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How to Recognize “Zebras” on the American Board of Family Medicine Exam

Prepping for your Family Medicine Board Exam? Get a comprehensive Family Medicine Board Review Course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. The Family Medicine boards present multiple-choice questions that are fair and clinically relevant with pride. Simply meaning, they are not trying to trick you. Most of the case vignettes present a patient with a common form of the condition or disease, as these common forms are the ones assessed and treated by most physicians.… Click to Read More

Dark Alley’s and the Internet When Studying for Your Boards

June 26, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam, board exam prep, board exam prep tips, board exam study prep, board exam study tips, board exam studying, bob sheeler, dr robert sheeler, how to study better, the pass machine

No, I’m not talking about the “dark web” or anything controversial. I’m talking about something that is much more subtle and potentially devastating to your board review strategies – the allure of more interesting things you will encounter while looking up answers you need. I treat looking up a fact I need while studying for the boards like going into a dark alley. I increase my alertness, look around for what I came for, grab it, and get out quick.… Click to Read More

Treatment Interventions In Gastroenterology Board Exams

June 13, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD 1 Comment Categories: All Posts, Gastroenterology Tags: beat the gastroenterology boards, gastroenterology board exam, gastroenterology exam prep, gastroenterology treatment interventions, the pass machine, treatment interventions

Board exams assess your knowledge regarding the details of myriads of treatment interventions that are used to treat diverse medical conditions. You are expected to have a knowledge of the details of each of these specific treatment interventions, in addition to knowing the situations in which to give preference to one particular intervention over another. Therefore, it is important to know how much knowledge of the details regarding a particular treatment intervention you should have. There are certain treatment interventions… Click to Read More

How Stress Can Ruin Your Board Scores

June 7, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam prep, board exam prep tips, board exam test preparation, bob sheeler, exam stress, how to, how to reduce stress for exam, robert sheeler, stress and boards, stress relieving tips, the pass machine

Stress can you ruin your board scores. It sounds like a cliché, but actually, it is true! Stress leads to fight, flight, or freeze scenarios. When our autonomic nervous systems are out of balance, we can go into overdrive or we can freeze up completely depending upon whether the adrenergic nervous system or the parasympathetic nervous system is over-activated. Neither one of these is helpful for a good outcome in your test scores. Acute stress and chronic stress can both… Click to Read More

Treatment Algorithms on Oncology Board Exams

May 30, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD 3 Comments Categories: All Posts, Oncology Tags: oncology, treatment algorithms, treatment algorithms oncology

Prepping for the Medical Oncology Board Exam? Get a comprehensive Medical Oncology Board Review Course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. When preparing for medical oncology board exams, it is important to remember that they are primarily testing your clinical knowledge. Therefore, expect to find many questions that will assess your knowledge about treatment modalities and which interventions are the most appropriate for each case. You can be tested on the details regarding a specific… Click to Read More

Finding the Sweet Spot on What to Study

May 24, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam study material, board exam study prep, bob sheeler, dr robert sheeler, how to study for the boards, the pass machine, what to study for boards

It turns out, there are several different types of “sweet spots” you should know about when you are picking what to study for your board exams. Some of them have to do with the types of material that the board focuses on, and some that the board avoids. Others have to do with the timeliness of the material, both in terms out how recent it is and how relevant it is to current practice. Brand new material tends to be… Click to Read More

Family Medicine Board Review Questions: Identifying Treatments in Specific Populations

May 17, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Family Medicine Tags: family medicine, family medicine board prep, preparing for the family medicine boards, the pass machine, treatments in specific populations

Prepping for your Family Medicine Board Exam? Get a comprehensive Family Medicine Board Review Course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. A large percentage of questions on the Family Medicine Board Exam are based on treatment interventions, as an appropriate treatment is what a patient seeks from a physician. Three major facets of treatment are tested on the Family Medicine certification exam: Treatment algorithms Treatments for specific variants of disease and patients belonging to specific… Click to Read More

