Surgery Board: Blueprints, Blueprints Q&A, and Boards and Wards

[Llenroc]

Rate my study plan. I've got:

Blueprints for Surgery
Blueprints Q&A for Surgery (200 questions, "USMLE Style")
Boards and Wards (latest edition)

I'll admit the Blueprints for Surgery is rather weak on the medical management of surgical patients. Should I pick up an additional book to add to this? People recommend Surgery Recall, but I've browsed through it and I don't like it.

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[dynx]

Rate my study plan. I've got:

Blueprints for Surgery
Blueprints Q&A for Surgery (200 questions, "USMLE Style")
Boards and Wards (latest edition)

I'll admit the Blueprints for Surgery is rather weak on the medical management of surgical patients. Should I pick up an additional book to add to this? People recommend Surgery Recall, but I've browsed through it and I don't like it.

Pick up Lawrence and drop the others. If you can get through it, its all you need to know.
In general the blueprints series is only good for passing.

 

[angstrom55]

Lawrence is very lengthy "textbook" but very good for surgery if you have time to read through it. First Aid was good for getting to the point if you don't have time to read. I did not like Blueprints QandA for surgery. Questions seemed too easy and more for reinforcing info. Something like pretest, Lange, or kaplan would probably be better. Surgical Recall is used by a lot of students. I liked it b/c you can "pimp" by yourself.

 

[MeowMix]

I think I would go to Case Files. You need the approach of thinking, what do I do next, what do I order. And those books are a quick & easy read when you don't have much time, with questions to test yourself immediately afterwards. At this point I think Lawrence is going to take too much time, given your schedule.

 

[dentate_gyrus]

Lawrence has everything on the shelf in it's meager number pages (maybe missing < 5 questions). Case Files has most of the stuff represented, definitely not as complete as Lawrence.

 

[Llenroc]

My test is in 2 weeks.

I'm through Blueprints. Halfway through Boards and Wards. I'm halfway through Blueprints Q&A. I also got a 2000 copy of NMS and I'm going to read the first 3 chapters on medical management, which is Blueprint's weak spot. NMS has 130 questions. Blueprints has another 70. And Blueprints Q&A has 200.

 

[46&2]

Just to throw another monkey wrench into this... I read Lawrence and the subspecialty text. I wound up hating Lawrence, and Surgery wound up being the worst shelf score I had (first one I took, though). Lawrence is both dense and unclear (to me) as to what the next best step in management is. I knew other people did NMS and NMS Casebook, and the latter definitely seemed superior. Maybe First Aid. Case Files isn't bad. There's also a General Surgery Review by Makary that I found later and liked.

The Blueprints Q&A is good but the textbook is a little ridiculous. The Blueprints Psych book is only 30 pages less than the Surgery text (the newer editions are longer). You just won't get the information with Blueprints. Save it for OB/Gyn or Peds.

 

[hale-bopp]

First of all, I kept Surgical Recall in my pocket all the time, so by the end of my 12 week rotation, I knew it pretty well (well, anything I thought was relevant).

As far as the shelf goes, I thought Kaplan (the step 2 class notes) was probably the best resource. I also really liked Case Files and (once I knew what was going on, but not at all at the beginning) the NMS case files book. These books are all "what is the next step?" type books, similar to the shelf.

I really like questions, but don't know what to recommend...I bought Pre-test and Appleton and Lange as question books and I thought they both had nothing to do with the questions on the test. I would say don't waste your time for the few relevant questions surrounded by a ton of ridiculous, useless, and incorrect ones. As far as good questions... The Kaplan Step 2 class notes has 100 that are good. I didn't buy the NMS book that has questions, don't know how they are. I think that the 3 books above in the "what would you do next?" format were what actually helped for the shelf.

I had a friend's copy of Lawrence, I read it for the chapters of fluid and electrolytes and nutrition, and used it to look up stuff that I didn't understand, or stuff for random presentations I was supposed to give. I thought it was a great reference book, but more detail than I could digest.

 

[quideam]

I've heard that "Surgical Attending Rounds" is the way to go in place of a regular text - it's about as complete as a textbook, but shorter and more relevant.

 

[usmaple]

I really like questions, but don't know what to recommend...I bought Pre-test and Appleton and Lange as question books and I thought they both had nothing to do with the questions on the test. I would say don't waste your time for the few relevant questions surrounded by a ton of ridiculous, useless, and incorrect ones. As far as good questions... The Kaplan Step 2 class notes has 100 that are good. I didn't buy the NMS book that has questions, don't know how they are. I think that the 3 books above in the "what would you do next?" format were what actually helped for the shelf.

Yeah, one of the problems with studying for the surgery shelf is that the two semi-reliable question book series (Pre-test and A&L) are both horrible for surgery. Each one has a couple of good chapters with questions that are actually plausible for the shelf, but they're tough to find amidst all of the crap.

Casefiles and NMS Casebook are both decent (but not multiple choice format).

And don't forget to go over the subspecialties. It varies, but I would guess that there were about 10-12 pure subspecialty questions when I took it (mostly uro and ortho, some neurosurgery, an ophtho question, and a question about post-transplant immunosuppressants). Obviously it's not too high yield, but probably worth knowing the basics.