Shelf exams

[Idiopathic]

Are they equal, for the most part? Is the Peds shelf at my school the same at the Peds shelf at a West-coast school? What about DO vs. MD shelf? Anyone know?

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[Scooby Moo]

Are they equal, for the most part? Is the Peds shelf at my school the same at the Peds shelf at a West-coast school? What about DO vs. MD shelf? Anyone know?

Yes, the shelf exams are equal regardless of institution. For each subject, there's a question pool from which several versions/forms of the exam are made (not sure how many but I'm guessing it's pretty much standardized since it's the NBME we're talking about.) You are graded against everyone who takes your particular form of the shelf.

This link might be useful... http://www.nbme.org/pdf/guide2000.pdf

Sorry, I don't know about the DO vs. MD.

 

[DO_Surgeon]

I dont think that most DO schools have shelf exams. At DMU we have one for medicine and surgery and now they are trying to establish a psych exam.

 

[Idiopathic]

So your clinical grades are entirely subjective?

 

[DireWolf]

So your clinical grades are entirely subjective?

At OSU, we don't have shelf exams either. We are given exams at the end of each rotation that are written by our clinical faculty.

Shelf exams are written by the NBME/NBOME. I don't know of any DO schools that administer shelf exams during the 3rd-4th years. All MD schools have shelf exams during their clinical rotations.

 

[DO_Surgeon]

Yeah our entire third and fourth year grades are at the mercy of our attendings. It is a pretty cheesy evaluation that they have to fill out being that 90% of my attending have been MDs. It is pretty much a pass/fail grade, if you show up you pass.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

All MD schools have shelf exams during their clinical rotations.

Not to nit-pick, but I was told by a friend at UCSF that they did not have shelf exams either during their basic science years or their 3rd year.

 

[Idiopathic]

At OSU, we don't have shelf exams either. We are given exams at the end of each rotation that are written by our clinical faculty.

Shelf exams are written by the NBME/NBOME. I don't know of any DO schools that administer shelf exams during the 3rd-4th years. All MD schools have shelf exams during their clinical rotations.

Where did you get this info?

 

[souljah1]

We don't have shelf exams at UCSF. We have exams that are written for us by clinical faculty. And in some rotations, i.e. Neurology, there is no exam except for an observed full neurological physical exam on a patient. I know that "shelf" exams are old step2 kind of questions, but the majority of us don't even think about taking step2 until after interviewing for residency - with a great majority not taking step2 until the very end of 4th year.

We don't hear about step1 from faculty until midway through second year. We don't hear about step2 from faculty at all. You just take the thing at some point. Fits the phrase: 2 weeks to pass step1, 2 days to pass step2, a number 2 pencil to pass step 3.

 

[DireWolf]

Not to nit-pick, but I was told by a friend at UCSF that they did not have shelf exams either during their basic science years or their 3rd year.

My mistake. I've heard that many MD schools require their students to take shelf exams for their required 3rd-year rotations. Certainly not all schools have shelf exams.

 

[Blade28]

If you're talking about the national shelf exams for the clinical rotations, then yes, they're all standardized. However, your school may or may not use them in all rotations; for a couple of ours, we had departmental exams instead.

 

[DOtobe]

So your clinical grades are entirely subjective?

This is how it is for us at LECOM too. It really sucks when you have an attending who's in a bad mood when they are filling out your evaluation form...

 

[PACtoDOC]

At TCOM we take the same NBME Shelf exams that MD schools use. There are NBOME Shelf exams but hardly anyone uses them to my knowledge. We take the peds, obgyn, medicine, surgery, family medicine, psych shelf exams. We also take a manip exam from the department.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Yup here at Michigan, the M3's take shelf exams in all the disciplines except for neurology (which has a departmental exam written by the clerkship director who also happens to be the author of the text we use for that rotation).

My understanding, too, is that they are all standardized and all the students across the country take the same shelf at a given time. I'm not sure if a shelf exam in a particular discipline stays the same throughout one academic year however. I heard that after my shelf exam in pediatrics, they came out with a new shelf exam for that discipline.

 

[DeLaughterDO]

Yeah, here at TCOM, we take all the NBME shelf exams. Of course, now they're introducing departmental exams in internal medicine and I think surgery and family as well. We are also required to complete the Kaplan Internal Medicine Qbank (1000 q's) during the IM rotation.

I'm getting my butt kicked by all these questions and then having to try to study for the departmental/shelf ON TOP of q4 call. I lose at least 2 days out of the 4, you know?

of course, then I waste 2-3 hours a day on here....

later,

jd

 

[gwyn779]

My mistake. I've heard that many MD schools require their students to take shelf exams for their required 3rd-year rotations. Certainly not all schools have shelf exams.

We did shelf exams for surgery, medicine, and ob-gyn; the rest were written by our faculty.

 

[Molly Maquire]

NYCOM uses NBOME shelf exams for all third year rotations (including one in OMM). I don't know if they are retired questions from COMLEX Step 2. I'm not real sure about how they are graded.

 

[lindyloohoo]

To those who have taken the clinical shelf exams, have you had trouble finishing them? We got 2 hr 20 min for 100 ?s for the neurology shelf and it was kinda tight. (should have been 2 hr 10 min, but the lady keeping track was too busy reading home and garden than caring about reading a clock, which sucked because a lot of the people taking it weren't done, so they got an extra 10 min...but I digress) I'm a fast test taker too. Finished step 1 in 5 hrs. Just wondering if it's just the neuro shelf that's long or if all of them are long!

 

[starayamoskva]

To those who have taken the clinical shelf exams, have you had trouble finishing them? We got 2 hr 20 min for 100 ?s for the neurology shelf and it was kinda tight. (should have been 2 hr 10 min, but the lady keeping track was too busy reading home and garden than caring about reading a clock, which sucked because a lot of the people taking it weren't done, so they got an extra 10 min...but I digress) I'm a fast test taker too. Finished step 1 in 5 hrs. Just wondering if it's just the neuro shelf that's long or if all of them are long!

All the NBME shelf exams are 100 questions each. I finished all of them, but I finished surgery just in the nick of time with no time to go back and reveiw, OB with about 10 minutes to spare and the rest with at least 15 minutes left. I am a fast test taker as well (step 1 about the same as lindy) so was pretty shocked when I didn't move as fast on the shelf. There were several people in my school who c/o not finishing the test. I was really afraid I had lost my edge but the Step 2 went fine with about 10 minutes or more left on each section. 🙂

 

[dry dre]

FWIW, some people say that Step II is easier for students who had to take the NBME shelf exams through the MS3 year as the question format is similar.

At my school the departmental written exams were horribly written (I think this is a common problem with departmental exams at many schools) whereas the NBME exams, while difficult, had less of that "now what am I thinking" quality associated with departmental exams.

 

[Smurfette]

My school only does shelfs (shelves?) for OB, surgery and psych. Other exams are written by the clerkship directors, so some are multiple choice, some are essays, some count for a lot of your grade, some count for very little. However, usually your clinical grade is weighted the most toward your final grade.