Sleep and Memory Incorporation for Board Exams

May 9, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam prep tips, board exam test prep, does sleep affect memory, dr robert sheeler, enough sleep to pass exam, how much sleep should i get for my board exam, memory and sleep, proper sleeping habits, sleep and board exm, sleep and memory, sleep before an exam, the pass machine

Sleep is important for a lot of reasons. One critical function of sleep is memory incorporation. This is when memories go from short-term storage into long-term incorporation. Obviously, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to study all day and then lose everything that you put in your brain because your sleep is inefficient or disrupted. Here are some things that can help your sleep to be more complete, deeper, and more effective. Number 1: Know your sleep number –… Click to Read More

Recognizing Zebras In Gastroenterology Clinical Vignettes

May 2, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Gastroenterology Tags: clinical vignettes, gastroenterology board exam course, gastroenterology board exams, gastroenterology board prep, gastroenterology clinical vignettes, gastroenterology exam prep, the pass machine

The board exams pride themselves on not presenting questions that may trick you. In other words, the questions are fair and clinically relevant. This means that the majority of the questions will be related to a common form of a medical disorder. After all, these are the conditions that most of the physicians spend their days assessing and treating. However, it is also important for the clinician to identify the rare disorder. Hence, the question is, how to differentiate whether… Click to Read More

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Assessed My Knowledge for the Boards

April 24, 2019 by Krishnan Narasimhan, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Board Exam Tags: board exam study prep, board exam study tips, board exam studying, how to prepare for the boards, krishnan narasimhan, studying for board exam, studying for the boards, studying tips

Studying for a board exam can seem like a daunting task; the amount of knowledge for the boards can be overwhelming. Finding time to fit studying into our busy lives is a struggle. Our natural inclination may be to just power through all of the topics as best as we can. How do you start the process, and where do you focus? Taking the time to assess our knowledge gaps and approach to questions is a critical first step. It… Click to Read More

Pump Iron for Your Board Exam

April 17, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: blood flow to the brain when working out, board exam prep, board exam study prep, board exam study tips, board exam studying, bob sheeler, boosting brain cells by working out, does working out improve studying, HIIT for studying, robert sheeler, study tips, working out helps you study, working out improves studying

I think you should pump iron for your board exam – both literally and figuratively. A board exam is unlike almost anything else we encounter in our busy daily work as physicians. It requires several hours of extended, high performance to interface with the material presented, interpret it, and come up with the answers they are looking for. To succeed in an environment like this, I suggest it is highly relevant to practice up to this level of intensity of… Click to Read More

VIDEO: What to Do if You Fail Your Board Exam

April 11, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD 5 Comments Categories: All Posts, Board Exam Tags: board exam failure, Coping Strategies for Failing a Board Exam, coping with failing my boards, coping with failure, dr jack krasuski, how to cope with failing a board exam, i failed my board exam, jack krasuski, the pass machine, what to do when i fail

What Do You Do If You Fail Your Medical Board Exam? Well, the first thing you should do if you fail your board exam is to take some time to come to terms with what has happened. When you first open up that envelope and you see that you failed the exam, it will hit you like a ton of bricks. You don’t need to do anything. You do not need to start studying. Just take it easy, sleep… Click to Read More

5 Hacks to Get Your Board Exam Studying on Track

April 4, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Board Exam Tags: board exam study prep, board exam study tips, how to focus while studying, how to study better, robert sheeler, studying, studying focus tips, studying for board exam, the pass machine

It’s easy to get derailed and have your board exam study session go into a tailspin. When you are not having fun, every diversion can turn into a time trap. One thing you can do is invest your passion into learning new material or being totally up to date on your areas of interest. Here are five more hacks you can use to keep your board exam studying in the “power zone.” Paradoxically, the best study plans involve time away… Click to Read More

Levels of Board Exam Questions

March 28, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam, board exam prep, board exam questions, board exam study tips, how to study for my boards, sample board exam questions

One way I’ve found categorizing board exam questions helpful is to view them in a hierarchy of three levels, each one building on the previous one and requiring a more use of one’s clinical judgment. My three levels are: Know It → Recognize It → Decide It Now let me explain, and I promise this will be practically helpful and, I believe, comforting even in preparing for your board exams. KNOW IT This lowest level of question relies almost exclusively… Click to Read More

