medicine shelf exam

[rheumo_gal]

Hi all, I am new to the SDN. I would really appreciate it if someone remembers the medicine shelf exam. Any hints on what to study/know for the exam. Thanks for any of your help!

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[Mumpu]

Do well in your medicine rotation and you will do well on the shelf. Pretest is okay, MKSAP is good stuff but a lot harder than the exam. The biggest difficulty people have is finishing on time -- the shelf has very long questions.

 

[trouta]

This was by far the hardest of the shelfs. While nothing mimicked the exam I felt that MKSAP and Appleton and Lange were the best prep.

 

[bigfrank]

This was by far the hardest of the shelfs. While nothing mimicked the exam I felt that MKSAP and Appleton and Lange were the best prep.

I second all of this.

 

[imtiaz]

i did the best on the medicine shelf and im getting ready to take the peds shelf in a few days and from what i hear its harder than the medicine shelf? any truth to this? im kinda freaked out about it, cause the heavy-hitters in my class even said peds>med.

 

[GiJoe]

do mksap and ur gold. a & L is a waste from what I heard

 

[tigershark]

I thought peds was easier than medicine...though I had peds towards the end of third year. There werent many surprises on the peds shelf, my raw score was 97, almost a full standard deviation better than my medicine shelf.

 

[Rod Farva]

I hate internal medicine.

 

[daisygirl]

Has anyone used NMS for step II in preparing for the medicine shelf? There is about 250 questions that pertain to only medicine in this text. I've heard that NMS is more useful than MKSAP- explanations, not the questions themselves.

 

[chemgirl]

I only used MKSAP and First Aid for medicine & it was by far my highest shelf grade. 🙂

 

[usagigalo]

MKSAP and First Aid. End of story.

 

[labangel]

I used MKSAP, PreTest, NMS, and Lange's Casefiles for Internal Med. I think the biggest thing is to do lots of practice questions and watch your time when taking the exam. I know lots of people who didn't quite finish...I ended up finishing just on time and I'm usually one of those people who typically finishes early.

 

[oonural]

are people refering to mksap questions or mksap for students book?

 

[TruTrooper]

are people refering to mksap questions or mksap for students book?

"MKSAP for Students 2"

 

[MISTERshortcoat]

I used a combination of MKSAP for Students 2, First Aid for IM, and PreTest IM with results >90. I agree with everyone else that the time crunch is THE major factor in scoring well, so the last 2-3 weeks, work on speed.

 

[Vriesea]

Echoing what others have said, my best advice is to not waste time taking the test. It is LONG. Many of my classmates finished with 20-25 questions unanswered. First aid and A&L is adequate for the material on the exam.

 

[bigfrank]

i did the best on the medicine shelf and im getting ready to take the peds shelf in a few days and from what i hear its harder than the medicine shelf? any truth to this? im kinda freaked out about it, cause the heavy-hitters in my class even said peds>med.

You having had medicine first will be a huge help. Personally, I thought the Peds shelf was difficult but it tested CORE knowledge more than the IM shelf. Let me explain.

The medicine shelf, in my opinion, is harder because every question is a long clinical vignette with an esoteric question at the end. The Peds shelf tests chromosomal abnormalities, "classic" presentation, developmental milestones, etc. This is stuff that will carry over from Step I review moreso than actual ward experience.

I personally thought the IM shelf was at least 2X harder. I ended up getting a "99" raw score on my Peds shelf and didn't study any harder than any other rotation.