Official Surgery Shelf Exam Discussion Thread

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I read through case files x2, pre test x1, the Kaplan CK 2 notes x3, and some chapters of the essentials of surgery and this was enough

We had very few surgery lectures, except the student lead discussions

Surg. Recall is important for surgeries or specific rotations, but not for the shelf.

89 raw (99%ile)
 
kyley3k said:
I read through case files x2, pre test x1, the Kaplan CK 2 notes x3, and some chapters of the essentials of surgery and this was enough

We had very few surgery lectures, except the student lead discussions

Surg. Recall is important for surgeries or specific rotations, but not for the shelf.

89 raw (99%ile)
Click to expand...

when did you take your shelf kyley? results are out already?
 
I have heard there are Pestana videos floating around the internet and I was wondering if they were "worth it" for the shelf exam. In addition, I would like to know if FA surgery helped, if anything for the shelf for those who used it . Thanks!
 
kyley3k said:
On the 23rd of Oct.
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so did I. but our school doesn't release scores until evals are done, which takes 2 months, apparently. 🙁 congrats on your great score!
 
For anyone who used the NMS Surgery text (not the casebook), do you know which chapters at the end (subspecialties) are worth reading?
 
Surgery Shelf is on the horizon (few weeks away)...

For those in the same boat, feel free to PM me, for some Surgery Shelf crosstalk / strategery before the day of reckoning.

Pce.
 
I'm about 1 week out from the test.

I have absolutely no motivation with constant 12-13 hour days + Winter break on the horizon.

What do you think the odds are of getting a passing score (62 at my school) using only the pestana lectures? Past scores have been in the low 90's high 80's for peds and IM.

Think Pestana + 100 or so Uworld questions will do it?
 
Hey guys- I heard it takes about 1 week to get back scores, is that about right? I tried to look on the nbme website, but couldn't find a timeline. Thanks for the help!
 
calespine said:
Hey guys- I heard it takes about 1 week to get back scores, is that about right? I tried to look on the nbme website, but couldn't find a timeline. Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

this depends on your school. my school likes to wait a month before releasing the scores to students. dont know why.
 
Disinence2 said:
I'm about 1 week out from the test.

I have absolutely no motivation with constant 12-13 hour days + Winter break on the horizon.

What do you think the odds are of getting a passing score (62 at my school) using only the pestana lectures? Past scores have been in the low 90's high 80's for peds and IM.

Think Pestana + 100 or so Uworld questions will do it?
Click to expand...

Yes. Look at your medicine stuff again too (esp. gi, endo, renal) if you have the time.
 
mostly management decisions phrased in the context of periop environment. if you've taken medicine you should do very well because these are mostly medicine questions with surgery stems. lots of gi bleeds, bowel obstructions, fluid management, endocrine disorders, because these are all parts of general surgery prior to the surgery happening. likewise, cardiac/pulm issues are a big deal in the trauma/icu so that's how they phrase the questions.

i would say there was no more than 5 'go to the OR' answers on my surgery shelf, but there was plenty of upper endoscopy, fluids, and cardiac workup. there were even a few drug choice questions that might as well have been on step 1 or the medicine shelf. and the vast majority of the questions could be answered with pestana. this is of course one experience though.
 
are the 2008-2009 kaplan surgery notes an updated version of the 2005-2006 kaplan-pestana notes? In the 2008-2009 copy i have doesn't have pestana's name on it while the 2005-2006 version does.
 
DoctaJay said:
are the 2008-2009 kaplan surgery notes an updated version of the 2005-2006 kaplan-pestana notes? In the 2008-2009 copy i have doesn't have pestana's name on it while the 2005-2006 version does.
Click to expand...

Yeah the new ones are the same deal. Don't fool yourself into thinking they're the end all be all for this shelf like I did. I can't imagine how blindsided I'd be if I hadn't done world + medicine shelf right before. Would have been nice to have done ob/gyn. Like the couple of shelves I took before step 1 memories fill in the gaps too.
I don't know how the governing body that puts together the surgery shelf would think that test is representative of the knowledge you should leave your surgery clerkship with. There's a reason no text accurately covers the material tested in the surgery shelf, the writers probably feel asinine including it in a surgery text.

Edit: NMS casebook x 1, kaplan surgery ck x 1, qbook x 1 50q set and all of world was my end tally and I felt pretty good with the test as a whole. medicine prior was a help.
 
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I take my surg shelf in 2 days. ive done casefiles cover to cover x2. pretest cover to cover x2, and im reading through pestana now. sound like that should be enough to pass the shelf?
 
