Need advice on AP board study

[PeterPanic]

Hi
I will be writing the AP board exam in 9 months and I'm freaking out. I am in a residency program in one of the rather prestigious programs but our program is really deficient in terms of the number of biopsies one sees during residency as most of them go to the fellow service. We see a ton of complicated surgpath big cases but not enough biopsies. To be quite honest I haven't really studied in the first 2 yr of residency and now am scared if I may fail the AP board.
Need some advice on what to study? and where to start?

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[pathslides]

Hi
I will be writing the AP board exam in 9 months and I'm freaking out. I am in a residency program in one of the rather prestigious programs but our program is really deficient in terms of the number of biopsies one sees during residency as most of them go to the fellow service. We see a ton of complicated surgpath big cases but not enough biopsies. To be quite honest I haven't really studied in the first 2 yr of residency and now am scared if I may fail the AP board.
Need some advice on what to study? and where to start?

Just get those ap and cp board review books, quick read of diff dx surg path book in areas you are deficient, cp compendium book, any question bank.

But you better start looking at biopsies on the side more so for practice than boards cuz biopsies are a large part of what you see in community/private practice day to day.

 

[bauber]

AP Leftkowich, Sternberg review question book, pathdojo.com questions

 

[deleted314957]

“prestigious” program where trainees exit without adequate exposure to bread and butter. So much for going to the big name places.
You have 9 months to study for an exam that only about 15-20% fail.
Just ask yourself; are you/have you been a bottom 20% performer? If not, don’t worry.

 

[PeterPanic]

“prestigious” program where trainees exit without adequate exposure to bread and butter. So much for going to the big name places.
You have 9 months to study for an exam that only about 15-20% fail.
Just ask yourself; are you/have you been a bottom 20% performer? If not, don’t worry.

I agree! Big names are not always the best choices.

 

[ScubaV]

Reposting from an old thread:

"As for study tips:
You've passed tons of standardized exams by now and know the techniques that work best for you. Follow them. Since there's no first aid or UWorld I just cobbled together random stuff I thought would help. I didn't have a formal study plan. I simply covered stuff that I felt I was weak in or hadn't looked over in a while, usually for a week at a time (say a week of microbiology) and studied in a given day until I was tired or felt I'd done enough. Do keep a good balance between study and rest (exercise, tv, gaming, whatever) especially in the final week or two. You want to be mentally fresh before the two day marathon.

As for specific resources I used:
Osler review course (just attended, didn't go over the materials again)
Blood bank guy podcasts
Transfusion medicine self assessment (green book)
Microbes with Morgan YouTube videos
CP compendium (read it piecemeal, some sections twice, didn't do questions)
AP and CP lefkowich question books
Rosai pictures only
Differential diagnosis in surgical pathology pictures and pearls
Baby DeMay pictures (I'd read it previously)
About 100 handmade flash cards of hard to remember factoids
A smattering of California tumor registry slides"

I was in a similar boat as you. My program wasn't prestigious, but we had high volume and a lot of complex cases... and we hardly got to look at bread and butter biopsies. I probably saw less than ten appendices/gallbladders my entire residency because they were considered "junk" cases and weren't part of our schedule. I did a surg path fellowship afterward and it was hugely beneficial for learning how to handle biopsies in the real world. My most memorable slide from the AP exam was a gastric biopsy and trying to decide if the schmutz was H. pylori or not. During the exam I struggled. After my fellowship it would've been cake.

 

[MetroPath]

Is Osler (AP and CP) sufficient to pass the boards along with questions?

 

[Torsed]

I'd do Osler. What others have said above. Slides on the board are crap, some are easy, some are hard. I used ASCP question books and Quick Compendiums as well.

Bring your own microscope. It is like showing up at the pool hall with your own cue.

 

[PeterPanic]

Thank you all for the tips.
I'm more visual than auditory. So prefer to read something rather than listen to lectures.
I've been looking for a good AP surgical pathology book that is not as gigantic as Rosai or Sternberg.

I've found a few candidates so far:
- The Washington Manual of Surgical Pathology
- Quick Compendium of Surgical Pathology
- Differential Diagnosis in Surgical Pathology

Any suggestions or experience about these? Problem is none of them has a lot of pictures, except for Washington that seems to have an online image database.

 

[pathslides]

Rossi and sternberg are such worthless books. Diff dx in surg path is great. Good resource to brush up on areas you are lacking when doing questions, it’s how I studied.

 

[AssayQueen]

Go through the whole pathologyoutlines site and look at all the pictures on webpathology; flip through the pictures in baby demay. You'll be fine. Good luck!

 

[Med Director New England]

Any good program prepares one for AP.
If you’ve shown up for sign out and even slept walk thru it you’ll be fine. No one fails AP