Hey ya’ll.
This will be a super short blog post but I’m currently studying for my surgery shelf and need a distraction. 🙂
Because surgery is a 2 rotation requirement (at least at my school) I didn’t need to study for a shelf when I did my general surgery rotation. However, since ENT was my second surgery rotation, I did need to study. I am incredibly thankful that I did have two weeks off to study, because ENT kicked my ass. See that post if you want to know what that was like!
The biggest topic that I thought I understood and clearly I didn’t were fluid questions. There are more on there than I thought there would be. So understanding fluids is a big topic. Otherwise, burns, trauma, and general surgery are what the remainder of the questions focused on. A lot of, what is the next step? How do you treat? What type of imaging is best? etc.
What I used:
So, I have required assignments in third year. It was my school’s attempt to equalize learning. On top of that as a 2+2 or hybrid student I have more assignments. The additional assignments really aren’t helpful. Sometimes the assigned topics are, but usually they aren’t.
Useful assigned content:
- Online med ed (OME)
- Case X (OME)
Initially I just did the assignments and hoped that it stuck. Some of it did, most of it didn’t. Additional resources I used:
- Truelearn questions (good place to start but not sure they are very similar to the shelf questions)- COMQUEST are better
- Dorian Deck from Anki
Not useful content:
- Assigned standardized patients (useful in 1st and 2nd year, not useful at all as a third year when you start regularly seeing patients)
- assigned powerpoints
- assigned case presentations
- aquifer cases – not much for the second surgery rotation, but wasn’t helpful from my first rotation in surgery
- Wise MD and Wise MD on-call: these are videos. Some of my assigned videos would have been SUPER HELPFUL if they were assigned for my first month of surgery. Like what are the instruments you are using in the OR and how to suture… The rest were supposed to be case-based assignments but I just personally didn’t jive with the way they were presented.
How I studied:
So the first two weeks I was in ENT, and didn’t get much studying for my shelf in. I was mostly trying to stay afloat in ENT. Which my “give a shit meter” would drop significantly after 1.5 weeks- not going to lie.
After that I worked on my assignments. This was a good base, but I really wasn’t retaining as much as I’d hoped.
About 1.5 weeks out was the following:
- 200-500 Anki reviews a day (brutal yes – probably should have spread that out more)
- About 10-25 Truelearn questions a day (there are only like 140 total. Most of my classmates bought COMQUEST which gives you a simulated shelf score)
Few days before:
- 2-3 days before I rewatched all the surgery videos and trauma videos on OME to refresh my memory (super helpful after doing so much Anki)
- Watched the Emma Holliday presentation for surgery on YouTube. Even just listening to them or attempting to answer the question myself before she stated the answer was helpful for me.
I was going to add in some Uworld questions but didn’t have the time or energy. The procrastination game is strong on my end. I’ve always been a last minute blitz studier. Wish I wasn’t as it is stressful, but it is what it is. I’m 30 and I doubt I will change that habit.
Hope this was helpful!