A lot of great input from past test-takers in this thread - just wanted to thank you all for helping me concoct a plan of attack for this exam when my Surgery rotation began. But for the purposes of keeping SDN pure, I think it's important for me to contribute the following, and honestly I do feel really bad taking a dump on this thread of 99th percentile success stories, but here it goes:

Immediately after the test, I felt "Eh, not so bad." It took about 3 hours for the horror to really sink in... I felt pissed off, very angry, and duped.

Sources used: NMS Cases (x2), UWorld Surgery Q's (x2) with some occasional Internal Medicine sets as well, Surgery Case Files reviewed key-points (from my notes) again prior to the test, Pestana Notes (x3). Other random reading.

Did the Kaplan QBook Surgery question sets as well. And the NBME practice questions (sorta like my Free 150). Studied hard even after my longest days in the OR and on all weekends, carried Pestana notes in my pocket to read during 15-20 minute breaks in the OR, paid attention at all rotation lectures.

This test did not test Surgery. Maybe 3 things from NMS cases. Maybe 2 or 3 from Pestana. Maybe 2 or 3 from UWorld. All those non-classic Surgery things that you should still know? Maybe 1 or 2 showed up and that was it. The rest of the questions looked like a bunch of rats eating eachothers' poop. Frankly, I walked out the test and forgot the name of the rotation I was actually on. The folks who just had their Medicine rotation also walked out dejected and scratching their heads, disappointed. As was I.

Was it Medicine-based? Nope. Not even sure what it was. Had I known what I know now about the test, I might have pondered reading a few specific chapters of Goljan or First Aid again, and I'm sure it still wouldn't have helped. VERY strong representation of 2 seemingly very low-yield surgery subspecialties, one of which CaseFiles and UWorld covered a little (and I subsequently knew quite well - and no, it wasn't Ortho), the other was not. There were dozens of mousetraps in this test, some that I caught during the exam and many others that I found out later completely pwnt me.

Even google doesn't have the answers for tons of the esoteric feculent crap I saw on this test.

Walked out realizing there was really nothing more I could've done for this exam. If there's one thing I did right it was doing all the UWorld questions EARLY on this clerkship to really learn some high-yield stuff early, that I could then review the 2-3 days before the exam. By not focusing on UWorld as an assessment tool but rather as a learning tool (i.e. ignoring your scores), you can maximize its benefit. Oh, my rule of doing questions 91-100 first also paid off big on this test as well.

Other than that, your best bet is just study as hard as you can and know all your stuff cold from what you CAN study, chug your caffeine, walk in to the test like a badass, sprint your ass off right out of the gate when the test begins, and try to SHUT IT DOWN. Trust me, I tried.

I'm a good test-taker and have really hit my peak on all the third-year shelf exams, but hopefully this one won't slaughter me because I REALLY liked my Surgery rotation. Now to hit the booze, friends, family, couch, eggnog, whatever. Thank God I have some distractions now because this shelf score is going to SUUUUCCCCK.
 
Hey, I been reading a lot of posts about a lot of resources. Blueprints QandA for surgery seems like a good find, if you can find it..and I have had no luck except for some used ones on amazon. I did come across "Single Best Answers in Surgery". Its not geared towards the USMLE or Shelf because i think its a UK book...But i was wondering if anyone has given it a try and been able to compare with the actual shelf. It seems pretty solid.

If anyone knows anything about it let me know. Thanks
 
Deferoxamine, thanks for sharing your experience with us? Care to share a question or two (from what you remember) with us to give us a bead on this nasty exam? Sounds pretty rough. If UWorld and Kaplan QBank weren't representative, what could this possibly test?
 
joanofarc0907 said:
Okay, I'm very happy to have this, but am confused that is does not correlate with the pestana notes I have. Does someone have an explaination for this?
Click to expand...

From what I understand the Pestana notes are essentially the same as the Kaplan Step 2 CK surgery material. These files are simply the '03-'04 Kaplan videos converted to mp3 and in my experience (while studying for Step 1) the Kaplan videos usually follow along pretty close with their printed study material. So they should follow along with the Pestana notes to some degree but I haven't actually listened to any of them nor have I started reading for the surgery clerkship, so I could be completely wrong.
 
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Score: 77
Resources Used: Pestana Notes (memorized), First Aid for Surgery Clerkship (read once), 200 USMLEworld Step 2 surgery questions (did once), Surgical recall (random reading in the hospital). Rotated through trauma, colorectal, peds surg, ENT.

