the official COMAT shelf thread

[Arthroscope]

Now that enough time has passed for a resonable amount of people to have taken the first couple of COMAT shelfs respective of their discipline I decided to start this thread.

I recently took the IM COMAT shelf and here is my experience,

The test contained OMM, however I only had 1 direct question on OMM asking about innervations. 75% of the other questions on the test had OMM findings included in the question stem, sometimes they helped you arrive at the answer other times they could probably be overlooked.

There was a fair amount of linked questions, almost 25 or so of them at the end of the test, most of which were not too bad. There were a few linked questions where I was wondering exactly what they were asking and there could have been multiple correct answers.

There was an equal amount of cardio, neuro, renal material, minimal GI, and minimal heme onc. I was surprised to see a fair amount ( maybe 8-15) questions on step 1 style pharm questions ( ie mechanism of function, or clinical indication, or bugs+drugs, or side effects).

All in all I think it was similar in format to the questions on the 15 question practice test represented on the NBOME website, however the questions stems for the most part were longer. Some questions had very long stems similar to MKSAP or UW, others had 2 lines of information and you were left guessing exactly what it was that they were asking.

Currently as I understand it they dont have scaling available for these shelfs yet, so scores will be released as raw scores until they have enough data to scale it.

Overall it was doable, but rough in the sense that many of the questions were worded in such a way that the question itself remained as ambiguous as the answers.

Had a couple of other students from my class give feedback of the psych shelf, said it contained a fair amount of OMM and drugs, and the FP shelf, which was all over the place, and felt that blueprints and casefiles /uworld were not sufficient.

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[Dissected]

Yea..I'd be really interested to hear anyone's experience with the surgery COMAT. I take mine in a few weeks and I really want to honor it. Thanks in advance.

 

[sylvanthus]

Havent taken any yet, but am hearing that they are awful exams. Guess it is good my school decided to go strict pass fail for third year.

 

[Arthroscope]

I also had an anthrax question, as well as a reasonable amount of micro questions that were step 1-ish.

Also agree with above, I had studied framingham scoring, CHADS2 scoring, APACHE scoring, sepsis management, etc etc etc, with none of those apparent on the test. There was no DKA, no COPD, and I think I had maybe 2-3 questions on CHF at best. There were a couple fluid management questions, but I felt those were reasonable.

There was a decent amount of outpatient/ambulatory medicine type management, but not the inpatient heavy style material I thought was more likely to be represented.

Our school also has the 70 raw score cutoff, and this is somewhat worrisome, seeing how ambiguous I felt about many of the questions.

 

[Francon]

Anybody know how long it's supposed to take until we get our scores for a COMAT?

 

[supergumbo]

Havent taken any yet, but am hearing that they are awful exams. Guess it is good my school decided to go strict pass fail for third year.

I am envious of you right now. It would make rotations so much more enjoyable, and I can focus on learning what is actually in that field and what the attending feels is appropriate instead of worrying about these pesky COMAT exams.

I had the FM one, and I thought it wasn't too bad. I do agree the questions were all over the place, and honestly, the test felt too much like a blur for me to even remember what they were. The linked questions at the end were for the most part easy, although I had no idea on the last five (a bunch of fungal terminology that made me scratch my head). I wonder when we get our results.

 

[TNO]

Hey everyone,

i am trying to prepare for my OB comat coming up in a few weeks. i have been using casefiles and essentials of gynecology. I am trying to decide which Qbank to purchase to finish out this studying. I have heard great things about Comquest but also usmleworld. anyone have any suggestions on books and/or qbank?

thanks!

 

[dozitgetchahi]

Just took FM COMAT. Impressions:

- Didn't think it was too terrible...but a number of qs were ambiguous.

- My test had tons of random geriatrics qs that I wasn't really expecting. I had to think back to our geri class to reason through these (think I did decently on them, fortunately).

- There were also a number of random ethics qs that I hadn't expected either. I was able to reason through most/all of these, however, so if your ethics background for step 1 was solid you may be ok here.

- Surprised at the lack of relevant questions...I saw zero HTN qs, maybe 1 q on pneumonia, zero hyperlipidemia qs, zero DM qs, perhaps a couple qs on GERD.

