Official Surgery Shelf Exam Discussion Thread

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Took it the other day. Just used Case Files (2x) and Pastana (2x) plus a little Pretest here and there. Terrible feeling walking out of the exam...just terrible. I am not looking forward to the grade and just hoping I passed. Surgery isn't for me....
 
Hey everyone,

I used many tips from this website when studying for the exam, and am thankful to those who posted some great advice. We have a relatively short surgery rotation of 8 weeks, it really flies by...

I studied pretty hard for this thing, mostly because everyone scared me about how difficult it would be. I used NMS Case Book x 1 (i.e. only read it once, excellent source for integrating your knowledge, but can be a bit disjointed since the book is set up as vignettes inside of vignettes), USMLE World surgery questions (went through all of them, which I believe was still less than 200, take your time with these, read all the explanations well, and I suggest re-reading each question stem even when you're checking your answers...a big part of this exam is figuring out how to THINK like they want you to so re-read the stem to understand that thought process once you know what the answer is), Kaplan Surgery (x2, I liked this the best, hands-down, and I usually never read anything x2!), and a QUICK read through case files surgery (basically I would read the case, the small blurb explaining the case on the following page, and then only the clinical pearls at the end of each case -- this lets you extract only the highest yield points without the drudgery of all the extra text, best down closer to the exam). This was all that I had time for, and I probably rushed through case files and parts of NMS case book as well. Clinical rotations were brutal time wise, so I did the best I could.

When I took the test, I must be honest, I thought that everything on the test was extremely fair. In fact, so many questions resembled UWorld Surgery questions, many resembled UWorld Medicine questions (I had taken medicine right before surgery so it was still relatively fresh, although I really thought that I had forgotten everything), and most could be answered with a good understanding of one of the surgery review books. I think the key is to read less sources but concentrate on the ones you know you can get through -- quality over quantity always. There were a few questions that I needed to recall from other rotations or a random factoid I learned on the floor (again, I really thought that I learned nothing on the floors, but something will probably stick), but these were rare and you either remembered it or you didn't. I felt that several questions were all about associating concepts, so if you had studied well it was knee-jerk, if not then it was a tough one to guess right.

Most of my friends thought it was tough however, so although I was pretty content immediately post-exam, I couldn't be sure.

I got my score back 2 days ago: 97 raw score. I'm pretty surprised, I've never actually seen a raw score that high. I didn't do anything differently than what others have done in the past, but I do believe that like with everything, its best to take your time to understand the material (read slowly and test yourself with vignettes or questions – this is how it will stick). Having medicine before surgery also gave me a shot at answering those straight up physio questions.

Thanks again to people on this thread who have immensely helped countless people like myself. Please PM me at anytime for questions or anything.
 
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I will preface this with I have the worst focus and pretty much used all my down time to scope out other surgeries, go to traumas, etc. I did study, but certainly not with the fever I've heard others describe.

That said, I took the shelf yesterday. The only way I can describe it is like that dream that everyone has where you realize you have to take a final exam for a course you forgot you were enrolled in, so you've never seen any of the material before. The shelf felt like that. Nothing I studied seemed to remotely cover anything in the exam. It was absolutely terrible. I think I would have been better off re-reading Goljan's during this rotation, and apparently the only way to do well is to have had medicine first. I had heard that you should try to have med before surg, but couldn't work my schedule out that way. So I felt screwed. Hard core.
 
I took the shelf yesterday as well...about 5 or 6 questions that came out of nowhere. Stuff like of the listed answers the ones I knew what they meant were wrong, so you go with the "sissy-pants-mcgee murmur" because you don't know what in the world it is, but at least it's not as wrong as everything else. Then there were 5-6 questions that Pestana was helpful for and you knew really well. The rest was a mix of medicine and a lot of trauma (Which oddly the best answer for trauma was always intubate). THen there was one easy question, but they gave you answers A through Q! Really? Did you really have to go there? Also there were a few analyse these LFTs and tell us the answer questions, so I'd know those cold. A few gyn-onc questions too.

Sources: pre-test X3 (2X worked well in the past), pestana, USMLEWorld (surg, peds, im, electrolytes).

Two weeks and counting...please let me pass!
 
