My PRITE Performance.

[deleted310399]

Hey All ,

I am a first year resident in an east coast Psychiatry program. Following are my PRITE RESULTS -

Raw score - 131/248 - psychiatry

26/ 52. - neurology.

25 percentile for interns and 9 ( psych ) and 14 ( neuro ) percentiles for ALL residents.

Is this acceptable ??

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[notdeadyet]

A few things about the PRITE:

1. The only folks who will possibly care about your performance is your individual program. Some use it for some purpose, but many programs care about it literally 0.

2. Is your percentile you're referring to comparing you against others in your program or nationally?

Anyhow, how much you care about this should be pretty proportional to how much your program does. No one else will.

 

[deleted310399]

The percentiles are national. It would be pretty bad if they were within the program !.

 

[vistaril]

Hey All ,

I am a first year resident in an east coast Psychiatry program. Following are my PRITE RESULTS -

Raw score - 131/248 - psychiatry

26/ 52. - neurology.

25 percentile for interns and 9 ( psych ) and 14 ( neuro ) percentiles for ALL residents.

Is this acceptable ??

I think the more important question is- Is this acceptable for you?

Your program isn't going to kick you out or anything because your scores aren't very good. heck your program isn't likely to do much to you if you continue to post poor scores.

And the prite isn't really a very clinically relevant test in many respects.

That said, it is a very easy test. And even for an intern your scores are not very good. In my opinion, the bottom 50% of psychiatry is pretty lacking....unlike the bottom 50% in many specialties. The bottom 25% in psychiatry is, frankly, not someone I would want treating me.

Now that said, I do wonder how good psych scores are at measuring how 'good' a resident is.

 

[deleted310399]

Hmmmm.... I actually did better than many residents in my program. Interesting that you think that my scores are kinda low even for an Intern. I was under the impression that I did above average....well certainly at my program anyways, I guess that is all that matters....

 

[vistaril]

Hmmmm.... I actually did better than many residents in my program. Interesting that you think that my scores are kinda low even for an Intern. I was under the impression that I did above average....well certainly at my program anyways, I guess that is all that matters....

1) If you did better than most of the residents in your program with those scores, then that says a lot about your program

2) How can you be under the impression your scores are 'above average'? By your own numbers 3/4 interns nationally did better than you....and 9/10 residents overall.

3) How in the world can you say 'I guess that is all that matters'(in reference to them being good scores at your program). The whole point of the prite exam(a poor test) is to compare yourself to others across the country. You don't need the prite to compare yourself to others in your program since you see how you stack up to them every week.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Your score as an intern means little. According to our PD, what matters is that you continue to improve that score yearly.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

As noted above, it's totally program dependent. Here, we used to not care about PRITE at all, and now there's a new guideline that PGY2s and above are expected to score in the 30th percentile or higher in the psychiatry section. The people who scored below that this year lost their moonlighting privileges. I guess it could maybe affect progression issues if you had other stuff going on, but it's a new policy here, so who knows. Prior to this policy, you could score whatever and no one would say anything.

So, for you, your scores indicate that your knowledge level according to the PRITE is below average for your cohort, but you just started training, so whatever. According to my program, if you continued to score that low throughout your training, you might be at risk of not passing the boards. I have no idea how accurate or not accurate this idea is.

 

[digitlnoize]

Just use it as a baseline. Now you know what areas you are weak in.

I did ok on the psych section, but HORRIBLE on the neuro section. I feel comfortable with this right now though, because a) I had not done any neuro rotations yet, and b) I didn't study at all.

It is what it is. The PRITE is also largely irrelevant to clinical practice, and to boards, from what I've heard.

 

[deleted310399]

On a more relevant note , when should one one start preparing for the boards , I have already passed step 3. I have not done virtually any reading towards board preparation until now and would like to start. Earlier the better. I would like to pass it while being in Residency ( the last year ).... I am an intern right now...

 

[silas2642]

Definitely program dependent. My program expects the residents to be in the 75th percentile or above. First year doesn't matter that much, but this is a relatively easy exam and if you're scoring this poorly, you may want to consider reading more.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Definitely program dependent. My program expects the residents to be in the 75th percentile or above. First year doesn't matter that much, but this is a relatively easy exam and if you're scoring this poorly, you may want to consider reading more.

That seems like a high expectation -- I'm wondering how typical that is. I'm imagining you guys have pretty good didactics that help with PRITE performance to have that expectation.

It's interesting here to see how feelings about the PRITE have changed with having any expectation. People here really started studying (something people really didn't do in the past) even if they had no worries of scoring below the expected score. Good or bad, I don't know, but it's certainly different.

 

[deleted310399]

75 th percentile is quite high....at any level of training ,for an exam like this ....IMO.

 

[xlithiumx]

Definitely program dependent. My program expects the residents to be in the 75th percentile or above. First year doesn't matter that much, but this is a relatively easy exam and if you're scoring this poorly, you may want to consider reading more.

This is a standardized exam. All of the percentiles will be occupied. Whether it's difficult or not is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your performance relative to others. It could be the hardest exam in the world, the only thing that matters is how well you do relative to other test takers.

 

[deleted310399]

This is a standardized exam. All of the percentiles will be occupied. Whether it's difficult or not is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your performance relative to others. It could be the hardest exam in the world, the only thing that matters is how well you do relative to other test takers.

The fact that this exam's interpretation is program dependent makes even more sense now. In the end, all that matters is whether you pass the Boards or not.

