Official Surgery Shelf Exam Discussion Thread

[MerYangBey]

So I just wanted to post my impression of the surgery shelf.
I ended up scoring in the 99th percentile.
I didn't have medicine before the surgery shelf.
I don't think saying that the surgery shelf is a medicine shelf is a good representation of the content that I had. I do feel like studying surgery concepts and understanding the next step in management (which might not be surgery it might be giving a PPI for 2 weeks) is what is necessary to do well on this exam. Having said that i did feel like the question were intended to be confusing.
Resources used:
Pestana's surgery notes
Devirgilio (didn't read the whole thing)- would recommend all the GI sections as well as the trauma sections for sure. I feel like this book might be overwhelming at first glance especially if you have a busy surgery rotation like I did. I think this book would be the most helpful after reading Pestana and perhaps doing some questions.
Uworld surgery questions- felt like they were easier than the real thing- however still do them.
AMBOSS surgery library/some questions- I really liked the amboss library for a quick reference.
Onlinemeded videos- I think this is a great resources to accompany Pestana early on in the rotation. Also good for review late in the rotation. I have a copy of the quicktables and used the book for a quick reference as well.
NBME exams (4,3,2)- I felt like these were decent enough. Would recommend.

Final advice: Try to keep up with studying. It would be very easy to get behind. I absolutely loved my surgery rotation and wanted to stay late almost every day however halfway through the rotation I realized that I needed to start prioritizing some study time.

Good luck!

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[PugsAndHugs]

So I just wanted to post my impression of the surgery shelf.
I ended up scoring in the 99th percentile.
I didn't have medicine before the surgery shelf.
I don't think saying that the surgery shelf is a medicine shelf is a good representation of the content that I had. I do feel like studying surgery concepts and understanding the next step in management (which might not be surgery it might be giving a PPI for 2 weeks) is what is necessary to do well on this exam. Having said that i did feel like the question were intended to be confusing.
Resources used:
Pestana's surgery notes
Devirgilio (didn't read the whole thing)- would recommend all the GI sections as well as the trauma sections for sure. I feel like this book might be overwhelming at first glance especially if you have a busy surgery rotation like I did. I think this book would be the most helpful after reading Pestana and perhaps doing some questions.
Uworld surgery questions- felt like they were easier than the real thing- however still do them.
AMBOSS surgery library/some questions- I really liked the amboss library for a quick reference.
Onlinemeded videos- I think this is a great resources to accompany Pestana early on in the rotation. Also good for review late in the rotation. I have a copy of the quicktables and used the book for a quick reference as well.
NBME exams (4,3,2)- I felt like these were decent enough. Would recommend.

Final advice: Try to keep up with studying. It would be very easy to get behind. I absolutely loved my surgery rotation and wanted to stay late almost every day however halfway through the rotation I realized that I needed to start prioritizing some study time.

Good luck!

If you had to choose, which questions would you do? Devirgilio or Pestana? (Short on time). Thank you!

 

[MerYangBey]

If you had to choose, which questions would you do? Devirgilio or Pestana? (Short on time). Thank you!

I didn’t do Devirgilio questions ( so I don’t know if they’re good)
I would recommend Pestana’s questions. I did them a couple nights before the exam and thought they were helpful for a quick review.
Good luck!

 

[ciestar]

Trying to figure out how on earth to study for this exam!
Any tips? This is my last MS3 rotation, so I’ve had medicine already.

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

1 week before exam. Got a 68% (19) on NBME 4 with the mean score being 70% (20, SD 3). I did OME and all of UWorld and read through some of DeVirgillio. Anything I should do during these last 7 days to guarantee a pass?

 

[afib123]

Pretty tough shelf. The toughest I have taken out of the 7 shelves I took this year. Will follow up once I get the score back. Possibly some tips to help other people out.

 

[ciestar]

Pretty tough shelf. The toughest I have taken out of the 7 shelves I took this year. Will follow up once I get the score back. Possibly some tips to help other people out.

I agree but mine was largely a medicine shelf. I was dumb and didn’t do any NBMEs. I had around 80% on UWorld and got an 80 on the Shelf.

