Official Surgery Shelf Exam Discussion Thread

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Pestana was gold for the shelf, as was doing IM first.

I really blew off the shelf until the last day, but I would recommend reading Pestana a few times and supplementing with Lawrence's/NMS
 
Okay, just got the grade back. Here in the land of SDN, where the scores are in the high 80s, this feels inadequate. :laugh: I scored a 77, class mean was 68.9. National mean for this time of year is 69.4, standard deviation of 8.4.

Now I wish the shelf counted for more than the school's department exam, because I scored the class average on that test.
 
Jbienven said:
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.
Click to expand...

What particularly about medicine did you find helpful for this shelf?
 
I've seen some practice questions with Dukes staging criteria being the focus of the stem and answers --are specific TNM type questions common on the real deal?? 😱
 
I agreed..But it is no more difficult to pass the exam.So don't to worry for that.
 
Just checking... I downloaded the "abridged" version of Pestana vignettes with 76 pages... Is there another link available with the "full" version that everyone's talking about with 130+ pages?

Thanks!

:laugh:😍:laugh:
 
DrBorisCA said:
Just checking... I downloaded the "abridged" version of Pestana vignettes with 76 pages... Is there another link available with the "full" version that everyone's talking about with 130+ pages?

Thanks!

:laugh:😍:laugh:
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Kaplan's Surgery Notes are divided into 2 sections - there is a text portion and a vignettes portion. They include almost exactly the same information - the vignettes portion simply has a little scenario with a little explanation using the info from previous section.

From what I've gathered the Pestana review is the vignettes portion of the Kaplan notes.

If you get the full-format Kaplan notes on pdf you'll find that the text section is about 76 pages. The vignettes section is about 136 pages (Pestana review).

There are also versions floating around that are in MS word format which are variable #s of pages. Your best bet if you're unsure of the completeness of the notes is to find the Kaplan pdfs for which I won't provide a direct link because of copyright issues. But needless to say it is easy to find via google.

Happy reading.
 
Man In White said:
Kaplan's Surgery Notes are divided into 2 sections - there is a text portion and a vignettes portion. They include almost exactly the same information - the vignettes portion simply has a little scenario with a little explanation using the info from previous section.

From what I've gathered the Pestana review is the vignettes portion of the Kaplan notes.

If you get the full-format Kaplan notes on pdf you'll find that the text section is about 76 pages. The vignettes section is about 136 pages (Pestana review).

There are also versions floating around that are in MS word format which are variable #s of pages. Your best bet if you're unsure of the completeness of the notes is to find the Kaplan pdfs for which I won't provide a direct link because of copyright issues. But needless to say it is easy to find via google.

Happy reading.
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Found it, thanks!!
 
Which one of the two question banks offers better questions for the surgery shelf. Thanks in advance!
 
I'm posing a question.
Call me crazy, but has any one here who has taken the shelve already but had NOT done Medicine yet considered reading case files for medicine or something similiar early on in the surgery rotation? I thought this could perhaps be helpful to get some of that medicine exposure everyone keeps talking about. At my school, our surgery rotation is 3 months so its not entirely unreasonable to read some medicine book in that time.

Any thoughts?
 
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nellinola said:
I'm posing a question.
Call me crazy, but has any one here who has taken the shelve already but had NOT done Medicine yet considered reading case files for medicine or something similiar early on in the surgery rotation? I thought this could perhaps be helpful to get some of that medicine exposure everyone keeps talking about. At my school, our surgery rotation is 3 months so its not entirely unreasonable to read some medicine book in that time.

Any thoughts?
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I think that isn't the best idea... it's the random things in medicine like factor deficiencies and such that come up for the surgery shelf, stuff you wouldn't really get from a brief overview of Case Files Medicine.

I got a 99 and the highest grade on the surgery shelf at my school in quite a long time apparently. I was obviously very happy with my score, but I thought it was a very difficult exam, much more so than the medicine shelf. In fact, I was down to the wire, and finished bubbling in an answer just as time was called. There were quite a lot of questions that I spent 5-10 minutes thinking about and reasoning out in full detail, and a lot of them I could narrow down to 2 answer choices.