Oncology Treatments in Specific Patient Populations

March 20, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Oncology Tags: how to prepare for my oncology board exam, oncology, oncology board exam test prep, oncology board prep, oncology cme, oncology practice questions, patient populations oncology, the pass machine, tips for oncology board exam

Prepping for the Medical Oncology Board Exam? Get a comprehensive Medical Oncology Board Review Course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. There is a high percentage of questions based on treatment in medical board exams because the reason patients see physicians is to seek appropriate treatment. Three aspects of treatment are tested by specialty board exams: Details of specific treatment modalities Treatments by disease variant and in particular patient population Treatment algorithms The focus of… Click to Read More

4 Things You Can Do Right Now to Avoid Procrastination

March 14, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: how to not procrastinate, how to stop procrastinating, procrastination, procrastination tips

It’s hard to dive into things that are big, amorphous, and not necessarily fun. Studying for a board exam can fit all of these criteria and be something that is easy to put off again and again. When I took my NBME part one exam, I hated Anatomy. I spent most of the year studying Pharmacology and Physiology because I love them. Studying Pharmacology and Physiology for me is like eating chocolate; great. But studying anatomy just wasn’t doing it… Click to Read More

The Best Way to Lock in What You Study for the Board Exams

March 8, 2019 by Robert Sheeler, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam prep, board exam study tips, bob sheeler, dr sheeler, how to prepare for a test, how to study for the boards, how to study for your boards, robert sheeler, study tips, study tips board exam

There are countless ways to study for the board exams, and you may already know what works best for you. But if you find that you study materials and then do not really remember them when you need them, you might want to try this program. The first priority when you study for the board exams is to have accurate targeting of the material you want to learn. When I work with individuals, I look at their board scores and… Click to Read More

Recognizing Zebras in Cardiology Board Exam Clinical Vignettes

February 26, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD 1 Comment Categories: All Posts, Cardiology Tags: board exam prep for cardiologists, cardiology board test prep, cardiology boards, cardiology clinical vignettes, cardiovascular board exams, cardiovascular board test prep, clinical vignette cardiology, practice cardiology clinical vignettes, the pass machine

Every multiple-choice exam question is presented to you on the cardiology board exam only after being vetted to be clinically relevant and fair. (Note that there are a certain percentage – maybe 10-15% – of MCQs included in exams that are under assessment and not counted in results until they pass muster. This does lead exam candidates to sometimes scratch their heads when reading poorly written questions. These questions will likely be revised or retired.) Simply put, the boards are… Click to Read More

Treatment Interventions In General Surgery Board Exams

February 22, 2019 by Jack Krasuski, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, General Surgery Tags: board exams, general surgery, general surgery board exams, general surgery board prep, how to prepare for the general surgery board exams, surgery exam prep, surgical treatment board exams, the pass machine, treatment interventions

Prepping for a General Surgery Board Exam? Get a comprehensive General Surgery Qualifying or General Surgery Certifying review course from The Pass Machine to get your board prep on track. The knowledge of the test-taker regarding the details of numerous treatment interventions gets tested on the board exams. It is important to know the situations in which to select a specific treatment intervention. In addition to this, you should also have knowledge of the details of particular treatment interventions. Therefore,… Click to Read More

Decrease Study Time…Increase Impact

February 13, 2019 by Joshua Lumbley, MD Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: board exam prep, board exam study tips, board exam studying, how to prepare for a test, how to study better, how to study for my boards, josh lumbley, study methods, study tips, the pass machine

Whether preparing for an exam related to maintenance of certification, a primary exam of certification, or some other type of important exam, you undoubtedly have many reading materials at your disposal. In these scenarios, our effort is likely devoted to reading and re-reading material again and again. Unfortunately, though, scientific literature actually indicates that this sort of process of learning is not optimal, and may actually take a fair bit more time than a much simpler process—trying to recall the… Click to Read More