 

[Newyawk]

Pretty tough shelf. The toughest I have taken out of the 7 shelves I took this year. Will follow up once I get the score back. Possibly some tips to help other people out.

I thought it was hard too. I got an 87 i think even after taking medicine. The shelves are very weird exams in terms of content and how theyre scored. Med students are clearly very good at learning a single subject and killing it, bc the percentiles on these exams were pretty tough. All of my shelf scores were at the higher end but still within 2 SDs of the mean, despite getting 99th percentile on both step 1 and CK.

 

[afib123]

I thought it was hard too. I got an 87 i think even after taking medicine. The shelves are very weird exams in terms of content and how theyre scored. Med students are clearly very good at learning a single subject and killing it, bc the percentiles on these exams were pretty tough. All of my shelf scores were at the higher end but still within 2 SDs of the mean, despite getting 99th percentile on both step 1 and CK.

I agree.

I do think med students are good at taking single subject exams compared to Steps. I also think how good your guesses are also play a bigger role than on the steps because of fewer questions. Most of my shelves have been in mid/upper 80s to 90s in terms of percentiles but this one was in lower 70s for my percentile. Maybe I didn't have as much knowledge as my peers on this one or I was not at my best, but I think I guessed wrong on 5-6 questions when I was between 2 answer choices and that probably played a pretty big role in lowering my score which sucks but whatever.

Maybe I am complaining because I got lower on this shelf, but I also thought the content was pretty weird on this shelf or for that matter on all shelves, just more so on this one. Decent questions but weird answer choices and asking to narrow down between two things that you would do simultaneously in real life.

Not rotating in trauma also probably lowered my score. For future students, I heard Devirgilio is the gold standard. I didn't use it much. Maybe I missed the boat there. Might be worth using. Also very medicine heavy. Take it after medicine. Of course, the surgical management is what's more emphasized but taking medicine will only help you.

 

[financetomedicine]

Just got my score back after a week of waiting. 89 raw, unsure of percentile.

The shelf was hard not so much because the questions required higher order thinking but because they were so random. Often times I would feel really good about the question stem, but then feel like the right answer wasn't in the choices (e.g. SUI but no mid-urethral sling or kegels as answer choices). Also just some very vague/random questions where I think I overthought/second guessed myself. One thing they seem to be doing now is throwing in red herrings, like e.g. recent trip abroad trying to trick you into thinking it's an infectious cause even though the rest of the vignette doesn't really fit. In the days after the test about 10 questions came back to me that I know I got wrong in some cases bc of this. Also continues to be somewhat out of date for management of trauma IMO (nowadays almost everything has been replaced by CT (i.e. CTA for neck, CT cysto for bladder) which isn't entirely reflected).

This was my last shelf and I was pretty burned out so studying was intermittent. I did UWORLDx1, Pestanax1, DeVirgilio (questions only), OME (trauma and some of gen surg/sub specialty vids), Emma Holliday x1, Divine Intervention ppt x1.

Everyone seems to swear by DeVirgilio but I'm glad I stuck with my instinct and just did the questions at the back. For me I think reading the whole book would have been low yield since I'm more of a learn by questions type of person. If I had had more time I probably would have spent more time doing GI/renal/electrolytes via UWORLD IM or OME.

Honestly I'm not sure how I could have done better on this test, it was so random and broad that I feel like studying made less of a difference than being able to reason questions out on the test / being good at random guessing....

EDIT: one more thing I would add, everyone tells you this is a medicine test, but I think those people just don't understand how much medicine is involved in general surgery, it's not just anatomy and manual skills! Most of the stuff on the test was stuff we grappled with every day on my rotation, e.g. how to interpret urine sodium and osms. Granted I had taken medicine beforehand so maybe I don't have a clear perspective, but aside from knowing blood cell disorders (particularly the ones that might need surgery)... and electrolyte abnormalities, I didn't feel like there was much on the test that you wouldn't know if you used resources solely geared towards surgery. If you have an extra long surgery rotation maybe, but I would focus on the surgery-specific resources and then do electrolytes/GI if and only if you have extra time.