 

[silas2642]

It's a high expectation-- trust me, I'm aware. That being said, if we aren't in the 75th percentile, the consequences are pretty unremarkable-- they make you read more under the supervision of an advisor. It's not like they hold you back or anything

 

[TexasPhysician]

This exam is meant to help you assess weak areas. You shouldn't be studying for the prite. You study for the boards and use the prite as a crappy free practice exam to see where you need to focus.

 

[hamstergang]

if you're scoring this poorly, you may want to consider reading more.

Meh, who shouldn't consider reading more?

 

[Scorcher31]

This exam is meant to help you assess weak areas. You shouldn't be studying for the prite. You study for the boards and use the prite as a crappy free practice exam to see where you need to focus.

Personally it dosen't even let you assess your weak areas properly. One year my worst section might be child, and the next year i get every child question right. This without any specific studying to experience in child psychiatry. For what it's worth out program dosen't put any stock in the Prite at all and we've never had anyone fail boards.

The oral boards were always the worst part and now they don't exist any more. I can't imagine the wirtten boards being that bad.

 

[nancysinatra]

IIn my opinion, the bottom 50% of psychiatry is pretty lacking....unlike the bottom 50% in many specialties. The bottom 25% in psychiatry is, frankly, not someone I would want treating me.

Now that said, I do wonder how good psych scores are at measuring how 'good' a resident is.

Vistaril, who would you rather have treat you--someone who scored crap on the PRITE but aced Step 1, 2, and 3; or someone who tanked on the Steps but sailed through the PRITE?

And would your answer differ depending on what you were being treated for, i.e. if it were something psychiatric vs non-psychiatric?

I guess what I'm getting at, is, do you think it is possible (even in theory) that someone could be in the bottom 25% of psychiatry but have the potential for a better performance elsewhere? Or, is failure in psychiatry (on standardized exams at least) predictive of failure everywhere?

 

[F0nzie]

I'm still recruiting for Prite Club. Rule #1 in Prite Club... you do not talk about the Prite. Ednorton I think you should join.

 

[vistaril]

Vistaril, who would you rather have treat you--someone who scored crap on the PRITE but aced Step 1, 2, and 3; or someone who tanked on the Steps but sailed through the PRITE?

And would your answer differ depending on what you were being treated for, i.e. if it were something psychiatric vs non-psychiatric?

I guess what I'm getting at, is, do you think it is possible (even in theory) that someone could be in the bottom 25% of psychiatry but have the potential for a better performance elsewhere? Or, is failure in psychiatry (on standardized exams at least) predictive of failure everywhere?

If you rounded up 100 derm residents at random, told them they had to take the PRITE in a couple of months and gave them some study guides for it to read in their time off, I think they would do pretty darn well(assuming they had some incentive to).....

 

[Fastball32]

Hmmmm.... I actually did better than many residents in my program. Interesting that you think that my scores are kinda low even for an Intern. I was under the impression that I did above average....well certainly at my program anyways, I guess that is all that matters....

I'm guessing here, but it sounds like you initially thought that lower percentile meant higher rank (eg, thinking 9th percentile was top ten percent). Highest score is actually 99 percentile, not 9th. Your Prite score should include your rank within your class and institution, and for that one it may be that lower number means higher rank, since it is a rank and not a percentile, thus leading to confusion. This sounds bad, but I have a hard time believing your scores are better than average, for yours or any program, or else I would question the academics of that program. That said, I wouldn't worry about PGY-1 scores, because some have not even had any Psych rotations by the time they take the exam.

 

[I'm No Superman]

K h

 

[xlithiumx]

If you rounded up 100 derm residents at random, told them they had to take the PRITE in a couple of months and gave them some study guides for it to read in their time off, I think they would do pretty darn well(assuming they had some incentive to).....

They would do well not because the test is easy, but because on average, derm residents have performed better on tests during their lives than have psychiatry residents and are likely to score higher on any test, assuming appropriate preparation. So, they would do well relative to the performance of the psychiatry resident test-takers.

If they were standardized among themselves, there would be a standard distribution including people with very low and very high percentile scores.

This has nothing to do with how easy or hard the test is. For standardized exams, there will be a normal distribution and people will fall below the mean and some will fall well below the mean.

 

[billypilgrim37]

My question is why this thread exists.

If the OP thought he did well, then did he want praise?

If the OP did not do well, did he want to be told how to do better?

I actually thought the PRITE really wasn't all that entirely different from the boards. The questions are not as well written, and some things are tested that would not be tested on the boards, but everyone struggles pretty equally on those facts.

I understand that it makes people feel better to say that the PRITE doesn't matter, and it probably doesn't for most people, as honestly, the passage rate for the psych boards is astronomically high. But there are probably some people with really bad scores who need to take it a bit more seriously. Of course that doesn't apply to an intern at all, but if you didn't see much of an improvement the next year, it might be time to crack open a book.

 

[Dapplegrey]

Just to add my experience:

During PGY1 I took the PRITE using only test taking strategy. Unless I was certain of the answer (probably 30%) I went with the longest answer, or "A" (for my daughters) if the answers were equal in length.

Don't remember the absolute numbers but scored something like 70th % for interns. During PGY2 took the exam using a more traditional method and scored around 50th % for second years.

I actually came across my PRITE exams a few weeks ago, brought back some pretty good residency memories--but otherwise have never cared or thought about them since graduating.