Is the Kaplan Step2 Surgery book the ~250 page book that you guys are referring to? And where can I obtain a copy of Pestana? Thanks
 
Jwax said:
That said, I took the shelf yesterday. The only way I can describe it is like that dream that everyone has where you realize you have to take a final exam for a course you forgot you were enrolled in, so you've never seen any of the material before. The shelf felt like that. Nothing I studied seemed to remotely cover anything in the exam. It was absolutely terrible. I think I would have been better off re-reading Goljan's during this rotation, and apparently the only way to do well is to have had medicine first. I had heard that you should try to have med before surg, but couldn't work my schedule out that way. So I felt screwed. Hard core.
Click to expand...

This was exactly how I felt about this exam when I took it 2 months ago.

I have a theory about this test: The NBME takes all written test questions for all the other shelf exams that were rejected due to poor wording or complete irrelevance, and then bundles them all together and calls it "Surgery Shelf Exam".

The test is just stupid, that's all. I don't see how an excellent performance vs. an okay performance on the exam comes down to anything more than luck. Whoever on the NBME oversees this exam should be embarrassed, if not fired.
 
Although the above poster seems frustrated with his/her experience, for those reading this forum looking for tips to study, please understand that you can prepare and do well on this exam. The review books we've mentioned here are pretty good, and if you've been doing well in your prior clerkships (as people mention, having medicine helps, but likely in those that learned medicine well), you've been reading and integrating your clinical knowledge during your surgery clerkship, etc this will not be a problem exam.
 
In House Midterm Score: 85
Shelf Exam Raw Score: 90

Resources: Kaplan Surgery Notes x3, NMS Casebook X2, Surgical Recall (for scrubbing cases, not test), USMLE World, Kaplan Step 2 CK QBook Surgery qs, some of PreTest

Advice: Yeah, I took IM before Surgery but I think it is still possible to well on this test w/o having taken medicine first. People say "it's a Medicine test, not a Surgery test" and I found that to be only sort of true. There was a lot of Medicine type questions, but I felt a lot of the test was pretty straight up Surgery stuff you'll encounter if you read enough and do a lot of questions with a (very) little amount of OBGYN and pediatric surgery material.

Kaplan Notes are a good "big picture" but are very, very superficial. I would almost advise reading it the weekend before you begin the clerkship to kind of introduce yourself to the big topics in Surgery and then fill in the blanks as you go through the course. I thought NMS Casebook and USMLE World were golden for this Shelf. I kind of wish I had mixed in some IM USMLE World questions into my Surgery question sets, but time was limited and I don't know that reviewing Medicine material would have helped me all that much. Maybe do that if you have a lot time to do UW questions. PreTest wasn't that great, IMO.
 
Casebook+Kaplan Surgery+World + maybe qbook

Horrible test that does not test any of the knowledge you might have picked up in the OR or in the wards. Oh well. World in particular was good.
 
hey you guys,

thanks for all the tips for the shelf. mine is in 3 weeks and i was hoping to get some advice on a couple of things:

1) how important is it to memorize the tables of criteria from nms such as ranson's or the ACC tables of operative risk?
2) were there a lot of calculations on the test and were you guys required to recall the formulas from memory? for example, did you have to calculate TPN requirements?
3) my plans for the moment are just nms, pestana abridged review, and appleton lange questions...is that insufficient?
4) how did you guys gain access to the Uworld questions and how much do they cost? how long does it take to get through all of them, and are they a worthwhile investment?
5) would you describe the test as mainly based on whatever clinical intuition you had developed over the course of the rotation OR does it basically come down to straight memorization?

thanks so much!
 
When you all mention that this is a medicine heavy exam, what do you mean? Lots of cardio and nephrology/fluids management or what?
 
juiceman311 said:
When you all mention that this is a medicine heavy exam, what do you mean? Lots of cardio and nephrology/fluids management or what?
Click to expand...

Know your critical care medicine stuff. Know the CXRs that mean "oh crap" and the ABGs that mean the same.

78 RAW...about par for me when it comes to these shelf exams. But then I don't want to be a surgeon, just a lowly Family doc.
 
Something I found helpful was to use a technique our Psychiatry course director told us to use on that shelf: imagine you're in the shoes of the crotchety old white men that make these exams, then think of the answer they're looking for.

For instance, if the question stem on the surgery shelf says "An Obstetrician perfomed..." then the answer probably has something to do with an operative mistake, since surgeons don't respect OB/Gyn. Yeah, it's generalizing, but I'll bet the answer is "ligation of the right ureter." I'm pretty sure I had a stem where a GI perf'd a colon too. Globally, putting yourself in the role of the question writer can often help you notice key phrases in the stem that point you toward the answer.