I think I'm the only person who didn't read "Recall" fully, I just glanced at relevant sections for relevant surgeries and used it as a reference to prepare for our departmental exams. Someone sent me a copy of Pestana's lectures in audio format (apparently converted from video) and I listened to those pretty thoroughly. In fact, I can do a pretty good Pestana impression now. I love the way he says 'trauma'. Anyway, he lectures directly from his vignettes, but elucidates a little bit more and obviously is more dramatic when emphasizing important points. Went through all of Kaplan (both sections -- vignettes + the other half). Did all of pretest (wasn't that great -- do this book if you are bored). Did all of Kaplan questions (pretty good). Did all of A&L (lots of wrong answers in this book, lost of extraneous minute crap that isn't even tested -- skip this book). Looked at Lawrence for important chapters (acute abdomen, trauma, etc.). Know trauma well. Lots of random medicine stuff. Know when and when not to take someone to the OR and perioperative complications / fevers / etc. I was initially afraid of relying on Pestana so much, but in the end, it paid off. World questions were good, but started to sound the same after a while -- do them, though.
 
Did anyone use Step-Up to Surgery for the shelf? How was it?
 
Shelf score: 93rd percentile

Sources used:

-NMS casebook
-Case Files
-Essentials of surgery (only trauma and GI chapters)
-Pretest (not so great, but I did use it)
-Appleton and Lange Qbook (again, not so hot)

apparently there is no decent Qbank for surgery. at least i wasn't able to find one. best of luck to all.

Oh, my shelf: < 10 question total for uro/ENT/ortho/plastics. Plenty of GI. Plenty of trauma. surprising amt of neuro.
 
anon-y-mouse said:
I think that isn't the best idea... it's the random things in medicine like factor deficiencies and such that come up for the surgery shelf, stuff you wouldn't really get from a brief overview of Case Files Medicine.

I got a 99 and the highest grade on the surgery shelf at my school in quite a long time apparently. I was obviously very happy with my score, but I thought it was a very difficult exam, much more so than the medicine shelf. In fact, I was down to the wire, and finished bubbling in an answer just as time was called. There were quite a lot of questions that I spent 5-10 minutes thinking about and reasoning out in full detail, and a lot of them I could narrow down to 2 answer choices.

I think I'm the only person who didn't read "Recall" fully, I just glanced at relevant sections for relevant surgeries and used it as a reference to prepare for our departmental exams. Someone sent me a copy of Pestana's lectures in audio format (apparently converted from video) and I listened to those pretty thoroughly. In fact, I can do a pretty good Pestana impression now. I love the way he says 'trauma'. Anyway, he lectures directly from his vignettes, but elucidates a little bit more and obviously is more dramatic when emphasizing important points. Went through all of Kaplan (both sections -- vignettes + the other half). Did all of pretest (wasn't that great -- do this book if you are bored). Did all of Kaplan questions (pretty good). Did all of A&L (lots of wrong answers in this book, lost of extraneous minute crap that isn't even tested -- skip this book). Looked at Lawrence for important chapters (acute abdomen, trauma, etc.). Know trauma well. Lots of random medicine stuff. Know when and when not to take someone to the OR and perioperative complications / fevers / etc. I was initially afraid of relying on Pestana so much, but in the end, it paid off. World questions were good, but started to sound the same after a while -- do them, though.
Click to expand...

does anyone know where i could get the pestana audio files?

thanks.
 
anyone else think the ortho quest on UWorld are ridic...are there a lot of similar ortho quest on the actual shelf?
 
Vizsla said:
anyone else think the ortho quest on UWorld are ridic...are there a lot of similar ortho quest on the actual shelf?
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This guy addresses it. He says USMLEWorld is a little ortho-heavy compared to the real thing.

I'd recommend reading through the whole thread. There's a lot of good info in here.
 
