Board Certification in Psychiatry

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In addition to BTB for neuro, K&S for neuro and psych, I would have added board vitals for vignettes if I had to do it over. So thankful to be certified!
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In addition to BTB for neuro, K&S for neuro and psych, I would have added board vitals for vignettes if I had to do it over. So thankful to be certified!
 
Passed using Spiegel 95% and Board Vitals (correction here) for vignette's. If I can do it, with hard work, you can too! If it helps, I passed step 1 and 2 and 3 with narrow margins, it almost looked as if I knew exactly how much to study to pass, then quit. (I'm good at that). Good luck to all those preparing. Congrats to everyone. Oh, and for Neuro, Step 3 recordings from?? that came reccomended. Kaplan would be overkill IMHO. Board Vitals vignettes were helpful for practice, and I learned some, but weird focus/emphasis on trivial things, and some incorrect concept correlations. I lost confidence in their accuracy.
 
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Board certified.
Preparation: Beat the Boards & Board Vitals. 4 weeks, 3-5 days per week x 1.5 hours per day. Neurology for Psychiatrists in Residency x2.

ABPN took 10 weeks, 5 days to report our scores. Pain med, Brain injury med, and Palliative exams available for registration while awaiting my scores (caveat: ABPN said this meant nothing and also reported that scores would be released 18th of December).
 
FYI- I called abpn and they said they don't have the child reports yet and are Hoping (!) they will have them by next week. Sigh:/
 
I'm so happy I think I'm going to go home and celebrate so hard that I wake up two months later in another city with no memory of my previous existence...
 
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May I ask stupid question? I actually, took my Boards on Sep.25 but it says that I'm Certified on Sep.24

It means I didn't have to take it :)
 
For future SDN neurotics: assessing your passing status based on what application is available (initial certification, pain med, palliative, brain injury, etc) is completely misleading. Just for fun I clicked on "Request an Application for Initial Certification" after finding out I passed and the rationale for why I can't apply is still: "our records indicate that you have incomplete resident training records" as opposed to the fact that I shouldn't be able to take that exam because I'm already certified.
 
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I used BTB and Spiegel. Both are good but I found Spiegel was closer to the real exam the point that I found about 50 questions or more That I clearly remember reading about in Spiegel. For Neuro BTB was good but Spiegel was more to the point.

I completed both qbanks... BTB first with 69 percent and 74 percent in Spiegel.

If I have plenty of time to study for board I would do both. If not I would do Spiegel.

Board Vitals was NOT a good source and I did 10 percent when I decided to stop. Some questions are not objective at all and a couple the concepts were wrong.
 
I did all of Spiegel and was very thorough about it. Didn't even crack the cover of Kaufman. Got partway through BTB before slacking off, but then, I'm a "good test taker."
 
I also received notification of my successful board certification today.

Congratulations to the rest of you.

By far Kenny and Spiegel was the best resource I used for exam preparation.
 
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I passed. I used Beat the Boards online. I read every lecture, then watched every one, and did all of the Qbank. I did all of the vignette preparation stuff. I did maybe 10% of the qbank online that came with Spiegel (I began this at the end).

I honestly was not entirely sure I passed. I wanted to think I did. I am usually a very good test taker and although I had some of the usual doubt with all of the USMLE exams, I was always pretty confident that I passed. I felt very unprepared on the day that I took the board exam.

When doing the Speigel questions, they seemed so detailed and not that relevant and some information seemed outdated. It could be the small sample size I did (must have had a dozen questions on tricyclics). When doing BTB, I thought I was covering all of the relevant info and they clearly focused on updating their material for the transition of the boards using DSM IV and V, but on the day of the exam, I wished I had done more Speigel and less BTB. If I hadn't passed, despite having free BTB for the next exam, I would not have used it. I realize that having passed probably means BTB did a decent job, but I have never felt so inadequately prepared for an exam that I had reasonably prepared for. I hope this helps any future exam takers. Congratulations to everyone who passed and hang in there to everyone that will have to pass it next time.
 
I think BTB presents the exam as it should be - heavy emphasis on details evenly distributed between subtopics within psychiatry and neurology. I think K&S presents the exam as it actually is - lopsided with certain microscopic topics highlighted repeatedly (nuances between tricyclics that are largely irrelevant) while huge swaths of psychiatry and neurology are ignored completely.
 
Passed!!! I mostly listened the BTB lectures (3 times) with review on several videos (neuroanatomy for example). Went through Spiegel in the last 2 weeks. As an IMG with pretty low PRITE scores, I feel that Spiegel alone might be doable but too risky. BTB is way over-kill, but you will be gold as long as you studied BTB well. Congrats to all that passed.