 

[izchief360]

Thought I'd add another data point. 8 week clerkship. Used Uworld, Kaplan, and FA Step 2 CK. No Pestana. No DeVirg.
NBME 4 (~5 weeks out) - 65
NBME 5 (~1 week out) - 53 --> No clue what happened here. I had finished 80% of Uworld and all of Kaplan surgery Qs by this point. I decided that instead of finishing Uworld, I would focus on the NBMEs. So, I did NBME 2 and 3 as well, offline, timed, in the next week. So in total I did NBMEs 2-5.

Shelf - 75. 54th %ile. In short, hunt down all the NBMEs and do them (Form 1 and 2 are no longer available on the NBME website). There is no substitute. The scores aren't particularly predictive, but the content and presentations are.

 

[justheretodownloadstuff]

6 week clerkship, 1/2 gen surg + 1/2 specialty surg

Resources used: UWorld Surgery + GI (IM), WiWa (anki), NBME Surgery CMS forms 3-6, Emma Holliday

Advice: UW surgery is absolutely a sufficient standalone resource to prep for the shelf now that it contains about 500 questions (vs ~150 as recently as last year). I'd still recommend doing at least half of IM GI though because the surgery questions don't do a great job of covering upper GI pathology, and that stuff definitely pops up on the shelf.

As you've all read probably hundreds of times, UW is like a textbook and the value is in the questions and the answer explanations. That's where WiWa came in clutch, since all of their cards contain the UW answer explanations in the note. Additionally, the style of WiWa's cards forces you to learn the bare bones information underlying the UW questions they were based off of, not the textbook disease patterns like you see in Zanki Step II. This is important because the NBME loves to present pathologies in non-standard ways or with a bare minimum amount of information to make you overthink things.

This brings me to my final bit of advice: do the ****ing practice shelf exams (CMS forms). It doesn't matter if you're trying to just pass or if you're trying to honor; if you walk into that shelf without taking all 4 of the CMS forms you're leaving lots of free points on the table. The style of NBME questions is nothing like UW. The CMS forms prepare you for that unique style of questioning, they allow you to practice your test-taking skills*, and they give you free points on the real deal through direct repeats and repeat concepts.

Last random bit of advice. I read ~5 chapters out of DeVirgilio and it is an excellent resource, but reading is too passive for me and I dropped it in favor of continuing to do questions and Anki. If you're gonna use an additional resource DeVergilio is all you need. **** pestana, OME, NMS, and all that other useless ****.

Impression: felt like 60-70% surgery and 30-40% medicine. All the surgery questions were thoroughly covered by UW surgery. A lot of the random medicine was covered through UW surgery indirectly via answer explanations. You're more likely to snag more points on those random medicine questions by acclimating yourself to the NBME's question style through the CMS forms than you are reading another 100 chapters out of some **** text or watching another useless OME video.

*Every single question on the shelf was easily narrow-able to 2 answer choices after having done the CMS forms and storing tons of bits & pieces of knowledge through UW and WiWa. For a standard 5 answer-choice question, the NBME will have:
2 answer choices that you can eliminate immediately
1 ridiculous answer choice that you have never heard of in your life (9 times out of 10 this is wrong and serves only to jebait you into choosing it when you're second-guessing things; eliminate this choice and consider it only if you have evidence to eliminate the last 2)
2 answer choices that are both plausible; you'll either know the answer outright or you'll have to throw up an educated guess. A majority of the time the answer choice is the simplest one and the one you probably instinctively thought of (assuming you're familiar with both answer choices). Go with your gut and don't change your answer unless you are 110% sure that the change is right.

Scores:

• UWorld Surgery: 67%
• UWorld GI (IM): 78%
• NBME CMS Form 3: 25 (86)
• NBME CMS Form 4: 22 (77)
• NBME CMS Form 5: 23 (81)
• NBME CMS Form 6: 23 (80)
• Surgery Shelf: 86 raw - 97th %ile (according to TTUHSC data tables)

 

[Dr. wait for it...]

6 week clerkship, 1/2 gen surg + 1/2 specialty surg

Resources used: UWorld Surgery + GI (IM), WiWa (anki), NBME Surgery CMS forms 3-6, Emma Holliday

Advice: UW surgery is absolutely a sufficient standalone resource to prep for the shelf now that it contains about 500 questions (vs ~150 as recently as last year). I'd still recommend doing at least half of IM GI though because the surgery questions don't do a great job of covering upper GI pathology, and that stuff definitely pops up on the shelf.

