This is more of a post for those of you that may have failed the oral or the Osce, or both. As you all know the majority of people pass both sections without problems.
As somebody who scored above the 95th percentile in all of the exams since the basic and on the advanced I didn't think that I would have too much of an issue with the applied exam. Also while in a busy fellowship trying to find a job and figure out the next phase of my life, maybe my mind was preoccupied last year but needless to say my first attempt at this exam did not go well. ]
I studied using ultimate board prep primarily initially my methods were inefficient. I was doing a lot of reading and not enough practicing. A couple months before my exam date last year I began practicing more with other colleagues from residency. We would go through the released practice exams from the ABA and also from the practice sets in UBP. I wasn't necessarily satisfied with the amount of practice I was getting with colleagues and also I felt like I needed to hear how some of these questions are answered. So at that point I decided to shell out 5K and purchase Dr. Hos course because it included some content and also “mock” exams. My error here was thinking that the mock exams would be reliable, and realistic and provide me with feedback thats useful. Nope. This was the first and major mistake I made in this process.
Up until about eight weeks before my exam I had to use ultimate board prep primarily and in my first mock exam through Dr. Ho's course appeared as if I was already doing very well. However by this point I had barely used any of his materials and the majority of my preparation and approach for the test was from ultimate board prep. Needless to say I shifted to Dr. Ho materials. I also know several other people who were in fellowships last year who also took Dr. Hos course and who also failed the oral.
Dr. Ho is a manipulator, a liar and will purposefully and intentionally twist your words during mock exams. He loves to engage in fear mongering and this is the primary method by gets you to believe his course material is the best . I recorded my mocks particularly because I was troubled with how they were going. I listened to the recordings and discovered that Dr. Ho would say I said some thing which I completely did not. And he would perseverate on this matter over and over again. The real exam is nothing like this there is no wasting time on things. As soon as I discovered this happening not just once but several times on different occasions I sort of had an understanding that this was a somewhat of a scam and lost all credibility in his course.
Also, the majority of the mock sessions you have bear no realism or resemblance to the real exam. Some of the people giving you exams do not replicate how the real exam is at all. Also a lot of times when you schedule an exam the availability on the schedule of software is incorrect on multiple occasions people did not come online for their exams because they were actually not available and had to be rescheduled. Also Dr. Ho mock exam prompts are very short and nothing like the ABA. I will say that the exam prompts in his videos are more like the aba.
A lot of the tactics and test taking strategies that are employed through anesthesia consultants will cause you to fail the exam. I truly believe I failed the exam because of this and trying to use their tactics and methods specifically in regards to how to answer questions. I know others who also took his course and also failed. I will say that like UBP the content aspect of the course overall I thought was good.
For the OSCE, I focused more on the monitors and ultrasound stations and not so much on the other stations. Needless to say I was caught off guard a little bit with the exam and that did not go well either the first time. I use ultimate board prep for the OSCE and it was sufficient I felt overall but I think my reason for the poor performance the first time was not practicing the other components of the OSCE.
Other colleagues who also took Dr. Ho found out that they failed and Dr. Ho will not give you the SAME access to his materials even if you fail with his guaranteed course. He will give you access to cut down version that's more bare-bones until your retake it. Also the most appalling part of Dr. Ho and anesthesia consultants is the fact that he will then offer you another course for $10,000 in under the facade to help you pass. Multiple people have failed even after taking Dr. Ho's courses.
Dr. Ho comes off as a nice and sweet guy but it's a facade. He is out to scam you of your money. Even during the mock exams at some points he will try and upsell you on other courses and add-ons that are offered. Other people who give exams through his course also do this. It's a major turn off.
Needless to say I was shocked when I got my results, devastated, crushed, really lacking any confidence in myself or does process. I started asking other people that I had met if they had passed and needless to say they also had failed one or both components of the exam.
At that point in my life I had a dream job lined up and had to move and figure out the usual life type things. And in terms of rescheduling the only availability was almost another year away and my job also wanted for certification as soon as possible.
I did some reading of forums and found that there are people that have failed OSCE multiple times and also the orals multiple times. I began to wonder if this would be me…
I was not pleased with the ABA as well and their feedback in regards to the OSCE, a one-word description on your performance for each station is quite appalling and unacceptable. Given the amount of money we pay for the exam the travel and all the other expenses the ABA should do a little better in terms of its feedback for the OSCE.
As a prior post mentioned the ABA magically had more availability in earlier dates for me the more money I paid and after several rounds of emails and several rounds of $500 transactions over the course of several weeks I managed to get a day within the same year and become boarded. It was quite painful to do this to spend thousands of dollars alone on rescheduling fees but at the same time I did not want to wait approximately another year to have the opportunity to possibly become boarded. Further the costs of paying for the exam again, flights, hotel etc getting time off. It was a pain. I wanted this thing over me and to forget about it and move on
I began my new job doing both anesthesia and my subspecialty , being a little bummed out with this whole thing and also began to prep again to try and become boarded within the same year. I wasted zero time with Dr. Ho and did not give him a penny more. I banished from my mind his stupid tactics. For the second time I practiced with a former examiner, And this is probably the best way to prepare because I was not being misled or being told to say stupid things or have stupid strategies to answer questions.I did read some up-to-date articles and also I read very selective chapters in Barash. I practiced with nobody else at all. I did practice with my self reviewing the retired ABA stems and brushing up on those topics with the sources I mentioned. I would also skim the Gupta book and also review some material via UBP. For the OSCE, I followed the outline more closely for the other sections which I did not focus on prior. As a matter of fact i did LESS mocks than the first time, but had much better results. The ultimate board prep OSCE covers a great majority of what you need to know but also note that it is missing some elements and you may get stations with these elements so be sure to read up on them in case they show up. On my retake the material that was not covered did show up on my exam. just really know the content outline well for the OSCE. At work I would scan patients for TTE practice in the PACU and also just practice getting views for blocks.
TLDR
- Say No to the HO
- Use UBP
- Follow the aba outline for osce + UBP OSCE
- Practice the osci stations with people
You will pass, you will get over this. It will be a distant memory.
More power to you for spending all that time to write your experience up. 