Ya, so a few points with some redundancy from past posters:

1. NMS casebook vs FA/Step-up Surg - if you want to understand aspects of surgery go for NMS; if you study better with bullet points and straight memorization go with FA/Step-up. One of these should be your primary resource. (Lawrence is a bit dense - perhaps more suited for the MSIV aspiring surgeon)

2. Pestana review/Kaplan notes kick ass, read it 5x. I actually liked the notes better than the scenarios (notes are more condensed).

3. UW is a little ortho heavy - I did not have any ortho in that great of detail, but in general good questions. Well worth the time/money.

4. Pretest is a good source. I felt as if a few questions were taken directly out of the shelf. Hit the main topics - perioperative, trauma, GI, maybe CT, and then the others if you have time.

5. Don't read medicine stuff for the surgery shelf, it won't help as much as you'd think. I hadn't done medicine or read any medicine material and I did just fine.

6. Recall is imo useless for the shelf and slightly helpful at best for pimping. I might have glanced at it a few times at the beginning, but by the 2nd week it was a paper weight.
 
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anyone have the audio files for pestana? please help if you have info

i have the pdf but would love to listen to the lectures

thanks
 
MessyJessie said:
anyone have the audio files for pestana? please help if you have info

i have the pdf but would love to listen to the lectures

thanks
Click to expand...
I second this request.

You can post them to www.mediafire.com or www.filedropper.com to retain anonymity...

(Or PM me and we can work something out if you don't want to bother with uploading them somewhere...)
 
Quick question about the Kaplan notes, are the 2008-2009 notes the best ones to go by? I also have the 2005-2006 notes which note Pestana as an author. Thanks.
 
Alex05 said:
Which one of the two question banks offers better questions for the surgery shelf. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I only had the USMLE world question bank. But I thought it was quite good- it had a lot of trauma questions- and really helped me understand trauma which is important since there are a good deal of questions on this on the shelf and because I didn't get any trauma exposure on my rotation. I did the questions in the Kaplan Q book and though they were good too. You can easily do the questions in this book in the library or whatever to save some cash.

I scored 80% on the shelf. The sources I thought were money and would have helped me do better had I spent more time on them were:

Kaplan Notes (esp. the vignettes)
Case Files for Surgery
USMLE world/Q-book
(I didn't think A&L or Pretest were that great) unfortunately there is no great question source for Surgery in my opinion.
Hope that helps. good luck everyone!
 
how much was tested with neuro, cardiothoracic/vascular, breast, and peds for those who have taken the test?
 
heard a bit about usmle world, but has anyone used Qbank (not qbook) questions to help study for the shelf?
 
Besides taking Medicine first, or reading Lawrence's Essentials of General Surgery thoroughly, it's hard to prepare for the "Medicine" parts of the shelf beforehand. Knowing anatomy or surgical procedures really well only gets you so far. Oh! The Pestana review is GOLDEN. Find it, know it, love it. It'll easy get you half the qs on the test without a sweat. The other half though? Heh... here are few more book suggestions: Books For Surgery Core Clerkship / Rotation And Shelf Exam
 
Wow...Thanks everyone. I really had no idea what I was going to do to study for this rotation until I read here. Quick question...can some very kind individual send me the Pestana Review in audio ([email protected])? The text form is easy to find on google 😉 but I recall listening to Goljan while prepping for step I and I think the audio reinforcement was really helpful. Thanks!!!
 
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I'm studying for this beast and have been using Pestana + Kaplan and UW practice questions and I just started on Pretest. Pretest (at least the first chapter) seems totally different from the other questions I've been doing - nitpicky and with a different focus. Is it totally crazy or useful or right on - thoughts?
 
I wrote that back in surgery clerkship. We wrote it at the end of our rotation, but it did not not count for anything - it was essentially a practice exam.

