Orals 2011

[vanelo]

Hey!

Any feedback on the review CD's? Are they worth the money?

Anyway, if someone is selling them let me know

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[theretinageek]

You're better off just ripping through the Wills Eye Manual a few times. I can't help but feel that the oral review courses are a huge rip-off. They're incredibly expensive and you can find sound advice on how to approach the orals from this forum. That should be all you need.

 

[ophtho wannabe]

I agree with theretinageek. I just took the boards in November and opted not to take the Osler course or buy CDs. Fortunately I passed, but I did study hard though. I looked at texts I already had (Wills, Optho Review Manual, Clinical Retina, etc.) Ultimately, I think the best advice I received was to make your own notes on areas you know they're going to cover and have those down cold. Also, having a basic formula to follow for each question is very helpful. Look through earlier posts on this forum. Some of those were really helpful.

 

[odieoh]

You're better off just ripping through the Wills Eye Manual a few times. I can't help but feel that the oral review courses are a huge rip-off. They're incredibly expensive and you can find sound advice on how to approach the orals from this forum. That should be all you need.

I have to disagree, I found the Osler course to be extremely helpful. Partially just from general content review, but even more so just to get comfortable with the format and get you comfortable preparing a little speech for each diagnosis. Doing the mock orals and seeing others do mock orals really helps you see what is and isn't good form.

The course is indeed expensive but it was worth it to me. As mentioned there are plenty of posts about it on this forum as well as the residents forum.

Specifically regarding the review cd's I didn't use them so I don't know. I am assuming they are subject area reviews more so than oral board stuff and if so I would agree that reviewing will's manual would be more useful. Also, if you are not going to take the course I would at least recommend the little review manual from the osler course that gives 10 example topics for each of the 6 main test sections, and a good oral presentation for each of those topics. It costs like 80 bucks which is kind of steep considering its only about 50 pages, but very useful to see how to summarize info the way they are looking for.

 

[JMK2005]

The format of the orals is so different any other test we've taken that I think mock orals would have been helpful. I thought it was a difficult test and certained I failed. I fortunately passed the orals without taking the Osler review course but in retrospect may have had a easier time with more practice.

This book was great resource.

 

[90 diopter]

If you're a decent test taker and don't get too nervous under pressure, just use the books you have. I read through Singh's Ophthalmology Review twice, memorized the first 2 chapters of Wills, and looked at tons of pictures in the Kanski textbook.

Don't give these scavengers any more of your hard earned money than you absolutely need to. There's a sample video on the ABO website that shows you how to answer the questions in the proper format.