Hi,
I wanted to start a thread about information regarding preparing for the written boards (I've searched the forums about this and would like to start something current.) I'd love to hear advice from anyone who has taken them or from those who will this year.
So here are a few questions to start:
1. Who is/ has used SESAP? What do you think about it?
I did. Other than errors (which you are going to find in any book), it was probably the most accurately reflective of the actual exam in terms of content and difficulty.
2. Anyone enroll in one of the review courses? (Osler, etc?) Was it helpful?
I took Osler and I'm not sure it was helpful. Frankly, by that time (I took it the week before the exam) I pretty much knew the stuff they were presenting. Perhaps if you took it earlier (ie, the June course) or didn't have time off to study it would be helpful to focus. A couple of the lecturers were pretty poor...the organizer of the course (whose name I won't mention here) tends to go off topic and talk about how surgery was when he was a resident (which appears to somewhere around 1950) rather than his assigned topic. You should pretty much skip his lectures. Its expensive but my program paid for 1 course (the hotel and airfare was up to me).
It was not the "they give you the answers" that it was promoted as. I can only recall one example where they presented something that was actually directly asked (ie, nerve commonly injured during CEA). Trouble was, they told us the most commonly injured nerve and the question was the second most commonly injured...there seemed to be a fair bit of that on the exam (ie, second most common...).
Lots of people brought their families...if you are taking the course in Napierville Illinois RENT A CAR, especially if you are bringing a family. Its in the middle of nowehere and its not close to downtown Chicago. There are two restaurants/cafes within walking distance and although the hotel offers a shuttle to Napierville, you have to wait for it and to be picked up. Your family will be very bored there without a car.
3. Any online question banks available? I think that there is something out there but I haven't had luck finding the site.
The only one I've ever found is:
http://www.surgeryreview.com/
Didn't purchase it so can't tell you if the questions are helpful or accurate.
4. What other materials are people using? I know some people have talked about reading Cameron within a 2 month time frame. Any other ideas/ advice?
Thanks
I do know people who read a textbook and Cameron seems to be the most popular. I'm not sure that's high yield to read a textbook. Rush is also widely used but many of its questions are harder than the real exam (which doesn't have the basic science stuff in detail). I am currently reviewing Schwartz's review book of questions and it has a lot of mistakes, some of the questions are ridiculously easy and are repeated on the next page, so cannot recommend it highly.
Fiser's book for the ABSITE is still useful although the basic science stuff could be skipped over. From my experience, High Yield is Surgical Physiology, Trauma and CC, Breast, GI (lots of stomach and GI bleed questions) and Oncology (all systems).
Finally, as tussy notes below, there is plenty of time. I'm not sure how long I took, but I had lots of time saved up from the first few sessions, so took an hour long lunch and still finished over 3 hours early. Then again, I'm the type of person that if I don't know something I don't sit and agonize over it.
