I got a text yesterday from a good friend of mine who works in surgery:
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Sorry to bother you but want to know if you recommend the general PANRE or surgery-focused for me?
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All I can do here is tell you what I did, and what I was thinking before and after.
I work in multi-specialty surgery. I don’t do medicine at all in practice. I do surgery all day, every day. So I thought “I know, I’ll take the surgery exam.” I studied and studied and studied. I wrote The Final Step to help me prepare.
On the day of the exam, I was cruising along and started seeing surgical questions I didn’t know. I knew they were surgery related, but I didn’t know the answers. X-rays of kidneys??? Questions about bowel procedures?? (I don’t cover general surgery; they use residents)
I freaked out a little. At one point, I decided that when I failed, I was definitely going to be taking the general exam. The general exam makes so much sense. That’s the one you study for. How do you study for the surgery exam?
I was back and forth and back and forth thinking about what would make more sense.
When I walked out the door, I felt miserable. Sick to my stomach. No idea if I had done well or terrible.
8 days later, I checked my email and there were my scores.
Kabam! I scored higher than I ever had before. Of course, I was a genius for taking the surgery exam. What a smart move. That made all the difference. Or maybe no difference at all. Who knows? There are a bunch I got right that I’m sure were intuitive answers based off of my experience, but I also know that the surgery questions covered ALL of surgery which leaves a lot of gaps in my knowledge.
The question really becomes: “Brian, next time you take it, what exam are you going to sign up for?”
The answer for me right now is …. the general exam.
There are no resources for the surgery exam. You have to rely on your experience in your one specialty (in most cases) to get you through. It was kind of 50/50 worth it for me and I work in gyn, plastics, ENT, ortho and a little general. If I only did one specialty, no way. I would definitely do the general exam.
Either way, I’d get a copy of The Final Step.
Brian