It’s time for the truth Boards of Internal Medicine of ABIMand “High performance” is key. You don’t want to waste time and you want to be as efficient as possible. Well, I recently gave a lecture titled, “Dr. Rezaie’s 5 Pearls for Turning the Tables.” This is a general post and can be used for any standardized test in your final weeks of preparation.
Pearl # 1: Always read the question first, check the answers, then go back and read the root of the question
- You waste your time reading the passage and looking at the labs first
- What do you focus on?
- How many times does he go back and forth between the passage and the answers?
- This process wastes precious time
- Instead, read the question and the answers first and then go back and read the passage.
- Some questions can even be answered without reading the passage.
Pearl # 2: Know the breakdown of the test
- Specifically for the ABIM board exam, “THE BIG 5” are:
- General internal medicine
- Cardiovascular disease
- Gastroenterology
- Infectious disease
- Lung disease and intensive care
- These 5 sections alone comprise approximately 50-60% of the exam.
- If time is short, focus on these five sections
- Ideally, enough time has been allowed to go through all the sections, but if time is short, reading things like dermatology will not do much for you.
Pearl No. # 3: meet the big 4 of medical decision making
- If you can answer 4 questions about each disease process, you will be ready for more than 80% of the questions on the exam:
- What is the BEST initial test?
- What is the MOST ACCURATE test?
- What is the BEST initial therapy / treatment?
- What is the NEXT BEST STEP in management?
- These four questions are known as “The Fischer Method.”
Pearl No. # 4: choose a single book and question bank and stick to it
- There are so many options and they are all good.
- Personally, I think Med Study is the easiest and highest performing followed by MKSAP.
- Ultimately, choose a resource and stick with it. Buying five different resources is not realistic to complete and you will not get all the information.
- Also choose a question bank and stick to it.
- Whether it’s Knowmedge, MKSAP, MedStudy, or Kaplan, you’ll be able to pass if you learn the material
- Personally, I have used the Knowmedge and MKSAP question banks and felt that both were very comparable to the ABIM Board exam.
Pearl No. # 5: focus on the most common
- I would know the 3 main conditions of each cold area.
- In other words, the 3 main causes of death from infectious diseases in the world are HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria
- that is, 3 of the top 5 causes of death in the world are cardiovascular disease, infectious disease and chronic lung disease (no wonder cardiovascular, lung / critical care and infectious diseases are 3 of “THE BIG 5” )
In addition to these 5 high-performing pearls, also consider another FREE resource like Twitter (My personal recommendations for daily board review questions and pearls include: @awesomereview, @IMmemorandum, @uthscsapearls and @srrezaie). Let me wish you all the best of luck in your studies, your ABIM Internal Medicine board exam, and your future endeavors.