I ended up landing a 78% without studying for it.
 
just took the shelf today.

i used NMS Casebook, Kaplan notes/Pestana vignettes, Uworld Step 2 Qbank (only has around 200 surgery questions, but my subscription was still active, so I used it), and CaseFiles.

the kaplan/pestana notes are awesome. very high yield. i would suggest reading them at least twice. i also loved NMS casebook and think it was much more useful than CaseFiles, which is a little too general for the shelf. Uworld q's were good. i also did a few chapters of Pre-test from a friend's book but found them to be very nit-picky and quit.

overall, i think this shelf was mostly medicine. i thought the medicine shelf was VERY hard and this one was much more reasonable. i finished in plenty of time and for once didn't have to randomly chose those last 5 or so that have choices A to P for answers!
 
I haven't been able to find the Pestana/Kaplan review pdf or audio files. If anyone wouldn't mind, could you send it to me please?

Audio would be wonderful as well.
 
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strider1722 said:
I haven't been able to find the Pestana/Kaplan review pdf or audio files. If anyone wouldn't mind, could you send it to me please?
Click to expand...
No one can, and the people who have posted they used it refuse to share, so buena suerte.
 
Alright I finally found a copy of the pdf. If anyone has audio please let me know!
 
hey nerds, surgical recall audio is available via torrent downloads. It is the book word-for-word but in a woman's voice...word-for-word, crappy joke-for-crappy joke

haha, "says sir and ma'am to the scrub nurses..."
 
indo said:
hey nerds, surgical recall audio is available via torrent downloads. It is the book word-for-word but in a woman's voice...word-for-word, crappy joke-for-crappy joke

haha, "says sir and ma'am to the scrub nurses..."
Click to expand...
Got a link to the torrent file? "Available for 'torrent downloads'" is like saying it's on the internet.
 
NMS casebook 2x, Kaplan surgery notes 2x, scored 87 on shelf. I think Pestana review is the same as the Kaplan notes, is it not? I think those sources are plenty unless you really want something comprehensive.
 
absite review..... + questions?
anybody use it? overkill? impossible in 8 weeks?

not doing as well as desired on shelf exams.... looking for a new approach.
 
Guile said:
Alas, such a search for Pestana audio is not nearly as fruitful. If I ever got a copy, I would post it on TPB and seed it forever.
Click to expand...

oooh! try google searching "Kaplan - Kaplan Medical Usmle Step 2 Surgery 2005-2006 Edition"
 
Our bookstore is selling the Lange Q&A question-books...which 'seem' to correlate with the appleton and lange review books. Or do they not? Is there enough review sections in the review books to warrant their purchase, versus the question books with explanations? Ex. the OB/GYN question book has 1400 board-format questions plus a complete practice test with vignettes? I'm looking into the peds, psych and surgery ones, as well.
 
Just found out I honored in Surgery ~ first time this year. 98th percentile. 😀

My major resource was the NMS Surgery, though I would spend a lot of time filling in the gaps with the textbook (Current Surgical Diagnosis and Treatment). NMS is written in paragraph form, and it gives you all the possible variations in a clinical presentation. And the subheadings are in question form, which helps keep you engaged. I found it a very easy read and very high yield. I thought the trauma section was especially good.

USMLE World was excellent for questions. They hit a lot of high-yield topics, and the question formats were similar to my exam. The content for the most part was similar though think UW was really ortho heavy compared to my exam.

Other people liked it, but I didn't really get much use out of Surgical Recall. The pages were sort of in flashcard format, and I could never remember anything I read in the book if I hadn't already seen it somewhere else.

I tried to use First Aid for Surgery in the beginning, but it didn't really work for me. The bulleted format wasn't detailed enough for me, and I'm not good at straight memorization, though if you are it might be helpful for you. I definitely prefered NMS (which, although not terribly detail-oriented either, was in a much more tolerable format).

Then the couple days before the exam I went through Pestana's notes. A really easy read, a nice way to review everything really quick.

The exam itself didn't seem to focus too much on any one organ system. The questions were mostly "what is the next step in management" as opposed to straight dx questions. I did the last couple pages first because they're really high yield. Time was actually not a problem for me, but I think that was because I practiced mostly with the timed UW questions.
 
