OB Rotation Question

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han14tra

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The course director told us that Blueprints sucks and not to buy it. They suggest Beckman's Obstetrics and Gynecology. We take an NBME OB shelf at the end of the rotation.

Should I listen to the course director and use Beckman's or stick to blueprints? Which one prepares you for the NBME exam more?

Regardless, I plan on using UpToDate to research things about my patients, PubMed for articles, and Uwise for questions.
 
The course director told us that Blueprints sucks and not to buy it. They suggest Beckman's Obstetrics and Gynecology. We take an NBME OB shelf at the end of the rotation.

Should I listen to the course director and use Beckman's or stick to blueprints? Which one prepares you for the NBME exam more?

Regardless, I plan on using UpToDate to research things about my patients, PubMed for articles, and Uwise for questions.

FA is the best for the shelf, use blueprints for the wards, beckman is way too dense.
 
I liked blueprints for the wards and for the shelf. For a quick review, FA is fine for the week before the shelf.
 
it would be a disservice not to use CaseFiles. I liked Blueprints, most people do. Not sure what your directors beef is. If you use either FA/Blueprints, casefiles, and Uwise...you are golden.
 
I actually read most of Beckmann, which I thought was a really good resource. I don't think you can really read it cover to cover during your rotation though, especially if you're working long hours.

The UWise questions are key, I think those really helped me on the shelf. Good luck!
 
Is everyone referring to FA for Step 1 or FA for the OB/GYN Clerkship (280 pgs)?

I actually looked at both Beckman's and Blueprints just now. I like the pretty color pictures in Beckman's. That's also the "required" text for our rotation and it seems that the faculty are lecturing around Beckman's. So, I'll probably use that as the primary resource and do the questions in blueprints along with it. Also, doing UWise.
 
Is everyone referring to FA for Step 1 or FA for the OB/GYN Clerkship (280 pgs)?

I actually looked at both Beckman's and Blueprints just now. I like the pretty color pictures in Beckman's. That's also the "required" text for our rotation and it seems that the faculty are lecturing around Beckman's. So, I'll probably use that as the primary resource and do the questions in blueprints along with it. Also, doing UWise.

FA for OB-GYN.

Do whatever you want but you're wasting your time for the purposes of the shelf.
 
Your course director is probably like mine, a skanky c-word.

Beckmanns is for people who want to go into OB/GYN. For everyone else, Blueprints is good for the shelf. Because the director is in love with OB/GYN they love the textbook and hate the "review" book.

Just like how XXX path teacher hates Goljan and praises Big Robbins. Or XXX IM doc praises Harrison's and hates Step Up.
 
Clerkship directors are notorious for recommending against tried-and-true "condensed" review-style books in favor of superfluous (for us) gargantuan texts. Hell, even in year 2, our Pathophysiology course director warned us that studying using things like Rapid Review Pathology was a recipe for disaster, and highly highly recommended we all get Big Robbins and read it cover to cover. Then during our medicine clerkship, we were told to focus on reading Harrison's😱. On Peds, we were told that Blueprints/CaseFiles/PreTest/etc were awful and we should not rely on such atrocities and that every good M3 should own/get their hands on [insert name of the humongous and expensive Peds text that residents use . . . It's been 12 months since I did peds].


Edit: Knux just said exactly what I said only more concise. Well done.
 
Clerkship directors are notorious for recommending against tried-and-true "condensed" review-style books in favor of superfluous (for us) gargantuan texts. Hell, even in year 2, our Pathophysiology course director warned us that studying using things like Rapid Review Pathology was a recipe for disaster, and highly highly recommended we all get Big Robbins and read it cover to cover. Then during our medicine clerkship, we were told to focus on reading Harrison's😱. On Peds, we were told that Blueprints/CaseFiles/PreTest/etc were awful and we should not rely on such atrocities and that every good M3 should own/get their hands on [insert name of the humongous and expensive Peds text that residents use . . . It's been 12 months since I did peds].


Edit: Knux just said exactly what I said only more concise. Well done.

I third this fact. We were assigned to read this massive FM textbook and of course nobody did because it sucked. Everyone relied mostly on Case Files, Step Up, and the AAFP questions.

I can kind of understand the reluctance of course directors to recommend review books because they don't always know any better (our FM clerkship director actually encouraged using review books to study for the shelf and the textbook for learning's sake) but the bias seems mostly academic to me.
 
I think we might go to the same school. Have you looked at the AOA page to see what students actually use? The advice I got from 4th years was to use Blueprints, just don't bring it with you to wards.

And the OB course directly at my school is awesome, just a little quirky about a few things.
 
got a 92 raw, 96th percentile. read blueprints x2, USMLEWorld x2, and uWise x2. reading Beckmann would be ideal and probably will get you a higher score, but rereading Blueprints over and over until you can memorize it verbatim should work too. goodluck
 
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