As you've all read probably hundreds of times, UW is like a textbook and the value is in the questions and the answer explanations. That's where WiWa came in clutch, since all of their cards contain the UW answer explanations in the note. Additionally, the style of WiWa's cards forces you to learn the bare bones information underlying the UW questions they were based off of, not the textbook disease patterns like you see in Zanki Step II. This is important because the NBME loves to present pathologies in non-standard ways or with a bare minimum amount of information to make you overthink things.

This brings me to my final bit of advice: do the ****ing practice shelf exams (CMS forms). It doesn't matter if you're trying to just pass or if you're trying to honor; if you walk into that shelf without taking all 4 of the CMS forms you're leaving lots of free points on the table. The style of NBME questions is nothing like UW. The CMS forms prepare you for that unique style of questioning, they allow you to practice your test-taking skills*, and they give you free points on the real deal through direct repeats and repeat concepts.

Last random bit of advice. I read ~5 chapters out of DeVirgilio and it is an excellent resource, but reading is too passive for me and I dropped it in favor of continuing to do questions and Anki. If you're gonna use an additional resource DeVergilio is all you need. **** pestana, OME, NMS, and all that other useless ****.

Impression: felt like 60-70% surgery and 30-40% medicine. All the surgery questions were thoroughly covered by UW surgery. A lot of the random medicine was covered through UW surgery indirectly via answer explanations. You're more likely to snag more points on those random medicine questions by acclimating yourself to the NBME's question style through the CMS forms than you are reading another 100 chapters out of some **** text or watching another useless OME video.

*Every single question on the shelf was easily narrow-able to 2 answer choices after having done the CMS forms and storing tons of bits & pieces of knowledge through UW and WiWa. For a standard 5 answer-choice question, the NBME will have:
2 answer choices that you can eliminate immediately
1 ridiculous answer choice that you have never heard of in your life (9 times out of 10 this is wrong and serves only to jebait you into choosing it when you're second-guessing things; eliminate this choice and consider it only if you have evidence to eliminate the last 2)
2 answer choices that are both plausible; you'll either know the answer outright or you'll have to throw up an educated guess. A majority of the time the answer choice is the simplest one and the one you probably instinctively thought of (assuming you're familiar with both answer choices). Go with your gut and don't change your answer unless you are 110% sure that the change is right.

Scores:

• UWorld Surgery: 67%
• UWorld GI (IM): 78%
• NBME CMS Form 3: 25 (86)
• NBME CMS Form 4: 22 (77)
• NBME CMS Form 5: 23 (81)
• NBME CMS Form 6: 23 (80)
• Surgery Shelf: 86 raw - 97th %ile (according to TTUHSC data tables)

Thank you I found your info helpful for my last week of studying.

I haven’t seen a newer thread so I’ll add things here.

UWORLD: 72%
NBME form 6: 23
NBME form 5: 22
Surgery Shelf: 81% raw, 87th percentile

Shelf felt much harder than the practice tests. Honor in our school is above 75th percentile. What is it in other schools?

Anyway I was very surprised with my score, felt much worse and I didn’t get through Pestanas or do Emma’s video. I think those would help. I felt that UWORLD did a decent job covering the medicine as long as you read through the explanations. I think the goal should be to try to get the surgery down because those questions are hard too and I feel that you can pick up enough medicine from UWORLD.

I did do OME and feel like it did good at introducing the topics, but it didn’t really stick for me. I am doing the M3 ANKI deck. It’s a lot but helpful.

Hope all is going well and good luck

 

[ciestar]

Thank you I found your info helpful for my last week of studying.

I haven’t seen a newer thread so I’ll add things here.

UWORLD: 72%
NBME form 6: 23
NBME form 5: 22
Surgery Shelf: 81% raw, 87th percentile

Shelf felt much harder than the practice tests. Honor in our school is above 75th percentile. What is it in other schools?