The amb care chapter of Step-up was solid gold, but you need to read some parts of the pulm, cardio, and all of the infectious dz chapters to really be in good shape. The AAFP GME questions were great also (go to their website and sign up for a free "membership").

This exam seemed ok but apparently our class average on the peds COMAT was 58% (!), so it does sound as though some of these exams are rough.

Btw, does anyone know when/how these scores get delivered to us?

 

[dozitgetchahi]

Had a couple of other students from my class give feedback of the psych shelf, said it contained a fair amount of OMM and drugs, and the FP shelf, which was all over the place, and felt that blueprints and casefiles /uworld were not sufficient.

Lol this is so NBOME-ish...load up a psych shelf with OMM qs. Silly.

 

[French MD]

Anyone take it? Is savarese enough?

thanks!

 

[Dominader786]

Anyone take it? Is savarese enough?

thanks!

Bump on this question. Anyone else take the OMM COMAT and can provide some insight?

 

[French MD]

I took it, studied savarese and did combNK STEP 2 OMM questions.

The test sucked, some were easy/straightforward. Others were completely from left field, never saw anything like it before.

I don't think there is any advice I can give to have you prep for this hmmm test.

Bump on this question. Anyone else take the OMM COMAT and can provide some insight?

 

[Dissected]

Just took the surgery COMAT. Even though I never thought I'd hear myslef admit that the NBOME could write a reasonable exam, I found it to be pretty fair. There were no pure OMM questions, and nothing related to OMM was off the wall. There were only about 3-5 head scratchers where I had no clue at all, which was refreshing. If I had a hard time with a question it was usually because I didn't devote enough focused study to that particular area. I might be singing a different tune when the grade comes back, but either way it was a fair test.

I would recommend studying for it with the same resources that MD students use for their NBME surgery shelf. Browse the surgery shelf thread for some good advice. I found the Pestana lectures to be very helpful and the NMS casebook was very good. Start working through these from the start of your rotation and get through NMS several times. I would use the Lawrence surgery text (recommended by NBOME) to read about wounds, electrolytes, and fluids, but that's about it. Just check it out from your library once or twice and that should be sufficient. The actual test was almost all clinical diagnosis and/or management of surgical conditions. A lot of the basic knowledge on there came from Step 1 material, which was nice too.

This pdf gives the subject breakdown, and I found it to be pretty spot on. Use this to determine how much time to spend on each topic!! There was TONS of hepatobiliary on mine.

Things not to forget about:
-Pediatric surgical conditions (especially hernias)
-Burn management
-Complications of different surgeries and how/when they present

Good luck all. Don't freak out

PS - Don't use surgical recall for the exam. It is only good for pimping prep.

PPS - ended up with a very high score. All the stuff I knew on there was from the above mentioned resources and stuff I saw on my rotation.

 

[DubVille]

Took the peds this past week. For us we only need to pass the exam, so a 99 is no different than a 70.

My thoughts:
OMM 6-8 questions
- Cranial OMM!! Only like 3 questions, but they wanted to know about crazy stuff. I would guess you could find it in Foundations, but I'm not going near that.
- Other OMM was sacral/pelvis and some questions about treating leg length discrepancies.
- The majority of questions were asking "what test/advice would you do/give next
- They loved G6PD deficiency
- A lot of tanner stages and puberty/adolescent development questions
- A large portion of questions were about little babies, like first month of life
- Not many specific drug questions, mostly just identifying the appropriate tx by drug class.... "treat with B-lactam Abx", etc.
- A few hyperbili questions
- Lower and middle resp infections
- A few congenital hearts, and a few other developmental disorders
- ADHD
- Constipation/encopresis/Hirschprung's
- Know which immuno's are live and some conditions that you don't want to use them for.
- Benign congenital skin conditions
- Some asthma, but less than I expected

Overall, I felt the test was not like step 1 because the questions were almost all clinical. The test seemed very heavy for adolescents and newborns, apparently kids between 6 months - 10 years don't exist. There seemed to be a lot of psychology questions! It seems like I picked "refer for counseling" numerous times (I hope "refer" isn't always incorrect like it is for step 1). Only the last 8 questions were in series, and to me they seemed like the easiest questions on the test. Only 3-4 classic NBOME super-vague questions. I was very surprised by the lack of Otitis media, URI's, injuries, meningitis, and skin infections (cellulitis, etc).


