lostintime Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 Are there actually written exams for clerkship? In the US, they're called "shelf exams" right? Do most schools have those? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 Clerkship evaluations usually include some combination of rotation evaluations filled out by your supervisors, written exams, and oral exams or OSCEs (along with any other assignments or presentations required). The written exam may be purchased from the NBME in the US (the standardized shelf exam), or the school may choose to create its own exam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted May 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 Clerkship evaluations usually include some combination of rotation evaluations filled out by your supervisors, written exams, and oral exams or OSCEs (along with any other assignments or presentations required). The written exam may be purchased from the NBME in the US (the standardized shelf exam), or the school may choose to create its own exam. That sounds like a lot... =( Do you have time to study for them? Does anyone know specifically for UWO? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 That sounds like a lot... =( Do you have time to study for them? Does anyone know specifically for UWO? UWO makes you write the NBME for Medicine and Surgery. I heard rumours that they might be introducing the NBME for other disciplines as well, but don't know that for a fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darla Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 UWO has been using the NMBE in Obstetrics as well this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 You do have protected time during your rotations to attend lectures.. you'll learn 'on the job' through seeing patients and receiving informal teaching from your supervisors.. and you won't be on call every weekend/holiday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted May 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 Thanks for the info guys! So what happens to the other blocks without these NBME shelf exams? Do you have to do OSCE's or other types of school-created exams? Ick, sounds pretty intense...Do you generally learn 'on the job' or a lot of extra studying/reading is necessary to pass these standardized exams? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 Thanks for the info guys! So what happens to the other blocks without these NBME shelf exams? Do you have to do OSCE's or other types of school-created exams? Ick, sounds pretty intense...Do you generally learn 'on the job' or a lot of extra studying/reading is necessary to pass these standardized exams? At UWO -- Paeds has an exam created by the department: several written questions and an oral case. Family medicine requires a project. Psyche has an exam which is almost impossible to fail. You learn by seeing patients and reading around them, you have lectures at weekly academic half-days, there are daily teaching rounds for the clerks and residents (on Medicine, at least) and lots of informal teaching from your senior residents and attendings. I quite like the "Case Files" series of books for pre-NBME review, but your mileage may vary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 MUN uses the NBME's (for med, psych, surg, obs and peds I think). There are also other exams in some rotations like OSCE's, observed patient interviews (psych) and Oral exams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flying kumquat Posted May 19, 2009 Report Share Posted May 19, 2009 At Queen's, we used the NBMEs for Surgery, Medicine, Psychiatry, and Peds. We also had an oral exam question for peds. Family medicine had an in-house MCQ exam and much-loved case log. Ob/Gyn had an oral exam of two scenarios. Our peri-op block (emerg and anesthesia) had an in-house exam for each specialty and a one-station technical skills OSCE. Although you definitely learn based on what you see on wards and in clinics, you're expected to be reading around material for the rotation generally. "I haven't seen that yet," isn't an excuse for knowing the basics of a common disease, at least in my experience. I liked the Case Files books, but found I could never get through the whole thing. I also used Pre-test for the NBMEs. Other than that, I used a smattering of Toronto Notes, Blueprints for OB/GYN, Step-Up Medicine for medicine, Surgical Recall and NMS Surgery, and First-Aid for Psych. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachy Posted May 20, 2009 Report Share Posted May 20, 2009 At U of T we don't use shelf exams, all exams are in-house, created by the department. They're pretty different for each rotation -- some are OSCEs, some are non-OSCE oral exams, some are short answer written exams, some are multiple choice exams, and some rotations have both a written and an oral exam. E.g. in third year: Peds -- short answer written exam Family -- OSCE with written post exam probes Psych -- OSCE with oral post exam probes, separate short answer written exam Medicine -- oral observed H&P exam, separate multiple choice written exam Surgery -- oral exam, non-OSCE but with a mix of question types, separate MCQ written exam Ophtho -- oral non-OSCE exam, separate short answer written exam ENT -- oral non-OSCE exam, separate short answer written exam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubcredfox Posted May 20, 2009 Report Share Posted May 20, 2009 At UBC we use NBME's for everything (medicine, surgery, psychiatry, pediatrics, obstetrics). If I were to do it all over again, I would specifically choose a school that used as little of the NBME's as possible. The NBME exams are designed to prep US med students for Step 2 CK, which, it strikes me, most have not heard of here in Canada. You'll find that they are riddled with questions highlighting minutiae and actually focus little on general, specialty specific, knowledge. The Medicine NBME, more so then the others, is a perfect example of this. Other follies abound; for instance, for the Psychiatry NBME I had to learn oodles of US specific legal material for when to admit/not admit, when consent is granted etc. that is completely and utterly useless from a Canadian standpoint. Furthermore, the NBME's themselves make your clerkship experience that much more onerous. I think I can count on one hand the number of NBME questions I've answered correctly thanks to "on the wards" clinical knowledge that I've learned and been able to apply. It's minimal at best and certainly not enough to prepare you for these exams. In the US people will speak otherwise, but you've got to remember that all of their resident teaching, academic half days, nay their entire curriculum, is designed to prepare students for success on these exams. Since U of T has no shelf exams, I'd strongly suggest going there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
007 Posted May 21, 2009 Report Share Posted May 21, 2009 At Dal, there are written exams and an OSCE for each rotation. The OSCE's only occur twice a year though and cover more than one rotation at a time. At the moment I think the NMBE exam is only used in surgery (and that was only implemented in the past year). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TidusAlexandros Posted May 24, 2009 Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 At U of T we don't use shelf exams, all exams are in-house, created by the department. I might have heard wrong, but during our clerkship information night, the surgery head mentioned something about writing the shelf exam in 4th year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ploughboy Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 You'll find that they are riddled with questions highlighting minutiae and actually focus little on general, specialty specific, knowledge. The Medicine NBME, more so then the others, is a perfect example of this. Agreed. I suspect that I will never treat an actual case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever during my career, but it seemed to be a really high-yield topic for the 3rd year Medicine NBME. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ollie Posted May 26, 2009 Report Share Posted May 26, 2009 I might have heard wrong, but during our clerkship information night, the surgery head mentioned something about writing the shelf exam in 4th year. Yes you do write the surgery NBME in 4th year (in addition to the regular exam and OSCE). Complete waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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