Anyway I was very surprised with my score, felt much worse and I didn’t get through Pestanas or do Emma’s video. I think those would help. I felt that UWORLD did a decent job covering the medicine as long as you read through the explanations. I think the goal should be to try to get the surgery down because those questions are hard too and I feel that you can pick up enough medicine from UWORLD.

I did do OME and feel like it did good at introducing the topics, but it didn’t really stick for me. I am doing the M3 ANKI deck. It’s a lot but helpful.

Hope all is going well and good luck

Mine bases it on raw score and for surgery it is a 78

 

[FindersFee5]

Mine bases it on raw score and for surgery it is a 78

81 for us, though above 78 is cutoff for honors if your clinical evals are good.

 

[Doctor_Strange]

I took the shelf yesterday and found it much harder than Step 1. I didn't read a book but did the Dorian Anki deck (has Pestana and DeVergilio cards so I thought that would be a good compromise). I did all four NBMEs and passed three of them. I'm pretty nervous about the shelf to be honest I don't think I passed. When I look back on my 8 week surgery rotation, perhaps I could have spent more time reading a textbook, but I tried reading NMS Casebook one chapter and it took me like 45 mins -- in my mind that is time better spent doing questions and learning from trial and error.

I have Psych next followed by ObGyn, so it won't get any easier. This was my first shelf of the year as well....

 

[Dr. wait for it...]

I took the shelf yesterday and found it much harder than Step 1. I didn't read a book but did the Dorian Anki deck (has Pestana and DeVergilio cards so I thought that would be a good compromise). I did all four NBMEs and passed three of them. I'm pretty nervous about the shelf to be honest I don't think I passed. When I look back on my 8 week surgery rotation, perhaps I could have spent more time reading a textbook, but I tried reading NMS Casebook one chapter and it took me like 45 mins -- in my mind that is time better spent doing questions and learning from trial and error.

I have Psych next followed by ObGyn, so it won't get any easier. This was my first shelf of the year as well....

Try not to worry until you have something to worry about. I felt like I did terrible right after the test but it went well. So it’s hard to gauge.

I also use Dorian ANKI deck. But I find it’s harder to have those stick if I didn’t read whatever it came from. I started reading Pestanas too late and only made it half way through. But after seeing it in two forms ( ANKI and the book) it made more sense for me. So I’m going to start doing that from now on.

I still think practice questions are key though.

Good luck!

 

[SimonGuyman133]

@financetomedicine Hey my dude, thanks for the input. I was wondering what you mean by the DeVergillo questions only, because I can't find any questions in there. Your help would be appreciated!

 

[wanderingorion]

@financetomedicine Hey my dude, thanks for the input. I was wondering what you mean by the DeVergillo questions only, because I can't find any questions in there. Your help would be appreciated!

They are in the back of the book

 

[Gilakend]

For those of us now on clinicals with surgery first, anyone have a good idea what a "solid" UWorld percentage is? Been looking it up and I've seen people say 70 was good and some say 50 was good. Was trying to get more up to date info since they added so many questions in the past couple years.

 

[Gilakend]

Also curious with all the new questions if there is a consensus on what would be better after UW Surg, UW IM or amboss surgery?

 

[FalconSlice]

To keep with my requested "series" of shelf results, here's my surgery shelf method

Score: 97th percentile

There are many ways to get the same (or higher) score. No secret. I had already done medicine, so I had an extremely good foundation. Also, I was consistently working around 60 hours per week (by far the busiest rotation) for about 10 weeks here (total rotation is around 12 weeks). Having already completed much of UW, it was easy to complete the relatively low number of surgery questions. I then moved on to AMBOSS for the extra surgery questions and the clutch learning cards. My main reading material was DeVirgilio which was extremely easy read (much easier than one would think by just looking at this great big book). I also skimmed Pestana's (which in retrospect I could've done without). The key is to be as efficient as possible and knock out studying during any and all downtime--there's a lot of that in surgery: waiting for surgery to start, residents late for rounds, during grand rounds, etc. You'd be surprised how much you can get done if you're focused and utilize your time effectively. This was in the beginnings of COVID so my rotations got all messed up which also messed up my studying (among other things). I think I could've gotten a higher score if I wasn't bothered by the rapidly changing medical atmosphere at that point, but I'm happy with what I got.

