Pediatric Boards Prep

[pritz786]

Any guidance on board prep would be appreciated?

Thanks

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[SurfingDoctor]

I used several years of PREP and I think some review book. I'm not really sure one book is better than another, just a matter of personal preference. I'm a big fan of questions, but that is likely personal preference too. Just realize that the questions for PREP are longer and give more information that the actual board test.

 

[Linus van Pelt]

Start studying now, get at least one good board-focused textbook (I would recommend MedStudy), work through five year of PREP questions, twice if you can, reading the discussions carefully. Attend a board review course. Flip through the pictures of Zitelli's atlas. Medstudy flashcards are a good study tool. I've been studying by other methods as well but these are the major ones.

 

[mvenus929]

I would venture to say not everyone needs to do everything that Linus recommended. If your In Service scores were low, certainly doing all that can help prepare you more. Not everyone needs a live Board Course. If your scores were within the passing range multiple years in a row, then I imagine lots of questions, a board-focused textbook, and Zitelli's will be more than enough.

Disclaimer: I am currently studying, so haven't actually passed yet.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

As a caveat, I would say in service scores in general are hard to translate into board pass rate for a number of reasons.

 

[FlowLimited]

As mentioned above, everyone's prep schedule and materials are going to differ based on learning style, baseline knowledge, etc. Most would agree that practice questions are the key to being successful plus some sort of study guide or board-prep text as a supplemental resource. Unfortunately, not all questions are created equal and none are exactly like real boards questions. PREP is probably the closest and that is what I recommend. I did five years of PREP. I personally did not like Med Study questions and felt that they were overly complex. Others may disagree.

There are two types of board prep texts. Books like Med Study are very dense but have a lot of useful content to learn about the diseases, etc. tested on the exam. Review books like Laughing Your Way won't effectively teach you the material but will help you learn techniques for memorization, associations, and test taking strategies. I think that both types of book have their purpose and I used both (Med Study and Laughing Your Way).

I didn't use Zitelli, but many people find it useful to review images that might appear on the exam. I didn't actually have many images on my test.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Mostly Laughing Your Way... and 4 years worth of PREP questions. I had the full Med Study volumes but found it way, way, way too detailed. The MedStudy questions were great when I wanted something other than being a first year PICU fellow to make me cry. Seriously, never seen 7th order questions until I cracked open those bad boys.

I truly hate the advice "flip through Zitelli". Yeah the pictures they use on the exam are allegedly in there, but I don't know how you retain them without actually putting effort into it.

Lastly, you'll be a lot happier with your progress if you avoid the trap of thinking that this is the time to make up for all the things you didn't see in residency or just glossed over. Studying to pass the boards and studying to have a good fund of knowledge as a pediatrician are two VERY different things. You can waste a lot of time memorizing tiny details in Med Study that are worthless for passing boards. Do not confuse the two goals.

 

[Linus van Pelt]

"Flip through" is maybe a little flippant. The point is to focus on the pictures in Zitelli's and not the text.

 

[captianplanet]

Don't know if this is very useful for you, as it is kinda redundant with what others are saying.

-Medstudy books way to dense for my liking.
-Our program had purchased Medstudy videos and I essentially watched those and did PREP questions for last 3 years
-The library had Cleveland Clinic videos, they were nice, but also very detailed. Great for being a good pediatrician, but not so much for just boards....

Took it last year and passed, based upon SD I was ~80 percentile. So something must of worked
-The test had a lot more gimmie questions than I expected, its not all PREP questions in regards to difficulty level.

Again everyone's different. I did Kaplan vids and qbank questions for USLME, so this style worked well for me.

 

[thetubes]

Don't know if this is very useful for you, as it is kinda redundant with what others are saying.

-Medstudy books way to dense for my liking.

While I think that thoroughly reading all the Medstudy books is not feasible and not a good use of one's time (unless you have nothing else to do from now until the exam), perusing through the highlighted parts might be a reasonable strategy. One can still get a decent review from reading just the highlighted parts and it takes significantly less time. I think what people tend to forget is that the goal is not to study the material to be able to speak eloquently on it but to know the material enough to be able to answer a question on it correctly...when given multiple choices to choose from.

 

[Linus van Pelt]

I've found Laughing Your Way vastly overrated. I'm comparing the information in it with PREP questions, and I don't think the content is detailed enough to answer any but the most basic questions. I thought some of its approach to immunizations, IOMs and a few other concepts were alright, but it's way too jokey. Like, entire paragraphs that are worthless for study. I've taken a heavy marker and just started crossing out the jokey sections.

 

[FlowLimited]

I've found Laughing Your Way vastly overrated. I'm comparing the information in it with PREP questions, and I don't think the content is detailed enough to answer any but the most basic questions. I thought some of its approach to immunizations, IOMs and a few other concepts were alright, but it's way too jokey. Like, entire paragraphs that are worthless for study. I've taken a heavy marker and just started crossing out the jokey sections.

