Official Surgery Shelf Exam Discussion Thread

[EternalMD]

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Just to throw in my two cents regarding the exam -

The only thing I did the last week of the rotation was to read over the kaplan surgery notes (aka the pestana notes), specifically the last 120 pages because they are in clinical vignette form which regurgitates the dry facts from the first 60 pages. The only questions I remember doing were the USMLEWORLD 150 surgery questions which were very ortho heavy. The stuff I would recommend focusing more on would be the trauma section as it covers so much of what you will see on the exam. The shelf itself has a mixed bag of surgery, medicine, ob/gyn, peds, and one psych/ethics question from what I recall.

You definitely do NOT need to know what parts are joined in a whipple, where you would make starting incisions, etc. Its very basic in the type of questioning you get asked albeit, a bit tricky. i.e. if you think the question is a clear-cut uncomplicated appendicitis picture, and the choice gives you laparotomy instead of Laproscopic-appendectomy, wonder why that is because you might be missing something. Common sense goes a long way on this exam

 

[DrDre311]

Just to throw in my two cents regarding the exam -

The only thing I did the last week of the rotation was to read over the kaplan surgery notes (aka the pestana notes), specifically the last 120 pages because they are in clinical vignette form which regurgitates the dry facts from the first 60 pages. The only questions I remember doing were the USMLEWORLD 150 surgery questions which were very ortho heavy. The stuff I would recommend focusing more on would be the trauma section as it covers so much of what you will see on the exam. The shelf itself has a mixed bag of surgery, medicine, ob/gyn, peds, and one psych/ethics question from what I recall.

You definitely do NOT need to know what parts are joined in a whipple, where you would make starting incisions, etc. Its very basic in the type of questioning you get asked albeit, a bit tricky. i.e. if you think the question is a clear-cut uncomplicated appendicitis picture, and the choice gives you laparotomy instead of Laproscopic-appendectomy, wonder why that is because you might be missing something. Common sense goes a long way on this exam

Both true. I remember doing USMLEWorld surgery q's and they were EXTREMELY ortho-heavy. NOT representative of the shelf. The shelf also does not deal with operative techniques. From what I remember it's basically perioperative medicine, a little anatomy, fluids/lytes basics, and GI/trauma management questions.

 

[kate0834tkjn]

Just to throw in my two cents regarding the exam -

The only thing I did the last week of the rotation was to read over the kaplan surgery notes (aka the pestana notes), specifically the last 120 pages because they are in clinical vignette form which regurgitates the dry facts from the first 60 pages. The only questions I remember doing were the USMLEWORLD 150 surgery questions which were very ortho heavy. The stuff I would recommend focusing more on would be the trauma section as it covers so much of what you will see on the exam. The shelf itself has a mixed bag of surgery, medicine, ob/gyn, peds, and one psych/ethics question from what I recall.

You definitely do NOT need to know what parts are joined in a whipple, where you would make starting incisions, etc. Its very basic in the type of questioning you get asked albeit, a bit tricky. i.e. if you think the question is a clear-cut uncomplicated appendicitis picture, and the choice gives you laparotomy instead of Laproscopic-appendectomy, wonder why that is because you might be missing something. Common sense goes a long way on this exam

Hmm, the only Pestana review notes I found online were short little cases with short explanations afterwards....it was like 76 pages. Anyone know if this is the same Pestana notes people are referring to? Maybe just a condensed, abbreviated version? I wasn't planning on buying the whole Kaplan series for step 2 but people seem to think these notes were great so I was thinking of using them in my step 2 review...

 

[jones173]

by far the hardest and weirdest shelf of the year. Study some internal medicine if you can, only like 1/2 of my questions were actually surgery.

 

[EternalMD]

Hmm, the only Pestana review notes I found online were short little cases with short explanations afterwards....it was like 76 pages. Anyone know if this is the same Pestana notes people are referring to? Maybe just a condensed, abbreviated version? I wasn't planning on buying the whole Kaplan series for step 2 but people seem to think these notes were great so I was thinking of using them in my step 2 review...

