Who spanked GYN shelf

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Ypo. said:
Just got my score back: 90%.


I still stand by the Uwise questions and casefiles.
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when you guys say "90," do you mean that on a mean of 70 with a SD of 6-7, you scored 3-4 standard deviations above the mean?
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I aced this test. It was my best shelf.

The way to conquer this test is Blueprints + UWise + Casefiles. If you use these sources, you will have nice broad coverage. If you do Uwise + Casefiles, you will only have narrow spectrum coverage.

Don't believe those that say not to use Blueprints. Blueprints covered a lot of material (ahem, vulvar cancers) that was not in Uwise and Casefiles, but showed up on the shelf in some shape / way / form.

Shelf is curved by NBME to avg of 70. However, I am almost certain the test is curved down. National avg for this test before curve is above a 70.... so scores are curved down.
 
theunderdog said:
I aced this test. It was my best shelf.

The way to conquer this test is Blueprints + UWise + Casefiles. If you use these sources, you will have nice broad coverage. If you do Uwise + Casefiles, you will only have narrow spectrum coverage.

Don't believe those that say not to use Blueprints. Blueprints covered a lot of material (ahem, vulvar cancers) that was not in Uwise and Casefiles, but showed up on the shelf in some shape / way / form.

Shelf is curved by NBME to avg of 70. However, I am almost certain the test is curved down. National avg for this test before curve is above a 70.... so scores are curved down.
Click to expand...

So I thought I'd get through this test by doing just questions. I did all the OB UW q's, the two OB sections in Kaplan Qbook, and all the UWISE questions (thanks to whoever posted the login info. Google UWISE then use login: uthscsa pw:uwise). Raw score 73. If I had to do it again, I think I would do these questions and definitely read Casefiles and Blueprints. Dont try to get by with just questions, definitely didn't help me out.
 
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I don't know exactly how they calculate raw scores, but as I understand it:
mean=70
SD=7

So a score of 97 is about 3.86 SD above the mean
Doing a zscore to percentile calculator, 1 sided gives
99.9943%ile

I guess it isn't really a normal distribution but I am impressed with the 97s, 98s, and 99s....I could never pull those scores.
 
Any comments on the NMS OB/Gyn book? Our clerkship buys it for us to read.
Shelf is 8 May and thus far I've read Casefiles X1, on track to finish
the NMS book with 1 week left. Then it's Kaplan questions, memorizing
FA2 factoids and more Casefiles.
 
91 raw; 99 centile.

Resources: NMS Obs/Gyn, Uworld, CF, Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine.

I liked the NMS Obs/Gyn book quite a bit; it's good for learning the material. No section on multiple gestation. I didn't read the abuse section. That journal I cite is an excellent resource for all things obs/gyn. I highly recommend. Hopefully your school has a subscription.

CF is excellent for learning what to do when (e.g. management of dystocia) and answering a lot of the shelf questions. Remember the seemingly random bold face type (e.g. pedunculated fibroids can produce labour like contractions...) and you'll go far.

The surgery shelf is a complete joke compared to this one. You really have to use quite a bit of reasoning here. You must know your material cold. The presentations were generally very similar and the devil's all in the detail. I thought I was well prepared but walked away feeling like I had my two pedunculated appendages handed to me. Good luck.
 
Do you need to know how to calculate a Bishop score or a BPP score or anything like that?
 
Starting OB/GYN on Monday. Going with Case Files and Blueprints. I also have UWorld that I used for other rotations. Should I get another question source (Pretest etc..) or is UWorld enough by itself? Thanks for the input.

P.S. Congrats 3rd years! 4th year is right around the corner.

Raydeus
 
Raydeus said:
Starting OB/GYN on Monday. Going with Case Files and Blueprints. I also have UWorld that I used for other rotations. Should I get another question source (Pretest etc..) or is UWorld enough by itself? Thanks for the input.

P.S. Congrats 3rd years! 4th year is right around the corner.

Raydeus
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Took it a few months ago: used blueprints+UWISE and got an 85 raw score ~95th percentile.

If you can get a hold of the UWISE questions those are great.
 
Used kaplan step II materials for this plus case files, u world, and pretest, got 85. In retrospect would have used more comprehensive book than kaplan.
 