Def would recommend taking IM before surgery if possible (mainly for the shelf). If not, go through DeVirgilio (which is basically medicine anyway), do all UW surgery questions, and as much bread and butter IM questions as possible (i.e., GI, cardio, pulm, and renal). Several topics will become obvious what you need to know: blood transfusion reactions, shock, when to scope someone, when to do ex-lap, etc.

Actual shelf was pretty straightforward. Basically medicine shelf is what people say and it's true. Nothing new I can add here.

Good luck, all!!

 

[Gilakend]

To keep with my requested "series" of shelf results, here's my surgery shelf method

Score: 97th percentile

There are many ways to get the same (or higher) score. No secret. I had already done medicine, so I had an extremely good foundation. Also, I was consistently working around 60 hours per week (by far the busiest rotation) for about 10 weeks here (total rotation is around 12 weeks). Having already completed much of UW, it was easy to complete the relatively low number of surgery questions. I then moved on to AMBOSS for the extra surgery questions and the clutch learning cards. My main reading material was DeVirgilio which was extremely easy read (much easier than one would think by just looking at this great big book). I also skimmed Pestana's (which in retrospect I could've done without). The key is to be as efficient as possible and knock out studying during any and all downtime--there's a lot of that in surgery: waiting for surgery to start, residents late for rounds, during grand rounds, etc. You'd be surprised how much you can get done if you're focused and utilize your time effectively. This was in the beginnings of COVID so my rotations got all messed up which also messed up my studying (among other things). I think I could've gotten a higher score if I wasn't bothered by the rapidly changing medical atmosphere at that point, but I'm happy with what I got.

Def would recommend taking IM before surgery if possible (mainly for the shelf). If not, go through DeVirgilio (which is basically medicine anyway), do all UW surgery questions, and as much bread and butter IM questions as possible (i.e., GI, cardio, pulm, and renal). Several topics will become obvious what you need to know: blood transfusion reactions, shock, when to scope someone, when to do ex-lap, etc.

Actual shelf was pretty straightforward. Basically medicine shelf is what people say and it's true. Nothing new I can add here.

Good luck, all!!

Great write up and congrats on an amazing score! So you would say for those of us who are taking it without IM, UW IM > Amboss surgery (After UW surg obviously)?

Also if you don't mind, did you find the practice NBME's helpful/representative in terms of scoring?

 

[FalconSlice]

Great write up and congrats on an amazing score! So you would say for those of us who are taking it without IM, UW IM > Amboss surgery (After UW surg obviously)?

Also if you don't mind, did you find the practice NBME's helpful/representative in terms of scoring?

Thank you! Any help/advice I can pay forward is only fair since everyone on here has helped me throughout my years.

To answer your question, there're two ways I think you could do this:

1. AMBOSS surgery first (ideally before your rotation even starts) followed by UW (starting right before and carry over into during your rotation). UW is by far the best for pretty much everything. There're always some discrepancies between AMBOSS and UW (rely on UW), and the "harder" AMBOSS questions always seem to try to trick you with some obscure/clinically irrelevant trivia. UW does not do this and really mimics NBME/USMLE questions, details and subjects.

2. Another way you could do it is to do UW first and then supplement with AMBOSS. Many people have done this with success. This is partially what I did only because there were significant delays in my schedule and I needed new and unique questions to tide me over while I was reviewing my UW notes.

Personally, I think the first (AMBOSS first--and maybe with devirgilio) would've been better for me because AMBOSS learning cards are awesome and I could spend all day on just one block if I wanted to (reading literally everything)...or I could just run through as many questions as I wanted without feeling like I was "wasting" anything. UW is definitely something you don't want to rush and something you definitely want to consume everything like it was First Aid for Step I. Read and review everything UW as much as possible. This way, I would end my rotation with doing the better and more high-yield UW questions for several weeks before my shelf exam.