This test was hard. Usually the diagnoses were reasonably easy to figure out (First Aid pretty much covered all of them). However, with the resources I used, I felt underprepared for the "What next" questions. Pestana was less high-yield than I thought it would be, although it was decent for diagnosis.
 
Vizious said:
Score: 77
Resources Used: Pestana Notes (memorized), First Aid for Surgery Clerkship (read once), 200 USMLEworld Step 2 surgery questions (did once), Surgical recall (random reading in the hospital). Rotated through trauma, colorectal, peds surg, ENT.

This test was hard. Usually the diagnoses were reasonably easy to figure out (First Aid pretty much covered all of them). However, with the resources I used, I felt underprepared for the "What next" questions. Pestana was less high-yield than I thought it would be, although it was decent for diagnosis.
Click to expand...

Hey there
what resources do you think could have helped more with next step? Congrats btw that is not a shabby score on surgery shelf from what I gather. Does your school curve post raw? thanks
 
Guile said:
Deferoxamine, thanks for sharing your experience with us? Care to share a question or two (from what you remember) with us to give us a bead on this nasty exam? Sounds pretty rough. If UWorld and Kaplan QBank weren't representative, what could this possibly test?
Click to expand...

From what I remember? Hah. At this point not much... other than the test being a massive scratch-off lottery ticket.

My thought process was something like this on test day (none of the actual test questions are below, just my thought process):

-- "This is an easy question. The answer here is way too easy and this must be a trick here. I should re-read the question because there has to be one symptom or clue I missed."
-- "What the hell am I supposed to pick as an answer when I think none of them are correct?" x 5 or 6
-- "Never heard of that imaging finding before. So which of A through K choices should I pick?"

Basically, I got home from the exam and looked up about 12 questions with answers that aren't easily accessible in any of the common study sources. Upon realizing that I had gotten 11 of those wrong, I basically threw Pestana in the garbage and cracked open a beer. Then sprinted home for the holidays, and basically tried to forget that it ever happened.

Scores are supposedly 1-2 weeks behind over the Christmas holidays, but judgment day is coming soon. It won't be too bad... I hope.
 
Deferoxamine said:
From what I remember? Hah. At this point not much... other than the test being a massive scratch-off lottery ticket.

My thought process was something like this on test day (none of the actual test questions are below, just my thought process):

-- "This is an easy question. The answer here is way too easy and this must be a trick here. I should re-read the question because there has to be one symptom or clue I missed."
-- "What the hell am I supposed to pick as an answer when I think none of them are correct?" x 5 or 6
-- "Never heard of that imaging finding before. So which of A through K choices should I pick?"

Basically, I got home from the exam and looked up about 12 questions with answers that aren't easily accessible in any of the common study sources. Upon realizing that I had gotten 11 of those wrong, I basically threw Pestana in the garbage and cracked open a beer. Then sprinted home for the holidays, and basically tried to forget that it ever happened.

Scores are supposedly 1-2 weeks behind over the Christmas holidays, but judgment day is coming soon. It won't be too bad... I hope.
Click to expand...
Good luck. Please let us know how it goes.
 
Does anyone have a topic list for must know things? Anyone with some insight on more specific topics/questions that are typically tested? I am horrible at focusing shelf exam studying and just want to make sure I cover basic ground and don't get side tracked w this shelf.
 
Is Case Files Surgery worth reading for this rotation? I read it for OB/GYN and it was decent, but it seems like there are other, better resources out there for the surgery shelf that would consume the majority of my reading time if I focused on them. Anyone think there is anything in there that isn't covered by the Kaplan/Pestana and NMS Casebook?
 
I think I am going to use kaplan - any ideas where (what topics) to focus my energy on???
 
hollahollaholla said:
Yeah the new ones are the same deal. Don't fool yourself into thinking they're the end all be all for this shelf like I did. I can't imagine how blindsided I'd be if I hadn't done world + medicine shelf right before. Would have been nice to have done ob/gyn. Like the couple of shelves I took before step 1 memories fill in the gaps too.
I don't know how the governing body that puts together the surgery shelf would think that test is representative of the knowledge you should leave your surgery clerkship with. There's a reason no text accurately covers the material tested in the surgery shelf, the writers probably feel asinine including it in a surgery text.

