I'm about to invest in either the MedStudy Core curriculum or the Laughing your way series, to start prepping for the in service. Anyone have any opinions on either? What about the medstudy Qbank and laughing Qbooks?
Depends on what you are looking for.
I think most important thing to remember is that being board certified and being a knowledgeable pediatrician do not necessarily overlap (despite what the ABP would like to claim). And because of that, the paths to those goals are not one in the same. Board studying is not the time to "make up" for all the stuff you either didn't pay attention to or never saw in residency - neither the really rare diseases nor the deep down, nitty gritty details of the common everyday stuff.
I think Laughing Your Way is critical. For me it was everything I had hoped First Aid would have been while in med school. LYW will not go into great depth on anything, but will tell you that out of the 100's of genetic disorders, you should really know these 10 because they always show up, and in case they don't, these are the remaining 20 that are most likely. It tells you of certain tricks that the testmakers use (like the infamous lab error questions that'd you'd never expect them to throw in), and does provide some memorable ways to keep things straight. But it won't make you a better pediatrician.
I used MedStudy some, but it does come in on the other end of the spectrum. It provides ALL of the information with none of the filter. For some people that's much more comfortable. There's always the feeling that you won't know enough and you can respond one of two ways - focusing on what's likely to show up or covering all your bases by trying to know everything. Exhaustive use of MedStudy, will help you clinically. I just don't know if it is the best way to pass the peds boards.
So again, it comes down to what you are looking for.
As for the question banks. I would NOT recommend the MedStudy questions. Honestly, those questions sets brought me to the brink of tears most days. Most are 4th or 5th level questions (I swear they were often the following: picture of genetic condition -> most common associated heart defect -> typical surgical repair -> most common complication -> drug of choice for that complication). They were WAY harder than the actual test was. The PREP questions were much closer in difficulty and with the right use (actually study the answers/explanations rather than focusing on if you got X% correct), should be enough for most people.