This exam is certainly passable, especially with medicine first, but it was an awful lot of the "what is the next best step" questions where at least two options were reasonable, so I wish I had read recommended treatment algorithms a little better. It's not easy to learn some of them from your patients, especially when every patient you work up has already had a CT done in the ED, even if an ultrasound was actually the "next best" step for diagnosis.

Just took it a couple weeks ago, still awaiting score.
 
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did everyone on this forum pay the ridic prices for the Uworld questions? is there a cheaper way to obtain them? did anyone split the cost with friends and share an acct?
 
entranced said:
did everyone on this forum pay the ridic prices for the Uworld questions? is there a cheaper way to obtain them? did anyone split the cost with friends and share an acct?
Click to expand...
Yeah they're expensive. The only way to obtain them is to get a copy from, ahem, less reputable sources. And those questions are outdated and cumbersome to use.

I just looked at it as an educational cost and ate it.
 
one more general q about the uworld qs. with a yrs subscription, i wont be able to use them for step 2 since i will be taking that later than march 2011. however, i will be able to use them for four more core rotations...can anyone comment on the utility of the qs for strictly the shelf exams (since i cant use them for the step 2 🙁 )
 
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What's the consensus on Lange Q & A? I am hearing conflicting statements about its preparation for this shelf...
 
Most of this thread is about how the UW questions are the best thing for the exam. I haven't heard many good things about Lange or even that many people who used them for that matter.
 
sorry for the stupid questions yall, but just wondering how long the exam is in term of question length and how long we will be given to answer the qs?
 
100 questions, 2 hours 10 minutes
 
Quick question-- Any sections in NMS Casebook you thought were particularly highest yield vs lowest yield?

Thanks
 
wondertwinkle said:
Can anyone comment on how important breast disease is for the shelf?
Click to expand...

No breast on mine. That was more on OB (for me).

More trauma, vascular, GI, ortho, maybe a few thyroid for me. Also, a few things anesthesiology-related topics (airway, morbidity/ASA-status, etc)

BP Q/A and UW were closest representation to the test for me.
 
That's interesting given how surgeons have pretty much "claimed" the breast as their part of the body... I would have expected more.
 
Whats the consensus on Pretest? I heard some people say it sucks and some swear by it (for surgery specifically). I'm doing lots of other Q's so I'm deciding whether or not to spend time doing Pretest as well or to spend time maybe reading over some medicine topics and reviewing more stuff in my NMS casebook/Kaplan notes... Where should I dedicate my time?
 
hey everyone,

so this is a question i'm really confused about b/c it seems like the answers to it vary depending on what question service i am using. i initially thought that if someone was showing signs of hemo instability, and it seemed clear that this person had hypovolemic shock and abdominal bleeding, that one should proceed straight to ex lap. however, various questions on this topic have suggested that we should get DPL or FAST first. any thoughts on this? thanks so much!
 
entranced said:
hey everyone,

so this is a question i'm really confused about b/c it seems like the answers to it vary depending on what question service i am using. i initially thought that if someone was showing signs of hemo instability, and it seemed clear that this person had hypovolemic shock and abdominal bleeding, that one should proceed straight to ex lap. however, various questions on this topic have suggested that we should get DPL or FAST first. any thoughts on this? thanks so much!
Click to expand...

I'm under the impression that DPL is rarely, if ever, used anymore. If someone is hemodynamically unstable you wouldn't want to bring them to CT, but since FAST can be done in the trauma bay during the initial survey I think you can still do this on a patient that is unstable as a way to find out if they've got free fluid in the abd vs pericardial tamponade, etc. Also I think older question banks and review boooks might not have FAST as an option in which case going straight to ex lap may be the best answer. I'm not sure if that clears things up or not but I've thought about the same thing myself and thats just what I've concluded.
 
kdburton said:
I'm under the impression that DPL is rarely, if ever, used anymore. If someone is hemodynamically unstable you wouldn't want to bring them to CT, but since FAST can be done in the trauma bay during the initial survey I think you can still do this on a patient that is unstable as a way to find out if they've got free fluid in the abd vs pericardial tamponade, etc. Also I think older question banks and review boooks might not have FAST as an option in which case going straight to ex lap may be the best answer. I'm not sure if that clears things up or not but I've thought about the same thing myself and thats just what I've concluded.
Click to expand...

DPL has gone the way of the dinosaurs. No one even knew how to do it at the huge county hospital level 1 trauma center I work at.