Edit: NMS casebook x 1, kaplan surgery ck x 1, qbook x 1 50q set and all of world was my end tally and I felt pretty good with the test as a whole. medicine prior was a help.
Click to expand...


raw 87
 
nope80 said:
bump
Click to expand...
Dude, there's 7 pages of advice here. What more are you hoping for? Someone even answered your question regarding Kaplan notes.
 
basupran said:
The Kaplan notes are sparse for the exam.
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Are you sure? My goal is to pass the exam only, which at my school is getting a 60 or above. My resource will be only Kaplan surgery 2008-2009. My time is 6 weeks. Guys who took the exam you think its enough to pass?
 
shaz8901 said:
Are you sure? My goal is to pass the exam only, which at my school is getting a 60 or above. My resource will be only Kaplan surgery 2008-2009. My time is 6 weeks. Guys who took the exam you think its enough to pass?
Click to expand...

I definitely don't think the Pestana notes (80 or so pages?) are enough to get a 60. However, that's just my opinion. They're very sparse.
 
shaz8901 said:
Are you sure? My goal is to pass the exam only, which at my school is getting a 60 or above. My resource will be only Kaplan surgery 2008-2009. My time is 6 weeks. Guys who took the exam you think its enough to pass?
Click to expand...


pair it with the qbook and you're getting somewhere, esp if you had medicine first
 
There seems to be quite a few options for practice questions for this exam, but as I read through this thread it seems like none of them are the "gold standard" and there is not a single one that is getting consistent good reviews... For those of you who have taken the surgery shelf recently, could you touch on what practice questions were the most helpful?
 
I didn't see this q answered earlier: are the 05-06 pestana notes the one everyone is referring too? Or is the updated version of kaplan step2ck what people use?

thanks all.
 
kdburton said:
There seems to be quite a few options for practice questions for this exam, but as I read through this thread it seems like none of them are the "gold standard" and there is not a single one that is getting consistent good reviews... For those of you who have taken the surgery shelf recently, could you touch on what practice questions were the most helpful?
Click to expand...


World...qbook is good too when you finish

edit: pretest blows
 
How many weeks do you spend on surgery rotation? I see a lot of folks have read through 2 books x2, at least one other x1, and finished a Qbank. We only spend 4 weeks on surgery rotation and getting through that much material seems impossible. After 3 weeks I'm 1x through Case Files with 4 days until the exam...starting to feel I may be screwed.
 
GreenShirt said:
How many weeks do you spend on surgery rotation? I see a lot of folks have read through 2 books x2, at least one other x1, and finished a Qbank. We only spend 4 weeks on surgery rotation and getting through that much material seems impossible. After 3 weeks I'm 1x through Case Files with 4 days until the exam...starting to feel I may be screwed.
Click to expand...
Grab the NMS Casebook and burn through it. Get the Pestana notes too. That would be the best way to spend the last four days. It's a tough shelf. I haven't heard good things for Case Files. I didn't use it.

We spend 8 weeks on surgery.
 
We have 12 weeks. 4 weeks inpatient, 4 weeks "preceptorship" (which in my case is 2 days clinic 2-3 days operating per week) and then 4 weeks elective (which doesn't have to be a surgery elective). I'm guessing most schools have an 8 week clerkship based on what I've heard from other people.
 
kdburton said:
We have 12 weeks. 4 weeks inpatient, 4 weeks "preceptorship" (which in my case is 2 days clinic 2-3 days operating per week) and then 4 weeks elective (which doesn't have to be a surgery elective). I'm guessing most schools have an 8 week clerkship based on what I've heard from other people.
Click to expand...

8-12 weeks! Holy cow. No wonder everyone has time to get through 3-4 books.
 
GreenShirt said:
8-12 weeks! Holy cow. No wonder everyone has time to get through 3-4 books.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. I only have 4 weeks as well and my shelf is this upcoming Friday. I've covered Casefiles almost twice now and gone through some questions (~66 of them ... and my scores haven't been pretty). I need to finish the last 16 cases in case files to completely be done with it x 2. I read about 1/2 of NMS Casebook over the 1st week, and it just seemed too long-winded and I eventually lost the focus of it all ... I also did relevant sections in Secrets and covered a decent amount, I need to go over them again. I'm also looking through relevant sections in Crush. I still need to do Pestana and QBook Questions and watch these lame videos assigned and a case report ... sigh ...

Case Files has been good but lots of typos and incorrect answers in those comprehensive Q sets ...

To the rest of you: what are the BIG topics out of NMS Casebook to emphasize these last 4 days? Also, do y'all suggest doing just Pestana, those topics recommended in NMS, QBook and a question bank these last 4 days? Thanks!