To prepare I just read pediatric secrets in my down time. (I read through probably 2/3 of the book.) In areas that I felt were important (ADHD, Meningitis, URI's, UTI's, developmental milestones, asthma) I supplemented with the Essentials of pediatrics book (Lange) To be honest I do not feel that this was the best way to prepare, but at this point I don't really know what is. A fair amount of answers I knew from classes in my first two years and from boards.

Good luck, hopefully somebody else can shine some light on the best way to prepare.

 

[sylvanthus]

FYI,

I heard from a pretty reliable source that the questions for the COMAT exams were the ones rejected for the COMLEX or retired COMLEX questions. They apparently did not make new questions for the shelf exams. Shocker? So, I wouldn't worry too much about these exams, less at your school they determine if you honor the rotation or not.

 

[viciouz]

We just got back our raw scores for shelves... how do we compare? Is it out of 100 percent?

How do we determine the mean and std deviation?

 

[DubVille]

We just got back our raw scores for shelves... how do we compare? Is it out of 100 percent?

How do we determine the mean and std deviation?

I don't even think that they know. On my exam it just said anything over a 75 is considered above average knowledge in the field. I've heard rumors at my school that people are getting 55's and still passing.... leading me to believe they are still collecting data for the tests.

 

[Dissected]

Anyone care to share experiences with the OB/GYN COMAT? I'm especially curious how much OMM one might expect to encounter...

 

[BabyKangaroo]

Anyone care to share experiences with the OB/GYN COMAT? I'm especially curious how much OMM one might expect to encounter...

I read Blueprints and Case Files by Lange. Felt over-prepared. Case Files seemed to be more than enough even if you wanted to honor it. 3 Questions on OMM. Know the sacral manifestations of pregnancy (i.e. what does the sacrum do in a prego woman). First 60 questions were all single questions from one case. Last 40 were 2-3 questions per case. There were 10 matching.

The breakdown of the test on the COMAT pdf was so-so. If you look at the range of some of the content being on the test, it's like 15 - 30 percent... so not very accurate gauge, but good to focus on the most important. LOTS of bleeding questions (post-partum, antepartum, different ages with no pregnancy, etc. etc.). Risk factors for certain circumstances in pregnancy (e.g. previa, accreta, fetal bradycardia, etc.). 3 - 4 questions on that. On the simple matching questions, there was STD differentiation, vulvar lesion differentiation, and management questions. There were about 10 questions on normal pregnancy and stages of labor. That's all I can remember.

Conclusion: Stick with Case Files, and learn how they tell you to learn in that book and you will excel. I was fortunate to get to do tons in my OB/GYN, so that helped to learn too. If you don't do that much, look up major bread and butter surgeries like hysterectomies, tubal ligations etc. and the indications/complications (general) of each.

 

[Dissected]

I read Blueprints and Case Files by Lange. Felt over-prepared. Case Files seemed to be more than enough even if you wanted to honor it. 3 Questions on OMM. Know the sacral manifestations of pregnancy (i.e. what does the sacrum do in a prego woman). First 60 questions were all single questions from one case. Last 40 were 2-3 questions per case. There were 10 matching.

The breakdown of the test on the COMAT pdf was so-so. If you look at the range of some of the content being on the test, it's like 15 - 30 percent... so not very accurate gauge, but good to focus on the most important. LOTS of bleeding questions (post-partum, antepartum, different ages with no pregnancy, etc. etc.). Risk factors for certain circumstances in pregnancy (e.g. previa, accreta, fetal bradycardia, etc.). 3 - 4 questions on that. On the simple matching questions, there was STD differentiation, vulvar lesion differentiation, and management questions. There were about 10 questions on normal pregnancy and stages of labor. That's all I can remember.

Conclusion: Stick with Case Files, and learn how they tell you to learn in that book and you will excel. I was fortunate to get to do tons in my OB/GYN, so that helped to learn too. If you don't do that much, look up major bread and butter surgeries like hysterectomies, tubal ligations etc. and the indications/complications (general) of each.

Thanks a ton!

