whats a shelf exam?

[omgwtfbbq?]

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I'm going to be a MS1 in August and I was just wondering what is a shelf exam? is that what you have to take after your 3/4 year clerkships to prove you learned the basic material?

thanks for clearing this up, it's been driving me crazy seeing everyone mentioning them, but not being sure what's going on 🙂

 

[BOHICA-FIGMO]

I'm going to be a MS1 in August and I was just wondering what is a shelf exam? is that what you have to take after your 3/4 year clerkships to prove you learned the basic material?

The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) offers all sorts of comprehensive subject examinations in both basic science and clinical science. I don't know about the clinical exams (yet 😉 ), but whether you take the basic science exams is up to your school. For a complete list of the "shelf" exams the NBME offers, follow this link.

http://www.nbme.org/programs/subjexamsavail.asp

 

[fantasty]

What the above poster said.

It really varies by school. Some schools use them frequently and the exams may be a big part of your grades. Our school only uses shelf exams for 2-3 rotations.

 

[Hurricane]

Shelf exams are standardized exams for each of the core clerkships prepared by the NBME. These are the people who make the USMLE, but the scores don't have anything to do with licensure or get sent out when you're applying to residency. Medical schools like the shelf exams because they send them off to be graded, and then they get stats back about how well their medical students did relative to medical students across the country who also took the shelf exam at the same time. How shelf scores are used varies by school and by clerkship. At my school, some clerkships depend heavily on the shelf in figuring your grade, others just require that you pass it to pass the rotation.

When you get to your core clerkships, there are lots of review books you can buy for each clerkship geared towards passing the shelf with practice questions and outlines. Most med students use those to study from.

 

[omgwtfbbq?]

thanks,everybody, that clears things up. I'm not sure how my school does it. In the Fall they're starting a brand new curriculum and my class is going to be the guinea pig, so i guess i'll just have to wait till 3rd year and see 🙂

 

[erin682]

thanks,everybody, that clears things up. I'm not sure how my school does it. In the Fall they're starting a brand new curriculum and my class is going to be the guinea pig, so i guess i'll just have to wait till 3rd year and see 🙂

Have fun with that. My class was the guinea pig class for a new curriculum. It was a huge pain in the a$$ for a while though its gotten better. Guess will find out how well the new curriculum worked when my class takes the boards this spring.