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The final step and your podcasts are amazing! Only wish I would have discovered them sooner 🙁 Taking may test on December 9th. I do have a question for you. Being a surgical PA, did you take primary care or surgery focused exam for the PANRE? I work as a first assist, just like you, and registered for the surgery focused one but have been hearing from people that it seems to be harder 🙁
I think it might be too late to switch, but I could try.
Thanks again
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When I took my PANRE, I took the Surgical version.I thought, heck I know surgery.In fact, who knows surgery better than me?I do multispecialty.
All of Ortho, OB/gyn, Plastics, General, ENT, Bariatrics, urology, and whatever else I’m not thinking of.
I know about all of these specialties, so I should be able to rock this thing.
I happily signed up for the surgery exam.
When I got an x-ray of a staghorn kidney stone on my exam, I knew I was in trouble.I recognized it, but thought holy crap!How much other stuff wouldn’t I have recognized?I don’t REALLY know that much??!!!
And the panic set in.
Right then and there, I swore up and down that, when I failed the exam, I was signing up for the family practice test.You can’t study for the surgery exam, I told myself.You study for the Family practice one.Arrgggh what an idiot I was to sign up for this thing.
Then a week went by, and I got my scores.I passed with plenty of room to spare.
So I’m about to give you the exact answer you don’t want.
Who Knows???
Everyone thinks their exam is hard.No one walks out thinking, “Phew that was pretty easy.”
What will I do next time?Ugh.I don’t know.
I do know I’ll be dusting off my own copy of The Final Step when it’s time to recert.
Brian Wallace