Regarding the NBME practice exams, I used these sparingly throughout my third-year (the unused ones are awesome for Step 2 dedicated). I mainly used these for more unique and accurate questions (nothing closer to the actual shelf than retired shelf exams/questions). In terms of score prediction, I think there is a moderate positive correlation. I can't remember for surgery specifically, but for all of my shelf exams, my NBME practice exam scores ranged usually from 86-98 (82 being lowest on one of them I think), and I consistently got mid-to-high 90th percentiles on the real thing. I also suspect, the number of questions one can get wrong and still get a fantastic score is much much higher on the real shelf than on these practice shelves. For this reason, I used these practice exams more to practice my exam skills and for consuming new/unique questions and less for predictive value. Still a fantastic resource though! I'd recommend doing these closer to the shelf if you feel shaky and not confident...or if you just want more questions. I wouldn't use them solely for predictive value because that may mess with your psyche (if you don't hit your "goal") or might give you a false sense of security (e.g. getting a 96 on a practice exam to bomb the real thing, etc.).

Hope that helps!
FS

 

[Gilakend]

Thank you! Any help/advice I can pay forward is only fair since everyone on here has helped me throughout my years.

To answer your question, there're two ways I think you could do this:

1. AMBOSS surgery first (ideally before your rotation even starts) followed by UW (starting right before and carry over into during your rotation). UW is by far the best for pretty much everything. There're always some discrepancies between AMBOSS and UW (rely on UW), and the "harder" AMBOSS questions always seem to try to trick you with some obscure/clinically irrelevant trivia. UW does not do this and really mimics NBME/USMLE questions, details and subjects.

2. Another way you could do it is to do UW first and then supplement with AMBOSS. Many people have done this with success. This is partially what I did only because there were significant delays in my schedule and I needed new and unique questions to tide me over while I was reviewing my UW notes.

Personally, I think the first (AMBOSS first--and maybe with devirgilio) would've been better for me because AMBOSS learning cards are awesome and I could spend all day on just one block if I wanted to (reading literally everything)...or I could just run through as many questions as I wanted without feeling like I was "wasting" anything. UW is definitely something you don't want to rush and something you definitely want to consume everything like it was First Aid for Step I. Read and review everything UW as much as possible. This way, I would end my rotation with doing the better and more high-yield UW questions for several weeks before my shelf exam.

Regarding the NBME practice exams, I used these sparingly throughout my third-year (the unused ones are awesome for Step 2 dedicated). I mainly used these for more unique and accurate questions (nothing closer to the actual shelf than retired shelf exams/questions). In terms of score prediction, I think there is a moderate positive correlation. I can't remember for surgery specifically, but for all of my shelf exams, my NBME practice exam scores ranged usually from 86-98 (82 being lowest on one of them I think), and I consistently got mid-to-high 90th percentiles on the real thing. I also suspect, the number of questions one can get wrong and still get a fantastic score is much much higher on the real shelf than on these practice shelves. For this reason, I used these practice exams more to practice my exam skills and for consuming new/unique questions and less for predictive value. Still a fantastic resource though! I'd recommend doing these closer to the shelf if you feel shaky and not confident...or if you just want more questions. I wouldn't use them solely for predictive value because that may mess with your psyche (if you don't hit your "goal") or might give you a false sense of security (e.g. getting a 96 on a practice exam to bomb the real thing, etc.).

Hope that helps!
FS

Thank you again for a great response! Just had one last question if you don't mind. Did you re-do your UW surg wrongs? I read the explanations and use Dorian/Made cards, but the explanations are so long I was wondering if it would be worth doing them again?

 

[FalconSlice]

Thank you again for a great response! Just had one last question if you don't mind. Did you re-do your UW surg wrongs? I read the explanations and use Dorian/Made cards, but the explanations are so long I was wondering if it would be worth doing them again?

I marked hard questions (even if I got them right or wrong) thinking I'll save them for Step 2 dedicated, but I never did any "re-do"s. I had learned each question/answer well enough that when I started to do the wrong ones, it seemed like a waste of time for me. My approach with every UW question was to study and learn it like it'd be the last time I'd ever see it in my life. Which considering my Step 2 experience, that is more often the case. But YMMV. I found reviewing my UW notes, doing DeVirgilio questions, reviewing AMBOSS learning cards for my sticking points was much more valuable use of my time.