Yeah the 76 pages is the "condensed" version but often times it leaves out a good explanation as to the answer to the vignette. The last 120 pages from Kaplan Step 2 surgery is better.

 

[DancingFajitas]

so i've been doing a ton of questions--> pre test, usmle world, and kaplan q bank and in general, sucking at all of them...two questions: which one of these resources is MOST like the actual shelf and does the fact that i'm sucking now mean i'm going to fail this shelf? because if so, i'll probably need a bridge to jump from...

 

[DrDre311]

so i've been doing a ton of questions--> pre test, usmle world, and kaplan q bank and in general, sucking at all of them...two questions: which one of these resources is MOST like the actual shelf and does the fact that i'm sucking now mean i'm going to fail this shelf? because if so, i'll probably need a bridge to jump from...

I recommend the questions in NMS surgery. Awesome. Just memorize them if you have to, it'll help you.

 

[MN81]

NMS...

There has been talk of NMS being excellent for working through diagnosis and management with multiple alternative scenarios, as well as containing good questions for the shelf.

For clarification: are we talking about the textbook, the casebook, or both?

👍Thanks in advance...

 

[domer621]

management with multiple alternative scenarios

NMS Casebook presents a case scenario and then changes the scenario a bit to show the different ways to manage it.

as well as containing good questions for the shelf.

and this refers to the big review text. There are no questions in the Casebook.

 

[DrDre311]

NMS...

There has been talk of NMS being excellent for working through diagnosis and management with multiple alternative scenarios, as well as containing good questions for the shelf.

For clarification: are we talking about the textbook, the casebook, or both?

👍Thanks in advance...

In both cases I am referring to the textbook.

 

[153445]

Surgery was my last shelf exam ever, and I would like to give back to this thread since I did choose my sources according to some people's solid advice.

Just got my score today: 81, good enough for me.
My rotation was 8 weeks long, and I stacked most of my studying towards the beginning because I had a busy county hospital month 2nd. I read through NMS Casebook twice (once carefully during the first 4 weeks and once quickly the week before the exam). I read through the Kaplan Sugery Notes (the vignette section) once for the explanations sometime around weeks 4 and 5. Then I read Pestana, which is the same stuff but abbreviated in format, again the day before the test. I didn't have time for much else, but I think NMS Casebook + Pestana (or Kaplan notes, if you prefer the format) are enough.

For the most part, I thought this test was basically the medical management of surgical patients (what hospitalists would do), trauma, and some diagnostics (appendicitis? acute cholecystitis?). I think there were 2 purely medicine questions, 1 ethics question, and a few blood bank questions (which makes sense since surgical patients do receive blood products from time to time).

Hope this helps someone.

 

[153445]

.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

This may be an unpopular view, but I feel the same way I do about surgery as I do about medicine. Studying is helpful, but the BEST thing you can do is spending time on the floor learning management. Now this doesn't mean get scuttted out all the time and stay all night so you don't crack the book, but you need to get out there and learn the way a surgeon (or medicine doctor thinks). This is in direct opposition to fields like OB/GYN and Psych where you can basically never see the patient and kill the shelf with the books.

That said, here's one high yield thing I underestimated:

Trauma: Be sure to understand A/B/C's. I got so many questions about "This guy got shot 8 times, fell of a bridge, hit by a truck. He's bleeding from a billion places, he's bruised, his GCS is 3, what should you do?' And the answer is something simple as "He hasn't been intubated yet." This is really stupid and easy but I was surprised how frequent it was so don't neglect it.

 

[Psychopathology]

Just took the beast and thought I'd regurgitate:


Everyone told me that this exam would contain a lot of "medicine." Didn't notice that. What I did notice is that at least half of the patients had surgical illnesses in addition to a long, medical, pediatric, gynecologic, or obstetric history. Lots of anemic diabetics with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and alcoholism. A handful of pregnant women and women with pelvic tumors. But every one of them needed to see a general surgeon!!!

Question stems were nauseatingly long. Longer than on any other exam. Speed read or you will not finish on time. One piece of advice: if the stem goes into a long discussion of the patient's obstetric history, you might want to skip ahead to the question. Lots of surgery questions in disguised as OB/GYN questions. You don't have to be familiar with most gynecologic tumors and obstetric phenomena to get the questions. Just be familiar with the emergent and catastrophic illnesses that every specialist should know about.