I knew Pestana vignettes, Pestana audio, NMS Casebook, and Kaplan QBook cold. I also read the first 350-400 pages of NMS Surgery, and did all the questions in that book. I think reading NMS was low yield for the amount of time it required. Just do the questions in the book. I also did some of the PreTest chapters, some questions from CaseFiles, and all the USMLEWorld surgery questions.

After taking the exam, the questions were very, very similar in format and scope to what Pestana said would show up on the exam. Of the subspecialties, neurosurg (basic neoplasm recognition and next step of mngmt), urology (diagnosis + initial step of mngmt), peds (diagnosis), and very basic ortho (diagnosis) showed up in that order of freq. on my exam.

I think doing well on this exam is a function of reading quickly. It's not really a 'thinking' exam like I thought medicine was. Will see how it turns out...
 
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This is my first post on SDN. I guess its time to give back what I have learned. Did very well on my surgery shelf (82 raw score).

Here are the sources I used.
1) Read through Lawrence General Surgery and Surgical Specialities book once. It is hard to get through these two books in this busy rotation but I somehow managed. Great books (both of them).
2) Listened to Kaplan Videos once. Low yield studying. If I were to skip something, these videos will be the first to go.
3) Pestana questions. Kaplan Questions. Questions that come along with Lawrence.

Goal was to get through Lawrence books once in the first 5 weeks of the clerkship and then do questions the last 3 weeks. It ended up taking me 6 weeks to get through both books and then the Qs are doable in 2 weeks.

Surgical Recall was a waste of time for me. I regret buying it. There is nothing out there that could prepare you for pimping (especially if one of your attending likes asking about physics behind bovie) Dont waste your money on this book.
First Aid for Surgery is long for a review book. If you plan to read FA, which is like 600 pages might as well read 900 or so pages in Lawrence and get the whole picture down.

Hope this helps.
 
Hey guys - I too have not posted on SDN in forever (but there are people still here posting on this thread who I distinctly remember from when I applied back in 2005-2006...creepy).

Anyway, since I used this thread for it's wonderful recommendations, I thought I would add my advice. It was really essential that I do well on this shelf, since I want to go into a surgical subspecialty, so I was gunning hard for this test.

What I used:
NMS casebook (read all the way through once, then reviewed weak sections later)
Kaplan/Pestana notes - KNOW THE VIGNETTES!!!! They are KEY.
Pre-Test - I agree, not the most high-yield, but it gets the brain juices flowing
Kaplan Step 2 Qbook - surgery section - these were good questions
USMLE world qbank - SO worth the money for the surgery shelf

My advice for 3rd year shelfs in general is to do as many questions as you can get your hands on. I think that's key.

Anyway, with all that, raw score was 85, which was 94th percentile.
 
Okay, so Im a little confused about the Pestana notes. I found the 76 page word file, but where the heck can I get the Pestana vignettes in text format?
 
I took the shelf back in March and scored in the 93rd percentile. Having medicine first did make it a bit easier. I wholeheartedly recommend using NMS Casebook, as it's a bit more accessible than the regular NMS text and the case study approach is golden for making you extremely familiar with the presentation->diagnostics->treatment as well as being thorough covering all the commonly tested variations of a disease and possible complications.

The Kaplan surgery notes were very valuable as well, very light reading and very high yield as far as material that showed up on the shelf exam. Mine was a bit trauma heavy (which seems to be a common theme) and both of those books more than made up for my lack of trauma experience during the rotation.

My school has us take the shelf exam the Friday before the last week, right in the middle of our service, with one half-day to study the night before. We then have an in-house oral exam the last day of the clerkship. Even being extremely pressed for time, I think if you make yourself familiar with those two texts you will be in extremely good shape for the shelf exam.
 
The pestana notes appear to be the same as the Kaplan step II surgery book.
 
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If anyone has the Pestana Audio files, could you please PM me or email me at [email protected].

Thank you in advance!!

🙂
 
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