Instatewaiter said:
Took it a few months ago: used blueprints+UWISE and got an 85 raw score ~95th percentile.

If you can get a hold of the UWISE questions those are great.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. I heard UWise was good, but unfortunatly my school does not offer it (didn't feel like paying for it on my own either). Just wanted to see if anyone just used UWorld and did well on the shelf.

Raydeus
 
I scored 88%tile so hopefully that is close enough to be considered a good score. I didn't study much until the last two weeks. (somebody who studies more consistently will probably score much higher than I did) I crammed case files (read through once), did the USMLE world questions which are good, the questions in the back of the blueprints book (did not read the book though) also good, and finally probably the best source, in the 3 days before the exam I tried to go through all the uwise questions- probably made it through 75-80%, and thought it was very high yield. hope that helps someone! 🙂
 
I took this a long time ago (pre-xmas) but wanted to echo what everyone else was saying:

UWise + BluePrints

I scored a 91 - not sure what percentile that was.

Good Luck!
 
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Alex05 said:
I took this a long time ago (pre-xmas) but wanted to echo what everyone else was saying:

UWise + BluePrints

I scored a 91 - not sure what percentile that was.

Good Luck!
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same here....88

you don't need much else for that shelf.
 
I just took my OB shelf a few days ago and felt like I wasted my time doing uWise questions- I don't know my grade yet but uWise goes into way more detail than the shelf itself does.

I read blueprints over the rotation and then casefiles in the last week. Casefiles felt like the most helpful but it is hard to go through it w/o the foundation of blueprints. We'll see how it goes.

Update:
8/21 - 86 raw, 95th %ile. Needed 80th %ile so very happy- I stand by casefiles and blueprints. uWise was probably helpful but like I said, I didn't think it was essential
 
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so, for reference, I got an 85, used UWise a little, but mostly studied from the Beckman OB/GYN (5th ed) textbook. I thought it was a good book.
 
91... uwise + blueprints + casefiles x2
 
so these are the resources I have...(havent started reading yet, 2 weeks into my rotation 🙁

case files
blueprints
first aid for ob/gyn clerkship
and a ob/gyn textbook thats about 4-5 years old

My school does not have UWise...so whats the next best q bank for me? U world?? I plan to do case files and blue prints, and hopefully a q bank, but is first aid necessary right now?
 
Case files and blueprints were the best resources. I would supplement that with questions from usmleworld, uwise, or kaplan qbook.
 
I'm gunna finish up reading Blueprints within the next 1-1.5 weeks and I've already read case files. I've got UWorld, uWise, and PreTest as well as the Kaplan Step2CK question boook. Is PreTest even worth it if I don't have time? It sounds like people really liked UWorld and uWise and that may be all I have time to do...
 
PreTest for OB/GYN makes me want to throw the book across the room. What are these random bizzare-o questions?! The shelf can't possibly be that weird. Many of the strange questions and answer choices have become joke material on the wards among my fellow OB/GYN compatriates. I've used PreTest books for a lot of other rotations (though my shelf scores are never very high... hmmm...), but this is probably the worst PreTest I've seen. The caveat is I haven't had the OB/GYN shelf yet, but I can't imagine PreTest is high yield for this one at all.

uWISE has been down since Sunday. Grrr...

Edit: Response from APGO admin:

Our server crashed from many people studying last minute for the shelf exam. We have our IT people coming in this morning to do a scan of the system and clean up the database. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this is causing you.

We hope to get Uwise up and running as soon as possible.

Thank you!

😆
 
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I took it today and it seemed pretty easy - hopefully not so easy that the curve doesn't help. I read case files, then blueprints then did uWise followed by the USMLE World questions. I think I spanked it, but I will update in a couple weeks when I get my score back. Happy holidays everyone!

81 raw, 88th percentile. Didn't spank it as hard as I thought I did [/wanted to] but hopefully that will be good enough for honors.
 
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94 raw.......used only Pretest. Caveat is I love OB/gyn and want to do it...had a GREAT rotation where I saw/did a lot so I learned the entire rotation. I thought pretest was a very good prep and was detailed.....but I enjoyed the detail bc of my interest. I used Uwise a little right before the exam after I was done with Pretest. Truthfully I thought the shelf questions were similar to the pretest concepts.