Many questions involved distinguishing between two diagnoses. They provide you with more history, findings, lab results, radiology, electrical, and pressure monitor data than you'd care to know. You'll have to sort through a ton of information to find what's pertinent in making your diagnosis. No buzzwords. Sorry. This wasn't the peds exam 🙁

A lot of "What's the best first step" questions. Always cycle through the ABCs before spending five minutes deciding between two enticing answer options. If in a what-comes-first trauma or emergency vignette, you're saying to yourself, "I should probably do these two things simultaneously," then there is probably another answer option that takes precedence (hint. does the patient have adequate circulation??? Is he ventilating??? Is the ET tube in the right place????).

My first ten questions were split between neuro and orthopedics. I thought, "Well, I got my weak subjects out of the way early," and then they came back again and again. If I screwed up this exam, it has everything to do with my neglect of ortho and neurosurgery. I'm not sure if this is characteristic of every exam. There was a little bit of urology, but nothing picky. A very little bit of ENT. A fair number of pediatric cases. A smattering of very high yield endocrine. Maybe three or four transplant questions that I found very difficult despite the fact that I rotated through a busy transplant service during clerkship. One of them was a very picky histopathology question that would trip-up residents! There were a few straight-forward ethics questions and a couple of very specific questions designed to exploit my ignorance of pharmacology. The transfusion medicine questions were picky. I've rotated through transfusion services and found these questions to be challenging. The dermatology and soft tissue tumor questions on the other hand were few and simple. The tumor questions essentially asked whether or not surgery, chemo, biopsy, labs, or watchful waiting was warranted. There were no staging questions on my exam but there was a pathology question on tumor grading.

The heavy hitters were shock, trauma, GI-liver-biliary, thoracic, and vascular in that order. No surprises but long question stems with ambiguous presentations.

There were about 10 matching questions at the end. Long stems but very, very straight forward and high yield. Make sure you get to them and you'll buy yourself some points!

In terms of difficulty, I'd rank the shelves FP > Surgery > OB/GYN >> PEDS. Everyone's experience is different.

Hope this helps!

 

[Clemson Doc]

I am starting my surgery rotation in a few days, and am trying to determine if the books I purchased are good. The advice in this thread seems to be all over the place, with no real consensus. So I suppose I should not expect total support for the books I have purchased, but here goes.

Based on the recommendations of a couple of rising fourth years at my school, today I purchased Case Files Surgery (Lange) and Surgical Recall (Blackbourne). I was told that Case Files are great preparation for the next day's surgeries, and that Surgical Recall is great for pimping questions I might get on rounds or in the OR.

They also recommended PreTest Surgery. I almost purchased it today, but was concerned that I might be overloading myself with books I will never use. Plus, my roommate has a previous edition (9th ed., from 2001) I can use if I need it. I am confident I do not want to be a surgeon (thus the reason I am doing it first) but I obviously want to do well on the shelf exam and get a good grade for the rotation.

I feel like there are way too many books to choose from, and limited time to use them. I know from experience that I do better with only a couple of resources that I can learn well through repetition. So any input is greatly appreciated! 🙂

 

[kate0834tkjn]

I actually had a terrible time finding a good surgery book, much more so than any other rotation. I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but my last month of surgery, I had a ton of time, and for the first month, I was scared silly of my attendings, so I read A TON on this rotation, including:

NMS Surgery: so dense....I didn't really like the format and wanted to cry everytime I opened it. However, it has a ton of info and likely covers everything you need to know, although I only made it though like 200 pages. I did the questions out of it and thought they were pretty good, although there weren't that many of them and I wish the explanations would have been a little longer.

NMS Casebook: My favorite, I think. Definitely not all encompassing, but hit the big topics pretty well, and in a format pretty easy to read. I think I would have trouble just learning from this book if I hadn't read something else first, but I think other people have no problem. I actually read it twice and thought that was helpful.