 

[wannabedocta]

I took it, studied savarese and did combNK STEP 2 OMM questions.

The test sucked, some were easy/straightforward. Others were completely from left field, never saw anything like it before.

I don't think there is any advice I can give to have you prep for this hmmm test.

Which resources do you think would be most helpful?

 

[Deepa100]

Hi,
I am starting to study for this after a whirlwind of activity in general surgery this last week. I read the previous threads on this and went ahead and ordered NMS casebook. I am currently reading the lawrence book and I don't like their fluids/electrolytes chapter. Can someone point me to another resource?

Also, from the COMAT breakdown, it looks like there are no questions on the suturing technques, names of retractors and such. I try to pay attention to those thing during my workhours but I don't plan on studying it for the exam because there is only so much time left in the day to study. Is this a bad decision?

 

[French MD]

Savarese is your best bet...

 

[Dissected]

Hi,

Also, from the COMAT breakdown, it looks like there are no questions on the suturing technques, names of retractors and such. I try to pay attention to those thing during my workhours but I don't plan on studying it for the exam because there is only so much time left in the day to study. Is this a bad decision?

Don't worry about that small stuff AT ALL. It's going to be diagnosis and management, not how to do procedures.

Edit: Just realized how old this post was..

 

[dozitgetchahi]

Just took FM COMAT. Impressions:

- Didn't think it was too terrible...but a number of qs were ambiguous.

- My test had tons of random geriatrics qs that I wasn't really expecting. I had to think back to our geri class to reason through these (think I did decently on them, fortunately).

- There were also a number of random ethics qs that I hadn't expected either. I was able to reason through most/all of these, however, so if your ethics background for step 1 was solid you may be ok here.

- Surprised at the lack of relevant questions...I saw zero HTN qs, maybe 1 q on pneumonia, zero hyperlipidemia qs, zero DM qs, perhaps a couple qs on GERD.

The amb care chapter of Step-up was solid gold, but you need to read some parts of the pulm, cardio, and all of the infectious dz chapters to really be in good shape. The AAFP GME questions were great also (go to their website and sign up for a free "membership").

This exam seemed ok but apparently our class average on the peds COMAT was 58% (!), so it does sound as though some of these exams are rough.

Btw, does anyone know when/how these scores get delivered to us?

Just for the record, my final grade on this particular COMAT was 76% (class avg 69%).

 

[Deepa100]

Don't worry about that small stuff AT ALL. It's going to be diagnosis and management, not how to do procedures.

Edit: Just realized how old this post was..

DoktorB,
I have not taken the test yet. So, it is still useful to see your response. I am not reading up on vascular/cardiothoracic (except esophagus)/urological/orthopedic surgeries. Since I did not see it in the COMAT breakdown, I am assuming it is ok to skip these. What would you recommend?

 

[Deepa100]

Did A-ok on the exam!

 

[Dissected]

Did A-ok on the exam!

Sweet, nice job!

/bump

 

[jawad12ca]

any advice for the PEDS exam???

 

[sylvanthus]

The peds exam had a lot of inpatient questions for some reason. Also, the "normal lab values" tab only includes adult values! Fukin lovely eh?

 

[jawad12ca]

which books did you use to study for it?

 

[sylvanthus]

NMS Pediatrics is a decent book, more than you need for the shelf.

 

[caspace9]

does anyone have any input for the family med or omm COMAT's? how did you guys study for them?

 

[superfan56]

does anyone have any input for the family med or omm COMAT's? how did you guys study for them?

family med, know your fp ob and peds. know your visceral somatics.

 

[caspace9]

thanks! so for omm is the green book enough?

 

[Deepa100]

What did everyone use for psych shelf?

 

[sylvanthus]

Im using FA for the Psych clerkship or whatever it is called. Take it this friday.

 

[gmreed2]

Bump for anyone who took these last year as OMS3. Might want to make a separate thread for each COMAT exam but I'm not going to do it.

 

[teacherman84]

Anyone care to share how these things are reported? Are the scores put up on NBOME website similar to COMLEX scores? Email from them or do they just notify the school? Just curious...I took my first two weeks ago and was wondering when and how we get scores.
Thanks

 

[mommy2three]

any further surgery insight from anyone who may have taken it recently??

