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Post by Betsy on Sept 19, 2005 20:00:10 GMT -5
Feel free to elaborate below regarding your preparation for the Surgery shelf. Here is a thread on this topic from another forum. SDN Surgery Shelf Thread
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Post by hnaggarmd on Dec 17, 2005 12:49:51 GMT -5
I used PreTest, Step II for 1st Aid, Surgical Recall (especially the 'Most Commons' chapter) and Lawrence's "Essentials of General Surgery." PreTest was definitely more difficult than the shelf exam. Dr. Nesbit recommends Current Surgical Diagnosis and Treatment. Again, great reference but way too long and detailed to read (over 1300 pages) while on a surgery rotation. Essentials of Gen'l Surg is much more doable.
I felt the test was mostly GI, then trauma/shock. Know how to diagnose/manage thoracic injuries - hemothorax, cardiac tamponade, pneumothorax and tension pneumothorax. Know how to diagnose/treat colon,breast, thryoid, and parathryoid cancers. Know how to treat/diagnose intussusception/volvulus. There were a few micro questions relating to what bug is the cause and what Abx should be used. Know fluid/electrolytes and what to give to patients with low Na/K/Cl. Know causes of hypoNa, hypoK and hypoMag.
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Post by giannucci on Apr 30, 2006 12:20:27 GMT -5
I used Appleton & Lange, surgicall recall and High Yield for surgery. The high yield book is incomplete and only covers general surgery (ie no dermatology stuff), the book is not bad but I wouldn't recommend it as your sole resource. The Appleton & Lange book has more errors than any other book that I've come across, not just grammatical and spelling mistakes, but it appears as though they changed some of the questions without altering the corresponding answer. In any case I would look at PreTest and see if it is better. I thought that this test had a very significant amount of stuff that presented to the ER (there seemed to be a lot more acute care type of things than managing the gallbladder...which is mostly what I saw). Otherwise I'd aggree with what Hany had to say.
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Post by Betsy on Jun 23, 2006 14:48:24 GMT -5
I felt like the surgery shelf was more manageable than some of the other shelfs. The vignettes were much shorter than, say, medicine or neurology. They were much more to the point with not alot of extraneous info. I would have to say that the most high yield things are trauma (tension PTX, abdominal trauma, etc) and what presents to the ER (acute abdomen). Also, post-surgical problems such as PE, DVT, post-op fever, etc. Alot of questions related to renal disease, biliary disease, GI cancer, etc. Not many pictures other than a few head CTs and xrays of fractures. High yield subspecialties (like 5 questions each) include neurosurg, ortho, and optho (optho surprised me, I didnt know alot of these questions). I didnt see more than a couple questions on peds surg, urology, ENT.
I think you would be well prepared with a general surgery prep book such as First Aid for Surgery or something like that. If you have not had medicine prior to surgery, you may need to do a little more studying, because alot of understanding surgical problems has to do with understanding medicine. As for what materials I used, I probably would not be a good person to ask. I did not do alot of preparing for this exam for 2 reasons, not enough time given the rotations I was on, as well as it was the last rotation. I did alot of sampling, reading tidbits here and there from many sources. I tried Appleton and Lange, as well as pre-test. I wasnt happy with either (but I am not a big question/answer learner). I did like Surgical Recall, and thought it was an excellent resource esp when it comes to preparing for pimp questions prior to surgeries. I also read some of the step 2 Kaplan notes (which were all vignette based) and were pretty good. However, the book I would recommend out of everything I tried was NMS surgery. This is an excellent and thorough resource. Its 600 pages, but I can almost guarantee that everything that was on my exam I could look the answer up in that book. If you start early, you could totally do this book.
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Post by wowposter on Nov 5, 2008 21:20:59 GMT -5
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