Laughing Your Way is not meant to be a source for detailed content. The strength of LYW lies in the humorous mnemonics that can make key concepts easier to recall or obscure syndromes easier to differentiate (Apert syndrome vs. Alport syndrome, etc.). You need something like Med Study or a traditional textbook in order to review content in detail or learn about something that's completely unfamiliar.

That said, remember that PREP questions are not identical to board questions. Most people consider them to be the most representative, but they are written by different folks (AAP and ABP, respectively). Not every question on the board exam will be a second or third order question. You will encounter quite a few that are relatively straightforward.

 

[Hemichordate]

Is there any way to get the previous year's PREP questions (i.e. 2014 PREP) back? I did it last year but it's gone now.

 

[FlowLimited]

Is there any way to get the previous year's PREP questions (i.e. 2014 PREP) back? I did it last year but it's gone now.

When I was a resident we received a physical copy of the PREP question each year in addition to online access. Check to see if your program keeps old copies or if there are graduated residents with copies you can borrow. I know for a fact that you can find PDFs of PREP question on the internet, although the ethics of this is questionable.

 

[crazynative]

Studying for it now. Didn't pass any of the ITEs because I didn't read at all. Getting scared because Im starting PREP questions and getting so far a little over 50% on them. Anyone else do the ABP self assessment 200 questions? And if so how similar were they to your Board questions? I got 60% on those

 

[Linus van Pelt]

I would target 70% on your first go-through of the PREP questions, and at least 80-85% as you re-cycle through them. Based on my discussions with and observations of other grads, you still have a good chance of passing with lower scores than this, however it should be a wake-up call for improvement. Scoring in the 50% range is worrisome.

Unfortunately there's no way to recover older (2014 and before) years of PREP online if you didn't copy them over before they were removed on the website. You can buy older print copies however, and you can find older print copies online at other shops, such as ebay and amazon.

I haven't taken the ABP self-assessment yet but my understanding is that you should be scoring at least in the 70%'s.

 

[StarboardMD]

Anyone have experience with the NEJM Knowledge+ Peds Boards questions? Our program just bought them for us. The higher-ups make them sound amazing. I'm going to focus on PREP, since they're tried and true...

 

[i<3dbpeds]

I bought nejmknoweldge plus for myself. I haven't taken boards yet though, but I like it because it really hammers a good percentage of the possible gimme questions. There are a couple of mistakes but they are pretty fast on correcting it if you flag them like i did. I feel its a decent, not so mentally intensive prep that you can do on downttime without feeling like killing yourself.

 

[mvenus929]

Anyone have experience with the NEJM Knowledge+ Peds Boards questions? Our program just bought them for us. The higher-ups make them sound amazing. I'm going to focus on PREP, since they're tried and true...

My very brief demo of it seemed useful, so we got it for our residents. Unfortunately, they did not give us, the ones actually taking boards this year, access to it, so that brief glimpse is all I have...

 

[settingqt31]

Any thoughts on what percentage on MedStudy Qbank is "passing"?

 

[thetubes]

To be honest, I would shoot for 80% correct

Any thoughts on what percentage on MedStudy Qbank is "passing"?

 

[ChipperChop]

-deleted-

 

[Step Up]

I bought nejmknoweldge plus for myself. I haven't taken boards yet though, but I like it because it really hammers a good percentage of the possible gimme questions. There are a couple of mistakes but they are pretty fast on correcting it if you flag them like i did. I feel its a decent, not so mentally intensive prep that you can do on downttime without feeling like killing yourself.

Can anyone else comment on/review the NEJM knowledge question bank? Trying to decided whether to buy it... Not cheap. Thanks!

 

[Step Up]

Do you think an 80% on the ABP self-assessment is really needed to pass the real boards??

 

[bonesandbooboos]

Can anyone explain the difference between the books PREP - the Curriculum, PREP - The Self-Assessment, and then the 12 other individual PREP books for each specialty? Which one(s) does everyone use, and when?

 

[FlowLimited]

Can anyone explain the difference between the books PREP - the Curriculum, PREP - The Self-Assessment, and then the 12 other individual PREP books for each specialty? Which one(s) does everyone use, and when?

1. PREP The Curriculum includes that year's self-assessment plus a subscription to Pediatrics in Review.

2. PREP Self-Assessment is just that year's self-assessment.

3. Specialty PREP books are for subspecialty boards and/or staying up to date with your subspecialty.

Many residents receive a subscription to Peds in Review and PREP self-assessments through their residency. When people say they are "going through PREP" they likely mean that they are doing the self-assessment questions.

 

[bonesandbooboos]

1. PREP The Curriculum includes that year's self-assessment plus a subscription to Pediatrics in Review.

2. PREP Self-Assessment is just that year's self-assessment.

3. Specialty PREP books are for subspecialty boards and/or staying up to date with your subspecialty.

Many residents receive a subscription to Peds in Review and PREP self-assessments through their residency. When people say they are "going through PREP" they likely mean that they are doing the self-assessment questions.

Thank you! I was staring at all of the materials, Wondering how a resident would have time to get through all of those books and still take care of patients.

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