I'm going with kdburton on this:
hemodynamic instability + abdominal bleed -> FAST, ex lap
hemodynamic stability + abdominal bleed -> CT, ex lap

FAST actually is fast. Just takes a few minutes.
 
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I am on trauma now. Every single trauma that we have (inner city level 2 center with tons of level 1 overflow from neighboring level 1 center) gets a FAST. 99.999% of people get a CT after the FAST unless the FAST is grossly positive and the patient is crashing, in which case they go to the OR.

On the shelf, I will be going with FAST as the first test of choice, because if the pt is unstable it clues you in, if the pt is stable, then you can feel better about your trip to the CT scanner (and it takes all of 30 seconds).
 
Also for hemodynamically stable patients, according to U world, you want a CT scan WITH contrast. Can't see that being important... but just in case 🙂
 
wondertwinkle said:
Can anyone comment on how important breast disease is for the shelf?
Click to expand...

4 breast disease questions on mine. 2 ENT. about 4 thyroid. prob about 4 total peds (3 of which were heart disease/murmurs). Don't remember any ortho being on it. 2 transplant Qs i can remember off the top of my head. 1 uro. other than that it's a blur. just saying that breast disease did come up. pretty fair test...i think that between kaplan Qbook, pestana, nms casebook, UWorld you should be fine. i have yet to get my score tho. finished with 35 mins to spare...lots of time to go over everything.
*and for those saying it was medicine heavy, i may be biased in that I already took medicine so maybe don't know what constitutes a med question anymore but honestly only about 4 questions total were unfairly steered toward mediicine.
 
Just took this exam... I used this thread for advice the last few weeks, so thought I'd give back with some observations of my own.

First, make no mistake about it, this is a difficult exam. It was my fifth shelf, and it was definitely the hardest. It's very strange in that it isn't really a surgery exam, and it's not even really a medicine exam either. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it. There are certainly quite a few questions about the management of surgical inpatients, but that still isn't a good overall description of this test. No one on my rotation left the exam early (which is unusual), and I noticed quite a few people apparently filling in some bubbles randomly after the proctor called time.

The subject that seemed to be the most well represented on my exam was Pulmonology, followed by GI/Hepatobiliary and Trauma/Critical Care. There were also quite a few "what is the best next step" questions involving pharm options, which kind of caught me by surprise. There weren't many classic surgery questions like management of cholelithiasis or appendicitis -- the NBME seems to like asking about more current topics like management of anal lesions in HIV+ patients, surgical options for obese patients, etc. (note that these are not exact exam questions, just examples). There were also probably 2-3 questions from other surgical subspecialties like Urology, Peds Surgery, Neurosurgery, etc., so you definitely can't ignore these. The only subject I don't recall seeing on my exam was ENT. Also, yes, there were breast questions on my exam, along with a few OB/GYN questions (not just GYN/ONC) that seemed like they didn't belong on a Surgery exam at all. There were also some bizarre pictures (one was identifying bacteria and another was a diagnostic test) that I had no idea how to interpret, but fortunately I was able to answer the question anyway from the vignette.

I walked out of the test feeling like I could have failed, although I think everyone else in my class felt the same way, so I'm pretty optimistic that I didn't, assuming there's a generous curve. Like some of the earlier posters have said, I really don't know what I could have done differently to study for this exam. I used USMLE World, which was decent for the Trauma questions. I also noticed at least two questions on my exam that were virtually identical to UW, but otherwise it wasn't that helpful. Pretest is awful for this exam... the questions aren't NBME style in the first place, and it just really misses the mark. Pestana was helpful for a few questions, but that about it. It's probably better to have your Surgery rotation near the end of third year, because there were several questions that were pure Medicine, OB/GYN, Peds, etc.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them here or PM me. I won't discuss specific exam questions, but I'll be happy to point you in the right direction.
 
I agree with the above, though this was my first shelf.

I finished the exam thinking "wtf just happened?" There isn't anything I could have done to better prepare. I used Lawrence, NMS Casebook, Pretest, and Kaplan.

Timing was also an issue. Usually, I'm out early from tests. I finished the end of basic sciences exam with an hour to spare. On this exam, the final 30 minute mark hit and I still had about 25 questions left.

I also noted several Ob/Gyn questions which were not even remotely mentioned in any of the aforementioned resources.
 
