Need help for cp

[BAWLA]

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Hi everyone.
Am having a horrible time getting thru CP. Did go thru OSLER and ASCP notes as well as clinical compendium and didnt pass in my last two attempts. NEED HELP. please advice and share what you can. Have lost confidence.

 

[deleted314957]

Are you kidding us? From a practical view CP is pretty much a joke and is generally recognized as a "study object" to pass the boards. Look at what everyone else does/has done and do it. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing basically tough to learn. There is a lot of memory. At one time i knew everything about ancylostoma duodenale---but now i don't. the important thing is that i know it exists.

 

[pathstudent]

Advice to all med students considering a ap/cp residency. Don't rank any programs that claim to be "strong" in cp. most of CP should basically be paid vacation. Don't spend those months doing tech scut work like calling in critical values or having to ask surgeons if it is appropriate for them to be ordering platelet transfusion when the platelet count is 51k prior to surgery.

 

[BAWLA]

Kudos to you for getting thru CP. I wish I was that smart. Wont have asked for help/advice if wasn't facing a tough time.

 

[twentyone]

Hi everyone.
Am having a horrible time getting thru CP. Did go thru OSLER and ASCP notes as well as clinical compendium and didnt pass in my last two attempts. NEED HELP. please advice and share what you can. Have lost confidence.

I think CP on the boards is way different than what a CP faculty does, which is way different than what residents usually do on CP rotations.

Learn the Osler notes AND lectures (important) and do that ASCP study guide. Memorize it cold.

Where were the deficiencies in your testing- don't they tell you what areas you do poorly in?

There's probably a component that comes from being well rounded in medicine as well as putting forth some effort in CP rotations to get a flavor of some of the issues that come up- a component of "things which cannot be taught."

OP is there someone who trained with you ( that has the same CP background that you do) who you can talk this over with? They may have some insight about where you're lacking, coming from the same background.

Good luck!

 

[pathololology]

I agree. Kind of a jackass comment above. Have you tried the question book Pathology Exam review by Ahmed and Przygodzki. The CP section is very good. There is also a new question bank called Board Vitals. Haven't tried it, but you might buy it and just do CP questions. I think the tough thing about CP is you can read until you are blue in the face, but a lot of times it is hard to realize what you really need to know. Smart people will say: "You just need to memorize compendium" which really isn't practical for most of us. I would try doing more questions/questions banks. If all you do is just read, then you really aren't preparing for the real thing . . . I would still read, but I would highly recommend more questions. All people study better in different ways, but I need questions for stuff to start to really burn into my mind . . . Good luck!

Kudos to you for getting thru CP. I wish I was that smart. Wont have asked for help/advice if wasn't facing a tough time.

 

[Perry Mason]

Hi,

Sorry about your result. I dislike CP and honestly didn't care that much if I pass it or not - I am unlikely to ever practice it. Having said that, I did train in AP/CP and I wanted to give it my best shot. Here's how I memorized all this useless information.

Blood bank - probably my favorite part of CP. I listened to Joe Caffin's lectures on youtube which are great and I think are adequate for the purpose of passing the boards. Practice panels too - they are time consuming but they have a logic to them.

Micro - ASCP lectures plus Ahmed's questions. This was the only section of Ahmed's book I completed entirely. I made flash cards for most bugs as well as most culture media. I actually wrote them myself by hand instead of creating a pdf. The idea was to add an extra step in memorization. Seemingly, it worked. I paid attention to common bugs, as well as mycobacteria and fungi. Didn't get to the parasites.

Chemistry - in our program we have a dedicated board review rotation, and our chemistry director went through a lot of high yield topics with us. That was about it. I attempted studying chemistry myself (ASCP & Ahmed) but it wasn't very successful.

Heme - I felt comfortable with B-cell lymphomas and flow so I didn't study that. The rest was the WHO book. I also listened to the ASCP lecture on reactive lymph nodes. Heme was another topic I made flash cards on, especially leukemias, translocations and T/NK lymphomas.

Lab management - know basic legislation and billing (Medicare, bundling etc). Practice "break even" type of calculations for new tests/equipment. Those were useful. Know basic statistics (sensitivity, specificity, PPV/NPV type of thing).

Molecular - I went through the method descriptions for most molecular methods to know their applications and the basic concepts. I made flashcards for translocations (soft tissue, heme as above, renal tumors etc).

I went through my flashcards repeatedly in the past weeks before the boards. I cannot remember most of it now, but I am ok with it. I did not use the compendia at all, they just didn't work for me. I believe heme was the highest yield, followed by micro and blood bank.

I hope this helps and good luck on your retake.

 

[Perry Mason]

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