Shelf Exams

[Wizard of Oz]

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I haven't been able to find this information anywhere, so please redirect me or move this forum if this has been discussed before.

What I want to know is what is meant by the term "shelf exam?" I know that it is common in the last two years of med school. Does it mean that it is a standard exam used over and over again?

 

[Emergency!]

Go to http://www.nbme.org/programs/SrvSubjectExams.asp.

Typically, the "shelf" exams refer to the exams provided by the NBME. They are available for both basic sciences and clinical rotations. Links on the above page provide links to the different exams available.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Shelf exam aka board exam. Many schools require you to pass a nationally standardized exam at the end of each course throughout all four years. Many of my courses both last year and this my MS2 year count it as a final exam grade as well. They're typically not to be worried about, since you have to work hard to fail one (~1% nationally). It's equally difficult to score very high, so my best advice is to study hard but don't freak out about them.

 

[njbmd]

I haven't been able to find this information anywhere, so please redirect me or move this forum if this has been discussed before.

What I want to know is what is meant by the term "shelf exam?" I know that it is common in the last two years of med school. Does it mean that it is a standard exam used over and over again?

Shelf exams are the subject-specific tests that are funished to medical schools (at a nominal cost) by the NMBE. The school simply pulls these exams off a "shelf" in a store room. They are graded by the NBME and somewhat mirror USMLE (Step 1 or 2) depending on the subject.

I did not take any of the "shelf" exams for pre-clinical courses but my experience with the clinical course exams was: (Ranked in order of difficulty)

Internal Medicine (most difficult)
Surgery
Pediatrics
Family Medicine
OB-Gyn
Psychiatry (easy)

Books that I used for various rotations: Peds: Essentials of Pediatrics
Surgery: Lawrence and Recall; Internal Medicine: MKSAP for Medical Students: Family Medicine: Swanson's; OB-Gyn: Blueprints and Psychiatry: None needed.

We also had oral exams and in-house exams in Peds, Internal Medicine and Surgery. Our in-house exams were much harder then the shelf exams. We had to score 75% in order to pass the shelf exams (10% more than the national passing score).

 

[bigdan]

I'm open to suggestions on how to handle the Micro shelf. I feel that I am about to have my ass handed to me...

dc

 

[Emergency!]

I've heard that the "Pre-Test" series of books are pretty decent prep for the shelf exams. They aren't review books, per se, but they have a lot of practice questions with explanations broken down by topic. We have access to most of the series online via Netlibrary through my school