I'm a great procrastinator. If I can do anything even tangentially related to studying instead of opening an actual book, I'll do it. In that sense, I suppose "great" is a subjective word. For example, instead of studying for my general surgery shelf exam coming up next week, I'm blogging about shelf exams in general. That's somewhat productive, right? In order to finish your third year of medical school, you'll have to pass six national shelf exams: internal medicine, general surgery, psychiatry, pediatrics, family medicine, and Ob/Gyn. They each consist of 100 multiple choice questions, and the order in which you take them is determined by the order of your clinical rotations. Because each test is scored based on national averages, the passing score for each exam varies. Depending on your school's policy, your rotation grades may or may not depend on your shelf score. At my school, for instance, students simply have to pass the six exams. Our grades are determined solely based on evaluations from our attending physicians. If you're lucky enough for this to be the case at your school, it takes a lot of the pressure off of studying, especially if you're not a particularly good standardized test taker.
When it comes to studying for these shelf exams, you'll find your study habits will be very different than in your first two years of school. Before I started my rotations, I thought it would be much easier to study at night when I didn't have to spend the entire day sitting in lecture. Unfortunately, a 12-hour internal medicine shift can take just as much out of you as eight hours of didactics. Even though your study schedule will likely be much less regimented than before, you'll still struggle to find motivation. Hence this blog post!
For everyday studying, I recommend carrying around the Case Files series of books. They contain a number of case presentations, standard treatments, and any other relevant information in easy-to-digest 5-page chunks. If you see a laparoscopic cholecystectomy on your first day of general surgery, take a few minutes that night and read the case on gallbladder disease. It really helps cement anything you saw that day and will help you think of follow-up questions to ask your attending the next day. If you read a few cases each weeknight and do some extra studying on weekends, you should be set for the shelf exams. As far as reference texts to use on those weekends, I've found that it's really a matter of personal preference. I like the Step Up series because they're concise and have a lot of charts for quick reference, but First Aid or the Crush books are just as informative. It all depends on your personal learning style.
If you have any questions about specific books or study materials, please feel free to post them in the comments. I'm happy to offer my personal recommendations or ask classmates if I'm not familiar with the books. Happy studying (or procrastinating, whichever comes first)!