Im stoked! 😍

Good luck!
 
Pretest = Money
Blueprints = Perfect for wards, less important for shelf
Casefiles = Good if it suits your style
UWise = Suxor deluxor

I did Blueprints x 1 (carried it in white coat and read while waiting for babies to drop), Pretest x 1, and UWise x1. But honestly, UWise is worthless.
 
For those that took shelf, if you had already read case files and
blueprints each 1x, and only had a few more days left until the shelf,
which one would you power read through again?
I'm normally a person that does not use a source more than once.
Obviously aiming to ace the shelf.
 
Re3iRtH said:
For those that took shelf, if you had already read case files and
blueprints each 1x, and only had a few more days left until the shelf,
which one would you power read through again?
I'm normally a person that does not use a source more than once.
Obviously aiming to ace the shelf.
Click to expand...

I would make sure to do the blueprints questions (including the online questions)... if you get through those, I guess then the questions at the end of the case files chapters.
 
Used Blueprints, CaseFiles, UWorld. UWise was hilariously awful, thank God I jumped off that sinking ship after a few sections.

Raw > 90
Percentile > 95th

:laugh: I love how all my best shelves this year (Peds, Psych, OB) are on rotations that I thought I wouldn't like going into 3rd year.

I can't really say that any of those sources I used impressed me all that much. Blueprints and CaseFiles in particular were so loaded with typos that at times I wondered if Jessica Simpson had written them. Oddly enough, if there's one thing that DID help on this rotation, it was when I had downtime on outpatient and read through some random patient information pamphlets (with the smiling soccer moms on them) - they dumbed down medical stuff into laypeople's terms... seemed like it helped me really learn some of those common OB/Gyn issues without all the B.S. found in review books ("powder burn lesions", "Turtle sign", etc... stupid stuff that doesn't help you actually understand OB/Gyn issues). This exam was deffo not buzzword heavy.

That being said, I felt the test was VERY atypical. Tons of things on there that didn't seem too OB/Gyn-ish. Almost as bad as the Surgery shelf for me, where I was filling in way too many answer bubbles in the final 30 seconds.
 
Casefiles - outstanding prep for shelf. Read at beginning of rotation. Reread a couple of days before the test.
Uwise - Did it 3-4 days before shelf.
Blueprints - Just used it as reference throughout clerkship, but did the questions in the back the day before the shelf.

95%
 
I used three sources: Case Files, Obstetrics and Gynecology by Beckmann, and u wise. The Beckmann test was great, I walked out of that exam thinking I missed <5 questions.

92/98
 
Someone let me borrow their OB Case files. Its from 2003, I think the first edition. Now they are up to 3rd edition. Is it drastically different? This is my last shelf, and all the other case files I've used seemed to have way more info for each case. And the initial cases are about 1/2 page long whereas normally they seem longer. Am I over analyzing?? I'm paranoid now b/c my shelf is in a few days and I'm worried this original Case Files is not good enough.
 
bdc said:
Someone let me borrow their OB Case files. Its from 2003, I think the first edition. Now they are up to 3rd edition. Is it drastically different? This is my last shelf, and all the other case files I've used seemed to have way more info for each case. And the initial cases are about 1/2 page long whereas normally they seem longer. Am I over analyzing?? I'm paranoid now b/c my shelf is in a few days and I'm worried this original Case Files is not good enough.
Click to expand...

Despite what I wrote about my test experience above, CaseFiles really was the best preparation for me. I'm sure the information in there hasn't changed too much from previous editions - just know as much of it as you can. Some vignettes on test day were practically carbon-copied out of there.
 
Got a great score so figured I would give advice

99 raw; and 99 percentile

honestly studied the least for this shelf than others (or so it felt). I worked really hard on wards and would ask the residents a lot of questions pertaining to management

What I did use...blueprints the first two weeks
Casefiles after and up to the shelf
ACOG questions (all of them, most 2xs through)
UWORLD 1.5 times through

good luck. It's a fun rotation (not at all malignant as the horror stories I had heard). I really liked it.
 
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