Greenshirt or anyone else, do you also have an oral exam as part of your shelf? I have an oral exam - and am not sure how to be prepared for that ... 🙁
 
Since people say there ends up being a lot of "medicine" on the surgery exam, I'm curious if there are any specific topics/organ systems that it would be worthwhile to read about, medicine-wise, to prepare? I've already taken medicine, but it was several months ago so I could definately freshen up on some of the information. It seems like GI is obviously a very important organ system in terms of surgery, so would it be beneficial to read the GI section of Step-up to Medicine or would that be a waste of time (time better spent reading more surgery stuff)? Any other thoughts?
 
For the subspecialty questions (ortho, uro, pedi, etc), would reading their respective sections in the Kaplan CK books suffice for the shelf or should I read those chapters in the NMS textbook?
 
A friend of mine recommended the Blueprints Surgery Q&A Step 2 for the shelf. The only other question banks I've heard that were any good were USMLE World and Kaplan Qbook for step 2. Any other good question sets out there for the surgery shelf?
 
Deferoxamine said:
A lot of great input from past test-takers in this thread - just wanted to thank you all for helping me concoct a plan of attack for this exam when my Surgery rotation began. But for the purposes of keeping SDN pure, I think it's important for me to contribute the following, and honestly I do feel really bad taking a dump on this thread of 99th percentile success stories, but here it goes:

Immediately after the test, I felt "Eh, not so bad." It took about 3 hours for the horror to really sink in... I felt pissed off, very angry, and duped.

Sources used: NMS Cases (x2), UWorld Surgery Q's (x2) with some occasional Internal Medicine sets as well, Surgery Case Files reviewed key-points (from my notes) again prior to the test, Pestana Notes (x3). Other random reading.

Did the Kaplan QBook Surgery question sets as well. And the NBME practice questions (sorta like my Free 150). Studied hard even after my longest days in the OR and on all weekends, carried Pestana notes in my pocket to read during 15-20 minute breaks in the OR, paid attention at all rotation lectures.

This test did not test Surgery. Maybe 3 things from NMS cases. Maybe 2 or 3 from Pestana. Maybe 2 or 3 from UWorld. All those non-classic Surgery things that you should still know? Maybe 1 or 2 showed up and that was it. The rest of the questions looked like a bunch of rats eating eachothers' poop. Frankly, I walked out the test and forgot the name of the rotation I was actually on. The folks who just had their Medicine rotation also walked out dejected and scratching their heads, disappointed. As was I.

Was it Medicine-based? Nope. Not even sure what it was. Had I known what I know now about the test, I might have pondered reading a few specific chapters of Goljan or First Aid again, and I'm sure it still wouldn't have helped. VERY strong representation of 2 seemingly very low-yield surgery subspecialties, one of which CaseFiles and UWorld covered a little (and I subsequently knew quite well - and no, it wasn't Ortho), the other was not. There were dozens of mousetraps in this test, some that I caught during the exam and many others that I found out later completely pwnt me.

Even google doesn't have the answers for tons of the esoteric feculent crap I saw on this test.

Walked out realizing there was really nothing more I could've done for this exam. If there's one thing I did right it was doing all the UWorld questions EARLY on this clerkship to really learn some high-yield stuff early, that I could then review the 2-3 days before the exam. By not focusing on UWorld as an assessment tool but rather as a learning tool (i.e. ignoring your scores), you can maximize its benefit. Oh, my rule of doing questions 91-100 first also paid off big on this test as well.

Other than that, your best bet is just study as hard as you can and know all your stuff cold from what you CAN study, chug your caffeine, walk in to the test like a badass, sprint your ass off right out of the gate when the test begins, and try to SHUT IT DOWN. Trust me, I tried.

I'm a good test-taker and have really hit my peak on all the third-year shelf exams, but hopefully this one won't slaughter me because I REALLY liked my Surgery rotation. Now to hit the booze, friends, family, couch, eggnog, whatever. Thank God I have some distractions now because this shelf score is going to SUUUUCCCCK.
Click to expand...

Nearly forgot about this stupid test.

Got a 78 raw. Was disappointed. Might not look so bad on paper, but keep in mind all the future surgeons are coming out to play this time of year, fresh off their interal medicine rotations. For that reason, the curve of raw --> percentile seemed particularly brutal. Was worried it would impact my rotation grade; luckily it did not.

Pestana was trash for this exam. Other than giving me 1 question from the Pediatrics section, one that I damn well should have known anyways, using Pestana did not help. Let's kill this myth already - stick a fork in it, it's done.

Other than that, there's no "GO-TO" source for this one. All I can recall now is being eviscerated on the day of the exam, both figuratively and literally. How appropriate.
 
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