Pharm Shelf Exam

[Flick]

Hi everyone,
I was just curious if anyone had some details on the pharm shelf, advice on how to study.

A few people have told me that class notes are not as helpful since those are a little more specific to your school and not necessarily for a national exam.

Any insights would be helpful.


Thanks,
Flick

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[felipe5]

bumpin' this up b/c i am taking mine tomorrow and i'd like to see people have thought of this badboy

 

[Flick]

felipe5, let me know how it goes for you, I have mine next week.

Good luck,
Flick

 

[Linesider5]

I just took it today. Honestly, not as bad as I though it was gonna be. I studied the first aid and almost everything on the test was in that book. CNS, cardio, and antimicrobials made up the majority of the questions. Good luck

 

[Arctic Char]

anybody know what happens if you fail a shelf test? does one have to wait until the following year? do they have to pay for it? i have a . . . ahem . . . friend . . . who wants to know

 

[bmcgilligan]

anybody know what happens if you fail a shelf test? does one have to wait until the following year? do they have to pay for it? i have a . . . ahem . . . friend . . . who wants to know

It depends on your school.

 

[path problems]

what book is best?

i have the kaplan review. but is pharm for boards and ward, or rapid review better for the shelf?

i'd appreciate your help!

 

[Samoa]

Frankly, this is the one preclinical subject where First Aid for Step 1 does an excellent job of covering all the things you need to know and leaving out all the things you don't. Maybe 10% of the questions weren't covered, but you'd have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of pharm to get any of those 10% correct.

Besides, it's typical for ~10% of questions on a shelf exam to be completely off topic and therefore impossible to study for. Since everyone's in the same boat for those questions, you can usually get them all wrong and still be at the top end of the standardized scale.

 

[keeping-it-real]

anyone else have any feedback. thanks!

-k

 

[manta]

anyone else have any feedback. thanks!

-k

took it yesterday. i totally agree that first aid is the way to go. it's also worthwhile to note that, according to http://www.nbme.org/programs/subjexams.asp, CNS/PNS and cardio make up rather large chunks of the exam - which was exactly the case. i would definitely use the website as a guideline. good luck!

 

[mlw03]

i would agree that first aid is the best study tool, and that CNS/autonomics and cardiovascular are big topics.

however i do think that class notes are useful, if they were good to begin with of course, except perhaps for antimicrobials.

i'll also note that some questions actually relied on material i learned in other classes during MSII, although i don't feel comfortable saying what that was, so please don't ask. but if your school didnt cover this particular topic somewhere b/w path and pharm, then you should ask for your money back b/c it's a fairly important topic.

 

[doctorTT]

just to reafirm, first aid is a great study tool for the pharm shelf. but, you really have to know every drug and each line in FA. cns/pns, cardio/renal/pulm, and antimicrobials are high yield but then again they also make up a large chunk of pharmacology as it is---go figure. good luck!

 

[Flick]

I took the exam on Monday, and everyone's advice sure did help.

First Aid was very helpful. I also agree that a few of the questions are from left field and there is no way you can get them unless you happen to be a Pharmacology PhD.

One thing I would add is to make sure you know the Mechanism of Action for all the high yield drugs. That seemed to come up a lot in one way or the other.

 

[metabolite]

Anyone have any explanation of what would be good/acceptable/not so great of a grade? Does it come out in percentile or scores?? I'm getting my scores back at some point this week and was curious.

 

[chameleonknight]

Bumping this thread for those of taking the shelf in two days.