Lawrence Text: Ugh, did no one edit this book? (Not that I found blatent errors in it, I just think it could have been better written and better organized; however, my clerkship director didn't really care for Lawrence, because he thought it had a lot of errors in it.) It did cover most everything on my test, other than specialties and a handful of peri-op questions.

BRS: I looked at this in the beginning and hated the outline format,but after reading other stuff and coming back, it was great to sum up. Also, I liked the questions. (Not that they were exactly like the shelf, but I thought they hit important topics.)

Pretest: Maybe a little annoying and picky at times, but so is the shelf and you never know what you're going to get on the shelf. Be prepared to get a lot wrong! I really liked pretest for peds but this one wasn't as good, in my opinion.

Attending Rounds: I really liked the way the cases were presented--basically, starting from the pre-op assessment, then the procedure, then post-op stuff. I used it more for my patients/pimping than the shelf. Also, it was a pocket sized book since my school doesn't "allow" recall.

Recall: Used it in secret, as my clerkship director would flip out if he saw you reading this. Crazy man. He claimed it was full of errors and misinformation. However, it seemed to have the answers to a lot of intra-op pimping I got.

Case Files: A good overview, but not detailed enough for the shelf. Still worth reading, though, if you have the time/inclination.

I think that's it....I know it's a lot of books, but I'm definitely a textbook person and a pretty fast reader. I know it's not everyone's style to use this many books, but it worked for me. I was able to get a lot of them from the library or borrow them from 4th years, so I didn't have to shell out the money for ALL these books. 🙂

If I could pick one out of all of them, it would be casebook for sure, then maybe NMS Surgery/Lawrence to fill in the holes if you have time. For questions....there seems to be a lack of good ones, though pretest/nms questions weren't bad. I hear the kaplan questions are good, but I didn't do them, so I can't really say. For pimping, recall was highest yield, though I also liked attending rounds because that helped with pre-op/post-op stuff more, I thought.

Sorry for the long winded post--best of luck on your rotation!!!!!

 

[Ypo.]

OK this is ironic.

I hated my surgery rotation and I had no designs on honoring. It was the end of the year, i was burnt out, and I just wanted to survive. I did less to study for this shelf than any throughout the year.

Score: 87 raw. (good enough to honor the shelf at my school).

I remember when I was taking it I didn't think it was that hard; just a lot of common sense. I agree with always going with your ABCs; that gets you a good 5-10 questions. I don't know, maybe I just had plain dumb luck.

This is what I did to study: I read nearly the whole text of Lawrence, I read 80% of case files. I did about 80 questions from UWorld the day before the test, then got frustrated with all the ortho questions and quit. I felt so burnt out on this rotation that there were a lot of days I didn't read at all. So I can't recommend my strategy at all, but I can say that knowing how to work patients up and your ABCs seemed to be what the shelf was about. I paid ZERO attention to subspecialties (no ortho, uro, etc) except for trauma, and I was a bit worried about that, but there wasn't much on the test at all beyond general surgery and trauma.

 

[Kennywisdom]

I failed the surgery shelf the first time I took it, not because I didn't study and not because I didn't understand general surgery, but because this exam is so expansive that I wasn't prepared for the scope of the material. I have recently passed it, and here is how I would have studied the first time, if I could do it again:

1)Kamikaze style - If you want to ace this test do questions from USMLEWORLD - disregard anything that anyone says about it, I had questions on my exam that were DIRECTLY lifted from UWORLD. That said, it is NOT enough to do just the Surgery section. To really get the full range you must also do the sections in ENDO (I had a few malignancy questions), Rheumatology (I had a question about temporal artiritis and question on Lupus associated vasculopathy), Neuro (I had a few stroke questions), Nephro (many electrolyte &c questions), and Cardio (three question about shock and one about MI). This is alot, but it will help you both for the exam and the Boards. This exam is a killer, and you must really know your **** to ace it.

2) If you don't have the time for the questions, go through NMS casefiles twice or more, and you will most likely be able to pass it, but unless you were a star in Internal medicine and/or have an encyclopedic memory, the medicine questions may irk you.

Best of luck to all of you.