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95 Raw Score, 99 Percentile

  • Kaplan Pestana Notes
  • Surgical Recall
  • FA Surgery - Some Chapters
  • USMLE World
  • Kaplan QBook
  • Lawrence - A few chapters
 
Took it today and it was pretty tough (similar to medicine shelf in difficulty I'd say). I had >30 mins left after finishing my last couple shelfs and this one I was done with just less than 10 mins to spare. Kaplan notes (just the first ~70 pages), Pestana audio vignettes at the gym a couple times, NMS casebook, Kaplan Q Book, Blueprints Q&A Surgery, USMLE World (including some Medicine/GI questions). Studied pretty hard for this one so I hope I did well :scared: There was <10 questions on the exam that seemed like I hadn't read about while studying for surgery (some medicine, peds, OB/GYN stuff), otherwise it was mostly all what I expected to see. Not too many subspecialty questions, maybe 2-3 ethics questions, lots of "whats the next step in MANAGEMENT" and "whats the next step in DIAGNOSIS" questions, some of which would have had different answers based on how you read that last sentance.
 
Will someone who's taken it please post the standard deviation-we don't receive our score reports and have only been told our raw score. Thanks a lot.
 
I didn't get a standard deviation in mine.
 
Mortal_Lessons said:
Will someone who's taken it please post the standard deviation-we don't receive our score reports and have only been told our raw score. Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

The mean and standard deviation for all NBME shelf scores are 70 and 8, respectively. (The "raw" score is actually a standard score that has been scaled for each administration.)
 
Thanks to everyone who posted on here- tips were very useful. Took the shelf a few weeks back and used the following

- Pestana 76 pager (1.5X)
- NMS Casebook (1X thoroughly, 2nd cursory emphasizing GI and trauma section) - did not cover the breast, endocrine and soft tissue sections in detail (too long) but did these sections in case files instead.
- Pretest- trauma and GI sections
- UWorld Surgery
- Kaplan Qbook - surgery sections (essentially a review of pestana notes)

Test:
Pestana was very useful for this test (from reading previous posts, it seems there might be multiple versions of the shelf some for which pestana is useful and others where it's not).

NMS was also useful in getting a good overview and understand basics of surgical management - interestingly there were tested concepts that were mentioned in the case book whose presenting symptoms were not described but was in the NMS Text itself, I found this out after the test. I get the feeling that the text has everything one needs to know but still would not have been practical for me to try to read this.

UWorld was probably helpful but cannot remember any questions that I got right solely because of it

Did last 15 or so questions first on test day, these were matching or had 10+ multiple choice options (learnt this from previous shelves)

Couldn't study at all during weekdays but did on weekends intently

Score: 87 raw, 97th percentile
 
kdburton said:
Took it today and it was pretty tough (similar to medicine shelf in difficulty I'd say). I had >30 mins left after finishing my last couple shelfs and this one I was done with just less than 10 mins to spare. Kaplan notes (just the first ~70 pages), Pestana audio vignettes at the gym a couple times, NMS casebook, Kaplan Q Book, Blueprints Q&A Surgery, USMLE World (including some Medicine/GI questions). Studied pretty hard for this one so I hope I did well :scared: There was <10 questions on the exam that seemed like I hadn't read about while studying for surgery (some medicine, peds, OB/GYN stuff), otherwise it was mostly all what I expected to see. Not too many subspecialty questions, maybe 2-3 ethics questions, lots of "whats the next step in MANAGEMENT" and "whats the next step in DIAGNOSIS" questions, some of which would have had different answers based on how you read that last sentance.
Click to expand...

89 raw, 96th percentile. This is better than I expected to do right after the exam so I'm super pumped
 
Hey everyone just a question about grading for this exam (and I guess all the other shelf exams). How is the national mean/percentile calculated? Do all students take the same test on the same day across the country? I'm stuck with surgery first (without any help from having medicine first, although having Step I right before maybe could help a little hah). Basically does it not really matter because everyone else will be taking surgery first too? (although I guess some schools could be starting rotations at different times).
 
RWillan said:
Hey everyone just a question about grading for this exam (and I guess all the other shelf exams). How is the national mean/percentile calculated? Do all students take the same test on the same day across the country? I'm stuck with surgery first (without any help from having medicine first, although having Step I right before maybe could help a little hah). Basically does it not really matter because everyone else will be taking surgery first too? (although I guess some schools could be starting rotations at different times).
Click to expand...