 

[C O M 2014]

I'm at the hospital like 11-12 hours every day. When do you people study? How do you have the time to go through Blueprints, Case Files, Uworld, all in 4 weeks while doing rotations? Crazy.

 

[TeamZissou]

Just took FM COMAT. Impressions:

- Didn't think it was too terrible...but a number of qs were ambiguous.

- My test had tons of random geriatrics qs that I wasn't really expecting. I had to think back to our geri class to reason through these (think I did decently on them, fortunately).

- There were also a number of random ethics qs that I hadn't expected either. I was able to reason through most/all of these, however, so if your ethics background for step 1 was solid you may be ok here.

- Surprised at the lack of relevant questions...I saw zero HTN qs, maybe 1 q on pneumonia, zero hyperlipidemia qs, zero DM qs, perhaps a couple qs on GERD.

The amb care chapter of Step-up was solid gold, but you need to read some parts of the pulm, cardio, and all of the infectious dz chapters to really be in good shape. The AAFP GME questions were great also (go to their website and sign up for a free "membership").

This exam seemed ok but apparently our class average on the peds COMAT was 58% (!), so it does sound as though some of these exams are rough.

Btw, does anyone know when/how these scores get delivered to us?

Anyone have anything to add for the FM COMAT one year later?

 

[TeamZissou]

Seriously no one has anything to add?

Ok what about this, due to some outside circumstances FM has been a really busy rotation for me and I of course havn't studied a lick.

COMAT is next week. What should I do?
Read Case Files?
Do questions
- Which questions? Uworld? COMBANK? Comquest?

Funny, I'm struggling to get myself to study even a couple hours. A few months ago that seemed so easy

 

[MrBeauregard]

Just took the FM COMAT.

Impressions: absolutely, positively horrible. No other words will do. Poorly written, vague questions. If you thought the COMLEX was bad this might push you over the edge.

Study CaseFiles a few times; study PreTest a few times; do Blueprints if you'd like; read UptoDate on your patients. At least you'll know what you should for FM.

The COMAT won't test you on hardly any of that. Random geriatrics, crazy behavioral and/or policy questions. Very little evaluation of one's clinical knowledge. Crappy OPP questions that don't test much common knowledge. Management questions that you won't find the correct answer to in any text a third year would use during their rotation.

I could have studied for another two weeks and not gotten any more questions right.

 

[TeamZissou]

Just took the FM COMAT.

Impressions: absolutely, positively horrible. No other words will do. Poorly written, vague questions. If you thought the COMLEX was bad this might push you over the edge.

Study CaseFiles a few times; study PreTest a few times; do Blueprints if you'd like; read UptoDate on your patients. At least you'll know what you should for FM.

The COMAT won't test you on hardly any of that. Random geriatrics, crazy behavioral and/or policy questions. Very little evaluation of one's clinical knowledge. Crappy OPP questions that don't test much common knowledge. Management questions that you won't find the correct answer to in any text a third year would use during their rotation.

I could have studied for another two weeks and not gotten any more questions right.

Righto, actually that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I've been busy taking the USMLE during this rotation (which didn't turn out well) so all I've done for this is read about 10 cases out of case files.

 

[TeamZissou]

For those of you who have previously taken the COMATs how did you find out your scores? Through your school or through the NBOME directly?

 

[teacherman84]

We get it from our school about 2 weeks later

 

[TeamZissou]

We get it from our school about 2 weeks later

Yeah we just got an email telling us since CCOM just started with the COMATs this year it will take at least 2 cycles. Since I was on a 12 week FM rotation that means I have to wait till November

 

[teacherman84]

12 week rotation? Wow...that's nuts. Ours are only 4, some I wish were 6 or 8 but 12 is a long time.

We just started with them this year as well, they are setting the passing threshold off the national average but waiting until this winter to establish a honors threshold.

 

[TeamZissou]

12 week rotation? Wow...that's nuts. Ours are only 4, some I wish were 6 or 8 but 12 is a long time.

We just started with them this year as well, they are setting the passing threshold off the national average but waiting until this winter to establish a honors threshold.

Interesting.... I wonder if this means they will just be informing of pass/fail until winter?