 

[Guile]

I forgot to mention Blueprints Q&A Surgery in my resources thread. These were the best source of questions I found for surgery. The topics were high yield and the explanations were quality.

Can someone please post a link to Blueprints Q&A on Amazon? The only one I found was an old 2004 edition with only 7 available for sale. Thanks in advance.

 

[PreMedAdAG]

ok honestly -

that shelf blew!! It was not hard to finish in time - but half the time I was like "ok if you're going to ask me this ridiculous question, perhaps write it down in some type of review book".... I just felt unprepared and at times like I was stabbing in the dark. Some were ridiculously easy, while others were utterly impossible - then there were the few that were just weird, wacky and out of the blue.... man... if i pass it will be a miracle - i feel like poop right now 🙁

 

[78222]

I'll agree with the above poster that this shelf SUCKED! I'll disagree that it was easy to finish on time though. I was more rushed at the end on this one than the IM shelf! The questions were hard and most of them had nothing at all to do with surgery. A lot of the material wasn't mentioned in the review books or surgery texts at all! BOO!

 

[puppies324]

the surgery shelf today was horrible... 🙁

 

[45408]

This may be an unpopular view, but I feel the same way I do about surgery as I do about medicine. Studying is helpful, but the BEST thing you can do is spending time on the floor learning management. Now this doesn't mean get scuttted out all the time and stay all night so you don't crack the book, but you need to get out there and learn the way a surgeon (or medicine doctor thinks). This is in direct opposition to fields like OB/GYN and Psych where you can basically never see the patient and kill the shelf with the books.

That said, here's one high yield thing I underestimated:

Trauma: Be sure to understand A/B/C's. I got so many questions about "This guy got shot 8 times, fell of a bridge, hit by a truck. He's bleeding from a billion places, he's bruised, his GCS is 3, what should you do?' And the answer is something simple as "He hasn't been intubated yet." This is really stupid and easy but I was surprised how frequent it was so don't neglect it.

Heh, some of my classmates got burned on that in a first year test. ABC. Don't mess with the alphabet, period.

 

[DaveinDallas]

I'm not getting any happy-happy,joy-joy feelings from the crowd here about this thing we call a shelf exam.......I go next friday.

Been through CaseFiles and NMS CaseBook once, currently finishing Kaplan Step 2 CK Q bank questions and really sucking at those (in the high 30s/low 40s with one bright 70)......

Anyone out there spank this thing recently want to share their advice? IM turned out sweet and I'm better off than some that haven't been through NMS casebook once.....

I guess it's time for....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9bcHcte-lw

 

[potato51]

I took it today. I'd say NMS Casebook and the Pestana review were GREAT for it as well as USMLEWorld questions (even if a bit heavy on the ortho). I didn't think the shelf all that horrible, except for some of the "What would be the next step?" type questions that I had no clue on. That said, there's a lot of medicine material that wasn't easy to prepare for that I had to recognize from my MS2 clinical medicine course.

I've yet to do Medicine, but classmates I know who did medicine, then did today's shelf exam thought the surgery exam was easier. Make of that what you will...

 

[PreMedAdAG]

Okay - seriously sometimes I do NOT understand how these tests work - I felt like a pile of dung walking out of that test - seriously - like checked at least 45 questions I was unsure about....

I got my score back today 84 which is the 94th percentile - so what gives? Apparently I somewhat knew what I was doing even though I didn't feel confident. Since this is a pretty decent score I thought I would share my study tactics for those who need to take the test for:

1. Buy NMS - use it as your SOLE resource (I'm really not kidding) - read it once slowly - then read through quickly. NMS can seem rather dull and hard to read - persist through this initial issue - and you'll realize what a gem this book is. Always think: "What would I do next?" B/c that's what they're going to ask you on the shelf.
2. I tried to get through Case Files - it was low yield for me - the cases are good - but pick one or the other - but seriously - NMS is WAY better.
3. I used Appleton and Lange - Effin' painful as all get out - but at the same time - I'm glad I practice - apparently it paid off. Some people used Pre-test - but seriously all q-books suck @$$ for surgery - just pick one and do it.
4. When you're taking the test - there will be some gimme's so feel good about that. There are some really effin' weird esoteric questions that you've never heard of - whatever - don't waste your time on them. My plan of action was : go with your gut on every question - then move on - I had 20 extra minutes left by the end of the test.

