

I can't remember normal fetal/neonatal blood gas values more than 24 hours after I learn them, but for some reason that tidbit sticks in my memory.
 
DreamMachine said:
I've seen dudes with boobs (aka moobs), but never an IUD.

fight_club1.jpg
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Did you catch the question? Related to MRI in male. Guess I can't say much more without violating the "rules". But, hopefully it was one of those test questions that they will throw out.
 
DreamMachine said:
I'm done with writtens.

I would try not to get hung up (I know it's hard) on the handful of questions you may have missed. You can miss a whole boatload of questions and still score above the mean (good enough for me) or well above the mean.
Click to expand...

The point was, it was a mistake by the ABA. It asked about a male patient and gave certain devices which may put this patient at risk. One of the answers was an IUD which, made no sense since I've never met a male patient with an IUD. It actually made me chuckle.
 
Am i the only one that thinks this test SUCKED all the way
where are the basics?
our speciality is about pharmacology despite taht a few questions on pahrm
i hate ICU yet lots of ICU stuff
what i will benefit from BANANAS or KIWIS?
why all the subspecialities?
i think compared to the questions on the ASA websites this test was far more difficult in content and on the way the questions were phrased
its a bummer after all that studying missing easy questions
too bad
 
Does anyone know when the ITE results get back to us?
 
I hate waiting but last year they got it in first weeknif May
by now we are already doomed it's matter if time and anticipation
 
loveumms said:
The point was, it was a mistake by the ABA. It asked about a male patient and gave certain devices which may put this patient at risk. One of the answers was an IUD which, made no sense since I've never met a male patient with an IUD. It actually made me chuckle.
Click to expand...

Wait until your real exam and you may be asked about Throckmorton sign :laugh:

It wasn't a mistake, IMHO. Somebody in ABA has a very good sense of humor.
 
May first is a Saturday my friend my best guess is in the middle of next week we will see and dear friends if someone get his score back please post it thnks
 
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