Now what do I need to study for the child board? Question...question...question.
 
So now we know passed. How does the process work from hereon. What do they mean when they say certification contingent on meeting MOC requirements?
 
How much time (hours per day, weeks, or months) did any of you set aside to study? What would be an ideal study schedule?
 
As early as possible, I started 7 mo before. Of course my classmates call me paranoid. :)
 
Psychotic said:
How much time (hours per day, weeks, or months) did any of you set aside to study? What would be an ideal study schedule?
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I started about 7 months before also, about 3-4 hours a week (bexause repetition and relaxing are key for me, as in feeling the confidence of an early start) then up to about 8 hours/week around month 3-5 away, then about 15 hours/week in the last 2 months.
 
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Psychotic said:
How much time (hours per day, weeks, or months) did any of you set aside to study? What would be an ideal study schedule?
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I planned to study for 2 months but ended up only doing 2 tests from S&K, probably over the course of a month. I passed, but who knows by how much (and I'm generally a very good test taker and have done well on the PRITEs). As my PD says, if you paid attention in didactics, you should know all this already.
 
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I studied hard for my PGY-4 PRITE which helped a lot. I studied specifically for Boards in July through September 2015. I started my job immediately after PGY-4 so I had to study at night, weekends or at work during down time. In July I didn't do any questions - I just studied BTB neurology while making copious Anki flashcards. In August/September I only studied K&S. I went through all the K&S exams + vignettes twice and again made Anki flashcards. In the lead up to the test I had basically memorized the K&S question stems/correct answers so doing those questions again wasn't helpful so I just memorized my flashcards and other hard-to-remember lists (e.g. child development, CYP inducers, etc.)
 
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I studied for 4-5 hours at night for 6 weeks and was able to take 10 days off before test to study full time. My prite scores were terrible for psych -20's- and okay for Neuro -70's-.
 
FYI, I read Spiegel 1.5x (the actual book since I'm prone to distraction) usually doing short blocks of 10 questions at a time then reading answers. I think I was averaging under 70% correct on those, but also keeping in mind it was my only studying.

I also bounced thru a couple old PRITES the week of the test.
 
Child board results are FINALLY avail. Good luck everyone. While I passed (yay!) and felt pretty good after taking the exam, I have to say BTB for child was not as strong as the one for gen psych. I was also 1.5 yrs out from completing child fellowship, so my perspective my be skewed. To study I completed the BTB course (including entire question bank) and intensely reviewed the 4 Cprites I had copies of (btw yrs 2009 and 2013). I was unique that I took a "sabbatical" before my first job so I studied Mon through Fri for 2 hrs per day over approximately 12 weeks, with a couple days off here and there. I felt the cprites, and to a lesser extent, the BTB question bank were key for me.
 
Does anyone knows how and when are we supposed to receive the exam report? Is it off online or mail? Thanks
 
Thank you American. I was expecting to get mail but I have not received anything yet. Oh well...
 
Received my score report today.

The passing standard for this year is 68 %. Such low score and kinda shame...
They didn't tell how many people (or %) have passed this year.

I personally got solid numbers, especially in neurology and neurosciences, as expected. The lowest score, again as expected, in clinical psychiatry but above the passing score. Surprisingly, with 44 % in mood disorders but with 90% in somatoform an dissociative...
 
Haha, weird stuff was very heavy this year
 
Passed with 76% total. Before the exam, I Googled "percent correct to pass ABPN exam 2014" etc.. And could never find it. Here you go.
 
Trismegistus4 said:
Hmmm, I've moved and am not sure the USPS will forward it correctly. Wonder if I'll have to pay them more money to get another copy?
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So all my mail goes to my old apartment on the other side of the city... I went home to get my mail and some other things and of course I forgot the letter from the ABPN. What do we have to do to get the damn certificate?
 
WingedOx said:
So all my mail goes to my old apartment on the other side of the city... I went home to get my mail and some other things and of course I forgot the letter from the ABPN. What do we have to do to get the damn certificate?
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In the letter it says to update your folio to your current mailing address. I guess I would call ABPN to verify.
 
68% by my read.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Has anyone gotten their certificate in the mail yet?
 
SomeDoc said:
Has anyone gotten their certificate in the mail yet?
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I have not received it yet. Can't wait to frame all 4 certificates (undergrad/med school/residency/ABPN) and put them up in my office!
 
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F0nzie said:
Did everyone receive their score breakdown? I didn't get anything...
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I received it about two weeks after scores were released online. It came in a generic dollar-store quality white envelope!

The score printout inside looked like it was printed off someone's desktop printer.
 
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