5. Realize your'e going to feel like hell afterwards - I highly recommend splitting a bottle (yes bottle) of wine with a friend who took a shelf as well - you'll be happy as larks in approximately 15 minutes 😉

Good luck friends - and see ya later 3rd year - I officially have 7 months until Im a real doctor - BOOYA!

 

[myry]

Okay - seriously sometimes I do NOT understand how these tests work - I felt like a pile of dung walking out of that test - seriously - like checked at least 45 questions I was unsure about....

I got my score back today 84 which is the 94th percentile - so what gives? Apparently I somewhat knew what I was doing even though I didn't feel confident. Since this is a pretty decent score I thought I would share my study tactics for those who need to take the test for:

1. Buy NMS - use it as your SOLE resource (I'm really not kidding) - read it once slowly - then read through quickly. NMS can seem rather dull and hard to read - persist through this initial issue - and you'll realize what a gem this book is. Always think: "What would I do next?" B/c that's what they're going to ask you on the shelf.
2. I tried to get through Case Files - it was low yield for me - the cases are good - but pick one or the other - but seriously - NMS is WAY better.
3. I used Appleton and Lange - Effin' painful as all get out - but at the same time - I'm glad I practice - apparently it paid off. Some people used Pre-test - but seriously all q-books suck @$$ for surgery - just pick one and do it.
4. When you're taking the test - there will be some gimme's so feel good about that. There are some really effin' weird esoteric questions that you've never heard of - whatever - don't waste your time on them. My plan of action was : go with your gut on every question - then move on - I had 20 extra minutes left by the end of the test.

5. Realize your'e going to feel like hell afterwards - I highly recommend splitting a bottle (yes bottle) of wine with a friend who took a shelf as well - you'll be happy as larks in approximately 15 minutes 😉

Good luck friends - and see ya later 3rd year - I officially have 7 months until Im a real doctor - BOOYA!

Do you mean the NMS Casebook?

 

[PreMedAdAG]

Do you mean the NMS Casebook?

Yes - sorry my bad - the CASEBOOK - not the text (eff that!)

 

[DwyaneWade]

After getting my score today I feel safe in assuring you all that Case Files is a piece of junk for the shelf.

 

[dsprague12]

I got my score back today 84 which is the 94th percentile - so what gives?

My school only reports the raw scores. Is there a table converting raw scores to percentiles or at least a published mean and SD that I'm not aware of? I'd like to know my percentile.

Thanks!

 

[OneFellSwoop]

When any of you are mentioning pestana, do you mean the Kaplan book or the F&E in the surgical patient? Thanks, I have surgery in 2 weeks and trying to figure out which books to use. Currently thinking Pestana or NMS for texts, take notes in 1st Aid surg while reading the texts and then doing a Qbook and or case book.

 

[Instatewaiter]

pretty sure the average for all the NBMEs is around 70 with a STD of 7, which would explain why an 84 is about 94th percentile

 

[dsprague12]

pretty sure the average for all the NBMEs is around 70 with a STD of 7, which would explain why an 84 is about 94th percentile

That would make an 84 more like the 97th-98th percentile wouldn't it? Mean + 2 SDs.

 

[firebird69guy]

That seems about right.. i got an 82 for a national percentile of 90.

I used NMS, A&L and surg recall for pimping sessions

There was another book i used but can't remember the name of it (the school provided it)


good luck all

 

[Instatewaiter]

That would make an 84 more like the 97th-98th percentile wouldn't it? Mean + 2 SDs.

Sure but that is assuming that it is a straight normal distribution, which, in all honesty, it probably isnt. I bet it's close but not perfect.

 

[dsprague12]

Sure but that is assuming that it is a straight normal distribution, which, in all honesty, it probably isnt. I bet it's close but not perfect.