Assuming most schools start around the same time you'd be taking the exam at the same time as people who are just as far along in their third year. The exam is curved based on people who take it during the same general time based on looking at the numbers, but I'm not exactly sure how it works; as you can see there are people posting their scores on here with lower raw scores yet higher national percentages than their peers which clearly means that they weren't graded in the same corhort. Again assuming that most people are starting rotations around the same time as you then its safe to say that most of the people taking the surgery shelf when you take it will not have had medicine yet (or any other core clerkships for that matter). With that said you'll all be surprised by these questions to the same extent and it will be reflected in the curve. Since its going to be your first shelf you'll probably want to study your butt off anyways since you don't know what to expect, so just work hard and it should pay off
 
kdburton said:
Assuming most schools start around the same time you'd be taking the exam at the same time as people who are just as far along in their third year. The exam is curved based on people who take it during the same general time based on looking at the numbers, but I'm not exactly sure how it works; as you can see there are people posting their scores on here with lower raw scores yet higher national percentages than their peers which clearly means that they weren't graded in the same corhort. Again assuming that most people are starting rotations around the same time as you then its safe to say that most of the people taking the surgery shelf when you take it will not have had medicine yet (or any other core clerkships for that matter). With that said you'll all be surprised by these questions to the same extent and it will be reflected in the curve. Since its going to be your first shelf you'll probably want to study your butt off anyways since you don't know what to expect, so just work hard and it should pay off
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice...I guess I'm just reading/hearing from people that taking medicine before surgery is so important for doing well on the shelf. But if everyone I'm being compared to hasn't taken medicine yet then that should take that part out of the equation (and the order probably shouldn't be something that matters anyways. I don't see why the surgery shelf has to be so medicine oriented).
 
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kdburton said:
89 raw, 96th percentile. This is better than I expected to do right after the exam so I'm super pumped
Click to expand...
Congrats. Thanks for following up with you score. That's awesome.
 
pseudoknot said:
The mean and standard deviation for all NBME shelf scores are 70 and 8, respectively. (The "raw" score is actually a standard score that has been scaled for each administration.)
Click to expand...


I'm a bit confused because based on what you're saying, it would seem that any score above 86 (2 SD above the mean) would be > 97.5 percentile; however two posters after you both reported scores above 86 yet their percentiles were less than 97.5. It would be helpful if someone with a recent score report could list the mean and standard deviation from the score report.
 
Mortal_Lessons said:
I'm a bit confused because based on what you're saying, it would seem that any score above 86 (2 SD above the mean) would be > 97.5 percentile; however two posters after you both reported scores above 86 yet their percentiles were less than 97.5. It would be helpful if someone with a recent score report could list the mean and standard deviation from the score report.
Click to expand...

Here is some older info...

http://www.nbme.org/PDF/2007subexaminfoguide.pdf

"For the clinical science disciplines,
the subject examination scores are scaled
to have a mean of 70 and a standard deviation of
8 for a specific group of first-time takers who took
the examination as an end-of-clerkship examination."

"If at least two examinees
were tested, summary information, including
the mean score, standard deviation, and the highest
and lowest scores for the examinees tested is
also provided."

So apparently they don't report a standard deviation. I still don't understand how they can "scale" t so that there is a standard deviation of X since the score distribution will vary with each administration
 
Would it be possible for anyone to scan a copy of an official score report? You can obviously blur or black out identifying info. We don't get the report just the raw score. Thanks.
 
This board has been invaluable just adding some helpful information. Hopefully your school has some good didactic sessions. We did for which I am grateful. 8 weeks long, grind hard from day one. This really is a marathon. Case files in the white coat for down time in the ward, very valuable Read this near the END really puts everything together and high yield. Recall for pimp questions. Pretest worthless, At home Read Kaplan chapters first saved vignettes for second half of 4 weeks. Started UWorld questions early on, Did the ones I missed again, qbook. NMS Casebook 1x. If you do this in earnest this should get you 85> unless your shelf exam is egregiously hard. Again it is half luck, if you get more questions that are straight from vignettes or world you might CRUSH it.
 
Hi all,

I'm new to the Clinical Rotations forum and my first rotation starting next month is Surgery. I'm browsing this forum and have essentially concluded that I need to buy

1. Recall
2. NMS
3. Find Pestana
4. And do some questions from a Bank.

My question concerns number 4. Many of you mentioned UW and some of you did the Kaplan Qbook. I was thinking of getting a 1 year subscription to Kaplan Qbank for CK and saving UW until when I'm prepping for the actual CK exam. What do you guys think? You are much more versed and experienced than I am for this. I look forward to the help.

Thanks!
 
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