OK, I see your point. But, I see a lot of people citing their percentiles, are these solely based on this assumed mean of 70 and SD of 7 or do some schools actually give out national percentiles in addition to raw scores when they report the results?

 

[lankysudanese]

I see a lot of people citing their percentiles, are these solely based on this assumed mean of 70 and SD of 7 or do some schools actually give out national percentiles in addition to raw scores when they report the results?

our school gives out both the raw score and the national percentile when they report the scores to us.

 

[PreMedAdAG]

When any of you are mentioning pestana, do you mean the Kaplan book or the F&E in the surgical patient? Thanks, I have surgery in 2 weeks and trying to figure out which books to use. Currently thinking Pestana or NMS for texts, take notes in 1st Aid surg while reading the texts and then doing a Qbook and or case book.

I used the Pestana (60ish pages of quick high yield vignette). I'm not sure where you get it - I'm sure someone on SDN has it - a friend passed it along to me.

don't waste your time with FA Surg - it sucks - bad.

and don't overwhelm yourself with books


1. NMS
2. Question Book
3. A quick read like Pestana
4. Surg Recall for ward pimping (DO NOT study this for the shelf - it will do you NO good!)

 

[yohimbine1]

Thought it was ok. Would recommend NMS Surg (not casebook) and Surg Recall. That's all.

 

[Guile]

Thought it was ok. Would recommend NMS Surg (not casebook) and Surg Recall. That's all.

NMS Text? It seems like most people here like the NMS Casebook. At least I thought that all prior references to "NMS" meant the casebook...

 

[PreMedAdAG]

NMS Text? It seems like most people here like the NMS Casebook. At least I thought that all prior references to "NMS" meant the casebook...

Most people are talking about the casebook - some people choose to read the text - they are slightly crazy and likely going into surgery of some sort...hence the crazy part 😉 just kidding - i love me some surgeons!😍

 

[Uegis]

That seems about right.. i got an 82 for a national percentile of 90.

I used NMS, A&L and surg recall for pimping sessions

There was another book i used but can't remember the name of it (the school provided it)


good luck all

That would be Essentials of General Surgery, referred affectionately as Lawrence by the surgical types. Actually a pretty good book. I read through most of it as I was an aspiring surgeon at one point, but I have seen the error of my ways and moved to the other side of the curtain.

NMS all the way though. That book is killer for the oral exam and shelf.

 

[Guile]

That would be Essentials of General Surgery, referred affectionately as Lawrence by the surgical types. Actually a pretty good book. I read through most of it as I was an aspiring surgeon at one point, but I have seen the error of my ways and moved to the other side of the curtain.

NMS all the way though. That book is killer for the oral exam and shelf.

On the other side of the blood-brain barrier, eh?

I have to laugh every time an anesthesiologist tells me that joke thinking it's the first time I've heard it.

 

[Uegis]

On the other side of the blood-brain barrier, eh?

I have to laugh every time an anesthesiologist tells me that joke thinking it's the first time I've heard it.

I've also heard it many times used to spite surgeons, haha

 

[78222]

I used NMS Casebook, Case Files, and Pestansa and still got killed by the shelf. Goodbye Honors in surgery. Goodbye ENT@!😡😡

 

[Guile]

I used NMS Casebook, Case Files, and Pestansa and still got killed by the shelf. Goodbye Honors in surgery. Goodbye ENT@!😡😡

Did you get your score back yet? It seems like a lot of people feel like they were destroyed but end up doing pretty well...

 

[78222]

Did you get your score back yet? It seems like a lot of people feel like they were destroyed but end up doing pretty well...

I got it... I felt like I got destroyed, and I did.

 

[Scalpellum]

Pestana: http://students.washington.edu/vn981...ANA-Review.doc

 

[45408]

Did you get your score back yet? It seems like a lot of people feel like they were destroyed but end up doing pretty well...

I didn't feel destroyed, but I'm getting kind of antsy for my grade (comes back tomorrow).

 

[Jbienven]

I got mine back today.

Raw score = 86.

I felt really good about the exam, and i think it helped that I had the medicine shelf 2 months before.

All I read was BRS Surgery and did the appleton lange questions.